Several sources report the death of
David Watkin, 82, cinematographer of Jane Eyre 1996:
David Watkin, an innovative British cinematographer who won an Academy Award for "Out of Africa" and whose many films included "Chariots of Fire," has died. He was 82.
Watkin died Tuesday of cancer at his home in Brighton, England, his friend Chris Mullen announced on Watkin's website. (Valerie J. Nelson in Los Angeles Times)
The
San Franscico Chronicle reviews
A Father's Law by Richard Wright and begins the article with a cliché:
Conjuring an unforgettable character can be a curse. Brontë couldn't improve upon Jane Eyre, Fitzgerald couldn't surpass Gatsby. A wholly original character can stultify an author's writing as effectively as it makes his career. (David F. Smydra Jr)
Poor Lucy Snowe, Shirley Keeldar, Caroline Helstone...
More accurate, in a way, is this other reference in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune review of Laura M. Flynn's Swallow the Ocean. A Memoir:
As the girls wait, they pass the time like the Bronte sisters, taking refuge in imagined kingdoms. They invent an absorbing game with their dolls, "telling each other stories of loss, abandonment and escape over and over again.'' The underlying theme of their stories is rescue. (Catherine Watson)
The Telegraph & Argus talks about the Early Music Shop in Saltaire:
Bradford historic musical instrument supplier, Peter Booth, is hoping that his products meet royal approval. Mr Booth, who manages the Early Music Shop at Salts Mill, Saltaire, is eager to see the new film The Other Boleyn Girl, starring Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson. (...)
From a spinet appropriate for a drawing room scene in Jane Eyre to an entire army of marching drums with fifes, the Early Music Shop has supplied them all. (Chris Holland)
And the spinet can be seen on the image on the left (courtesy of
spikesbint)
Today's weird Brontë reference comes from Cinematical where discussing the changes in cast of the Wolverine project they say:
It is pretty hard to make an origin story more convoluted than the one Wolverine already boasts, but it really looks like the filmmakers are going to try. Should we just be glad that they're skipping Wolverine: Origin where he was re-imagined as a Bronte character? (Elisabeth Rappe)
How It Fits talks about Charlotte Brontë and Jane Eyre (although the comments about Charlotte's relationship with her sisters are quite unjust).
Sophie's Perspective comments the novel and its 1997 adaptation. Wuthering Heights 1939 is the subject of this post on
Reel Love.
Understanding Cinema reviews
Jean-Luc Godard's Weekend, that contains a bizarre Emily Brontë appearance.
Categories: Books, In the News, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, References, Wuthering Heights
The background to the "unjust.. comments" is the foreword to a recent edition of Agnes Grey, which cites letters between Charlotte and her publishers, between Charlotte and her sisters, as well as a letter from Emily regarding Charlotte.
ReplyDeleteI'll have to look up which one it was.
I'm not denying the letters exist but I personally don't agree with what you draw from them. Charlotte didn't "pretend" she was closest to Emily or that she was her favourite sister, she felt that way and it is some what painful to read them for Anne's sake. That Emily prefered Anne is nothing to it. Charlotte and Emily spent nearly a year together by themselves in Brussels, an experience which seems to have really brought them together. Charlotte subsequently spent another year or so there alone but after she returned to Haworth they mostly spent all their time together - except for Charlotte's visits from time to time - until Emily's death. I wouldn't say that's 'hardly living with her'.
ReplyDeleteI don't think Charlotte took credit for their sisters' success at all. And when she criticised Wuthering Heights and justified both her sisters' works by making them seem wild creatures of the moors she was doing exactly what Elizabeth Gaskell would do afterwards. The only explanation she could offer to Victorian society was the lack of a proper Christian education, even if it was not true.