Grit can be Histrionic

The Alliance of Women Film Journalists has released the nominees for the 2012 AWFJ EDA Awards. The winners will be announced on January 7, 2013:

EDA Female Focus Awards
These awards honor women only.

Best Woman Director

Andrea Arnold - Wuthering HeightsKathryn Bigelow - Zero Dark ThirtySarah Polley - Take This Waltz

The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette reviews Shakespeare’s Tremor and Orwell’s Cough: The Medical Lives of Great Famous Writers by John J. Ross:

Some of Ross’ other subjects are as remarkable for their mental peculiarities as for their physical ills. Tuberculosis stalked the famous Brontë siblings, killing the writers Charlotte, Anne and Emily, as well as their dissolute brother, Branwell, and two older sisters.
Emily’s personality may have contributed to her stoic response to her illness: She was a homebody, tongue-tied with strangers, fonder of animals than people, preoccupied with her fantasies, and rigidly attached to her routines of cooking, cleaning, writing and walking on the moors.
To Ross, these well-documented traits suggest that Emily may have had Asperger’s syndrome, a high-functioning form of autism. Asperger’s syndrome, he believes, could help explain elements of her writing style in “Wuthering Heights” – for example, her portrayal of the lovers’ passion as irrational and destructive – as well as her stubborn focus on her work and her refusal to consult a doctor for her TB. (Susan Okie)

The Sunday Times interviews the artist Patrick Hughes:

It's fair to say that I became an artist by accident. My intention had been an English teacher. But they didn't want me when they realised I was more interested in Kafka than the Brontës. They told me to go off and study art, so I did. I never dreamt I'd be so successful. (Sophie Haycock)

Just Press Play reviews the film Barbara by Christian Petzler:

It is understated, the filming is detached, it's gritty, the soundtrack is sparse, it prefers showing to telling (doubly gratifying here), and is, despite what I said before, superbly acted. These elements do not guarantee excellence (Wuthering Heights (2012) is a prime example that grit can be histrionic), but they are the hallmark of excellence today. (Jason Ratigan)

Diário de Cuiabá (Brazil) celebrates a few days later the anniversary of Emily Brontë's death with an article devoted to her and Wuthering Heights:

Nos 164 anos após sua morte, seu livro atingiu o status de grandioso clássico da literatura mundial. Sua influência nas artes é inquestionável
A Literatura Mundial lembrou os 164 anos de falecimento da escritora inglesa Emily Brontë, autora de uma única obra, “O Morro dos Ventos Uivantes”, falecida em 19 de Dezembro de 1848.
Nestes 164 anos que se passaram seu livro atingiu o status de um dos maiores clássicos da literatura mundial. Apesar de não ter escrito outros livros, sua influência no mundo literário e nas artes, junto com suas outras duas irmãs, Anna e Charlotte, foi grandiosa.  (Read more) (Translation)

Norrköpings Tidningar (Sweden) reviews Wuthering Heights, in a new Swedish edition:

I Svindlande höjder får vi träffa Mr. Lockwood som hyr ett hus av Heathcliff. Efter att ha varit på besök hos Heathcliff blir han nyfiken på dennes historia och ber sin hushållerska att berätta. Även om det från början är Heathcliff Lockwood är intresserad av är det Catherine berättelsen kretsar kring. Hon är den viktiga i historien.
Boken handlar till stor del om skillnader mellan kvinnan och mannen. Hur de två är i stort sett jämlikar som barn och innan giftermål. Men så fort de har gift sig är det genast mannen som har makten och är den som bestämmer. Kvinnan har ingenting att säga till om. (Yrsas Boklogg) (Translation)

Der Tagesspiegel (Germany) talks about the German broadcast of the first season of Downton Abbey:

Das waren Zeiten: „Wiedersehen in Brideshead“ (1981), „Das Haus am Eaton Place“ (1971) sowie zahlreiche Jane-Austen- und Geschwister-Brontë-Adaptionen. (Thilo Wydra) (Translation)

Letralia (Venezuela) traces a profile of the Cuban writer Dulce María Loynaz:

En ese clima envolvente y hermético, con resonancias de Proust o Lampedusa, no hay temor de que se rompa el claroscuro que evocan los espejos encantados, ni el lirismo que pugna por hallar brechas de huida, que se nutre de anhelos y de desesperanzas y que a veces nos remite, a través del ceremonial intenso y descriptivo de sus páginas, al onírico y lacerado mundo de las hermanas Brontë. (Efi Cubero) (Translation)

The History Blog posts about the Charlotte Brontë  letters recently acquired by the Brontë Parsonage Museum letters; Red Dream Relax reviews Jane Eyre; Neo-Neocon posts about dogs and Emilys (Brontë and Dickinson); They Write, I Read - Literary Reviews posts about Wuthering Heights; Franz Patrick's Film Archive reviews Jane Eyre 2011; pisaninka posts in Polish about The Professor; David Rothwell publishes some Brontë-inspired pictures on Flickr; BillT has visited Moor Close Farm (where Andrea Arnold shot her Wuthering Heights adaptation) and posts pictures about it.