The Brontës' club of geniuses

Motivated by the snub to women directors in this year's Oscars, The Hollywood Reporter looks into the matter by using a couple of films (Little Women and Portrait de la jeune fille en feu) by women directors who could have/should have been nominated.

This awards season brought reports of male Academy voters and audiences at large refusing to watch a supposedly girlie movie like Little Women — a common prejudice that may have contributed to Gerwig's absence from the director nominees. Unsurprisingly, it's such viewers who most need to hear the film's critiques of what kind of art gets to be made and championed — and what doesn't. "What women are allowed into the club of geniuses anyway?" protests Amy. "The Brontës," comes Laurie's dispiriting answer — dispiriting not because the Brontës weren't geniuses but because women's experiences shouldn't have to be grim, harrowing or even romantic to be worth telling. (Inkoo Kang)

Svenska Dagbladet (Sweden) also mentions the Brontës in an enthusiastic review of the film.

Att göra en nyinspelning av ”Unga kvinnor” är lite som att filmatisera en roman av Jane Austen, eller systrarna Brontë (som dyker upp i ett samtal i filmen). (Karoline Eriksson) (Translation)

In another review of the film on Página 12 (Argentina), Brontë biographer Laura Ramos seems to imply that Jane Eyre may have been originally intended for young readers.

Hasta su aparición en 1868, no existía el género de novela juvenil, aunque ya habían sido publicados en Inglaterra Jane Eyre (1848) y David Copperfield (1850). (Laura Ramos) (Translation)

The Times recommends watching Lady Macbeth (starring one of Greta Gerwig's Little Women, by the way), which is on tonight on BBC Two.

The atmosphere on the wild and windy moors is more Brontë than anything. (Kate Muir)

Camden New Journal wonders whether Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre may have inspired Charles Dickens to write David Copperfield.

While biographers have found no evidence directly in Dickens’ papers that he had read Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, published a year before, it was hugely successful and written in the first person.
Professor [Michael] Slater adds: “It was Charlotte Brontë telling her story and it might have given Dickens the idea for a novel written this way.” (Dan Carrier)

Bleeding Cool reviews the graphic novel Rain by Mary and Bryan Talbot.

And yes, ‘Cathy’ and the Brontë moorlands around are noted and notable. (Rich Johnston)

The New York Times recommends the exhibition

★  'Five Hundred Years of Women's Work: The Lisa Unger Baskin Collection at the Grolier Club (through Feb. 8). Documenting the long and sometimes hidden history of women making an independent living, this exhibition features nearly 200 items from Baskin’s collection, including books, letters, photographs and printed matter of all kinds, along with surprises like a pink early-20th-century birth control sponge (or a “sanitary health sponge,” as its tin puts it). Among the oldest pieces is one of the first books printed by women, a 1478 history of Rome’s emperors and popes. (It’s shown open to a passage about Pope Joan, a mythical female pontiff.) The most recent are letters by the anarchist Emma Goldman, displayed, in a slyly pointed nod to the present, next to Goldman’s 1919 pamphlet against deportation. Other objects include a sample of framed embroidery by Charlotte Brontë, displayed with a Brontë letter describing her efforts to find work as a governess, and a copy of the first autobiography by a black woman in Britain: the rollicking 1857 account by Mary Seacole, a Jamaican-born nurse who, among many other things, served in the Crimean War. (Jennifer Schuessler)

TV Guide lists 'The Best Romantic Movies and Shows to Watch on Amazon Prime Video This Valentine's Day', including Jane Eyre 1983.

Jane Eyre
Charlotte Brontë's immortal 19th-Century love story has been adapted over a dozen times, but we're partial to this 11-part BBC series from 1983, which stars Zelah Clarke as the title character and Timothy Dalton as Edward Rochester. (Liam Matthews)

The Young Folks has recommendations for 'When You Miss Downton Abbey and The Crown and need that historical fix:', such as

Charlotte Brontë Before Jane Eyre by Glynnis Fawkes
As soon as you flip through this gorgeous collection, you’re going to want it. It’s too gorgeous to pass up and for fans of the Brontës, historical fiction and anyone who can’t resist gorgeous graphic novels. (Brianna Robinson)

This columnist from Le Devoir (Quebec) doesn't seem to have read the Brontës much:

On n’arrête pas le progrès, diront certains. Et c’est bien ça le malheur. J’y vois plutôt le triomphe de cette éthique protestante, hygiéniste et puritaine qui répugne à tout contact humain. C’est la victoire des soeurs Brontë sur la Carmen de Bizet. Celle d’un monde aseptisé que la machine rassure, alors qu’il y aura toujours un risque dans le contact humain. Celui de croiser un être détestable, par exemple. Ou de tomber en amour. On retrouve d’ailleurs ce même souci de « propreté morale » dans l’interdiction des animaux de cirque et des chevaux au centre-ville. Ça pue, c’est sale et surtout, c’est vivant ! (Christian Rioux) (Translation)

Co-authors MC D’Alton and Melanie Page share the books and writers they love on Female First.

MC loves Frankenstein and the works of Tolstoy, while Melanie adores Austen, the Brontës, Dracula and du Maurier.

The Bucknellian interviews 'Poet, activist and college student' Amanda Gorman, whose

favorite books include the Percy Jackson and Harry Potter series, along with all-time-favorite Jane Eyre. (Nicole Yeager)

The Eyre Guide discusses 'Female Relationships in Jane Eyre'.