Essex answer to Wuthering Heights

Palatinate reviews the film Emily.

The film provides a canvas for understanding this mysterious but endlessly fascinating woman thanks to some captivating performances. Mackey’s Yorkshire accent may be uneven, but the rest of her Emily Brontë never rings false. It’s an often raw and endlessly appealing portrayal that impressively handles the close-ups that dominate her screen-time, and as a character more often in observation than conversation, she deftly delivers Emily’s internal thoughts without betraying her reserved nature. Oliver Jackson-Cohen matches her perfectly, giving perhaps the best performance in the film and capturing the attractive torment of the Byronic hero as he serves as a stand-in for Heathcliffe. Like Mackey, he is adept at conveying William Weightman’s emotions wordlessly. His unfalteringly performance makes up for some inconsistent characterisation in the script, particularly when his religious objections to the affair appear suddenly and disappear just as quick.

The supporting cast admirably assist the leads, with Fionn Whitehead standing out in a delicately balanced performance between charming confidante and abusive rake as the lone Brontë brother. O’Connor makes this the primary sibling relationship, perhaps in an attempt to make this a film about Emily apart from the normally unitised Brontë sisters, evoking wider feminist commentary on the wasted opportunities of a reckless man that were not afforded to his ingenious sisters. However, this does leave Anne and Charlotte rather short-changed by the film, causing a slightly awkward transition into a Charlotte-centric narrative upon Emily’s death. Nevertheless, the film does manage to achieve its goal in this choice – effectively conveying Emily Brontë’s literary legacy as she inspires her sister in the closing moments of the film, just as she inspired countless more.

These great performances are greatly assisted by the stunning cinematography of the Yorkshire landscape, which is as much a character in Emily as it was in the Brontës’ own work. The abundance of scenes out on the open moors are given the dynamic bright lighting or the dramatic spectacle of pouring rain, that is generally absent in the dull, indoor scenes, showcasing where Emily’s true heart lied. Similarly, the sound design provides insight into Emily as we hear non-diegetic sounds of rain, waves, soldiers that show moments of inspiration and creativity for our heroine, whilst avoiding the pitfall of watching Mackey write for the two-hour runtime. However, these elements are underused, as are the more gothic sequences in the film, like the aforementioned mask scene, where O’Connor seems to be reaching for something more interesting and avant-garde, but falls short at embracing it entirely or perfectly conjoining it into the more pedestrian biopic she has otherwise constructed.

Still, Emily is an impressive debut for O’Connor who proves to be a more than competent writer-director. It contains evolutionary, if not revolutionary, performances for both Mackey and Jackson-Cohen. The film largely succeeds at its fundamental objective of portraying the emotional truth of one of our greatest women writers, without getting bogged down in historical accuracy. It’s well worth a watch. (Niamh Kelliher)

El Español (Spain) reports that the film will be screened at the closing ceremony of Cine por Mujeres festival (25 October - 6 November) in Madrid.

Por último, el filme Emily, de Frances O’Connor, que cuenta la vida imaginada de la autora Emily Brontë con la estrella emergente Emma Mackey como protagonista, clausurará el festival. (Javier Yuste) (Translation)

Maldon Standard features the 'Essex answer to Wuthering Heights'.

From 1871 to 1881, the rector of East Mersea was the Rev Sabine Baring-Gould.

As well as being a vicar, he was an accomplished writer and in 1880 released one of his first novels.

Just like Wuthering Heights, Mehalah: a Story of the Salt Marshes, created something of a stir.

Baring-Gould set his dark, tragic novel in the marshlands and riverscape of the Blackwater and the characters are based on his first-hand experiences of local fisherfolk.

The proud and defiant, fiery, gipsy-beauty Mehalah and the sadistic, passionate Elijah Rebow seem immediately familiar.

When it first came out the book was compared by literary critic Charles Algernon Swinburne to Wuthering Heights.

Since then it has become known as “the Wuthering Heights of the Essex salt marshes”.

I have a 1950 edition of Mehalah and a 1991 Wuthering Heights in my library. Both are well-thumbed, but what I would give for first editions. (Stephen Nunn)

El Debate (Spain) interviews writer Aixa de la Cruz, a Brontëite.

María Serrano: ¿La novela es gótica porque incorpora un elemento paranormal?

A.C.: Lo gótico tiene más que ver con la urdimbre narrativa del texto. Para empezar, yo estaba viviendo en una casa que era como lo que cualquiera describiría como una mansión gótica, una casa muy grande en el pueblo que antaño había sido señorial pero que estaba en decadencia, en mitad del páramo. Tenía todo el imaginario de lo gótico. Entonces fui consciente de esto y empecé a pensar en la novela gótica, releí a Sherley Jackson y clásicos de cabecera como Cumbres Borrascosas y Jane Eyre, y me di cuenta de que el género gótico era muy importante no sólo para mí, que vengo de una tradición y de estudiar Filología Inglesa, sino que estaba muy vinculado también a la genealogía de la escritura femenina, porque en los siglos XVIII y XIX, cuando las mujeres escribían, eran bichos raros.(Translation)

Daily Trojan reviews Taylor Swift's Midnight and finds the Jane Eyre quote 'Reader, I married him' to be 'infamous' (why?!).

If Swift were to have written Rina Sawayama’s sophomore album “Hold The Girl,” she would’ve made “Dear Reader” the cornerstone. It would be sacrilegious to end a project without ethereal piano, and Swift delivers exactly that, with risers and pads as atmospheric accents. Swift’s strength as a purveyor of literary references works so well in her lyricism, and her usage of Jane Eyre’s infamous line, “Dear reader, I married him,” introduces many new complexities to the already stellar track. (Au Chung)

The Irish Times has an article on naming children.

But lots of thought went into my children’s names. Lots. Long, long before I was ever a mother I considered what I might call the children I might one day have. I read Wuthering Heights at school. To this day it remains my favourite book. And I loved it so much I thought I’d probably call my first daughter Catherine. I mean, what more sophisticated way to pick a name for a child than to choose it from a literary classic? But then a new character came into Home and Away and I really liked her name, so I changed my mind. (Jen Hogan)

AnneBrontë.org features 'Charlotte Brontë’s Roe Head Letter Of October 1836'.