A Rising Star and a Series in the Making

Let's begin by congratulating Emma Mackey who won the BAFTA Rising Star Award last night:

Emma Mackey has been named the winner of the EE Rising Star Award at tonight's Film BAFTAs.

Mackey was nominated for the award for her leading turn in the Emily Brontë biopic Emily and beat her fellow Sex Education star Aimee Lou Wood as well as other nominees including Daryl McCormack, Sheila Atim, and Naomie Ackie.

On receiving the award she said, "I didn't prepare anything! Thank you BAFTA, thank you EE, thank you to everyone who voted."

She added that she was "so proud to be nominated alongside" the other contenders for the award and concluded that winning was "really special". (Patrick Cremona in Radio Times)

In shock! The coveted BAFTA Rising Star award, the only prize voted for by the public, was won by Sex Education star Emma Mackey, and she sweetly mouthed 'love you' to her co-star and fellow nominee Aimee Lou Wood in the audience. (Laura Fox in Daily Mail)

The film itself is still in the news on several fronts. ScreenRant interviews the director, Frances O'Connor:

Graeme Guttman: I've read that you love Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre [and] read them when you were a teenager. What about Emily Brontë has stayed with you since then as you have pursued your own creative outlets, and then led you to make this film.
Frances O'Connor: I guess for me, it's her authentic voice, It's so razor sharp, and you feel that when you read Wuthering Heights, and you feel that when you read her poetry. This voice is also very different and does have a strangeness to it.
For me, it's also who she represents. She was very interesting, as an introvert. I feel it's good to celebrate the introvert. And she was someone who suffered from social anxiety, which I kind of relate to. She also had this crazy, big, beautiful imagination, and I wanted to celebrate that as well.
G.G.: What was it like to see Emily in front of you when you were making the film? Emma Mackey does such an amazing job, and you've got the sisters together. Is it this surreal, reaching through the past feeling?
Frances O'Connor: You do you feel like that because we were shooting in Yorkshire out in the middle of nowhere in this old country house that was very gothic. There were moments; we recreated the sofa in the Brontë parsonage, that dark blue horsehair sofa that she died on. We recreated that, and then we had Emma Mackey lying on it in her final breath. It was at times spooky, to be honest. It really was. We did have moments like that.

Some reviews:

O'Connor has almost turned Emily into a hazy ghost story. Emily has all the elements of a Gothic tale brought to life, from Abel Korzeniowski's score, which alternates between vivacious and eerie, to the stunning landscape vistas of the Yorkshire moors. In order to convey her captivating story, O'Connor leans on widely conjectured details of Brontë's life, and this flexibility works admirably. The movie may not be portraying Emily Brontë's life exactly, but it does a great job of fitting in with how her well-known work is frequently seen in contemporary culture. (...)

Yet Emily does make some mistakes. Some significant story points occur a little too quickly for the audience to fully appreciate their impact, such as a plot event involving Branwell that occurs late enough into the movie to be regarded as a spoiler. Emily's resolution moves quickly, which could detract from its overall impact. Fortunately, Mackey provides a significant benefit for the movie. The Sex Education actress totally commits to the role of Emily, producing a performance that at various points calls for Mackey to be ecstatic, curious, vulnerable, and vengeful. (G. Gowtham in India Herald)

Considéré comme un des plus grands classiques romantiques, "Les Hauts de Hurlevent" unique roman d'Emily Brontë, fut adapté maintes fois au cinéma. L'histoire de son auteure, pourtant toute aussi romanesque, fut plus discrète sur les écrans. En effet depuis "Les Sœurs Brontë" d’André Téchiné en 1979, aucun autre film ne s'est penché sur le destin passionnant de la romancière.
Si l'adaptation française peut paraître aujourd'hui un peu trop austère et figée, celle de Frances O'Connor retranscrit superbement le spleen des landes du nord de l'Angleterre où Emily aime tant s'évader. La photographie au grain vintage approche au plus près la tristesse mélancolique de ces collines plombées de ciel gris et battues par les vents. Néanmoins la morosité du décor est contrebalancée par une mise en scène sensorielle aux envolées lyriques justement dosées. La musique envoûtante et quelques ralentis décuplent les bonheurs et les déchirements qui vont ponctuer la courte vie de son héroïne. (Gaëlle Bouché in Abus de Ciné) (Translation)

Visually Stunning Movie Podcast also posts a lukewarm review. 

Deadline publishes some US box offices predictions:

Bleecker Street is estimating its period drama Emily about Emily Brontë will gross $40.1k for three days and $46.9k for the four-day weekend at five locations for a per screen average of, respectively, $8k and $9.4k. This is expanding to circa 500 screens next week. (Jill Goldsmith)

Variety announces that one of the selected projects in the Series Mania Forum Co-Pro Pitching Series is The Brontë Girls: 

“The Brontë Girls,” (6 x 60’, U.K.)

Genre : Historical, coming of age

Developed by Parsonage Productions with ZDF Studios

Written by Caroline Kelly Franklin

A fictional account of the last summer which the three teen Brontë sisters spent together, based on the stage play of the same name by New York-based playwright Franklin (“Last Night at the Carmine”). A “wild imagining of the Brontës that uses historical context to explore modern issues and fiction to create an epic adventure that is deeply relatable and relevant,” Franklin says.  (John Hopewell, Pablo Sandoval)

In The Sunday Times, Emma Duncan is able to use irony to express the anger that lovers of literature felt after reading about the raping of Roald Dahl's texts perpetrated by the Puffin editors (shame on you). It's commendable, we could only use swearing and insulting:

I’m delighted to hear that Roald Dahl’s stories are being rewritten to make them more inclusive and less challenging; I’m only disappointed that publishers haven’t applied the same principles to other classic texts. Couples counselling for Anna and Karenin, along with some elementary safety measures at Moscow station, would have enabled them to rebuild their marriage by focusing on the strengths in their relationship. Retold through the lens of the animal rights movement, Moby Dick could be an uplifting tale of cross-species understanding. Jane Eyre would be a very different story had the first Mrs Rochester been encouraged to talk about her issues in a supportive environment rather than being labelled as the madwoman in the attic. Many troubling works of literature could thus be cleansed of triggering episodes — and, indeed, of all character and plot.

Dewsbury Reporter explores Dewsbury Moor's history:

Charlotte Brontë and her younger sister, Anne, also taught there, and Nobel Prize winner Sir Owen Richardson, was born there in 1879. (...)

For St John’s Church was the church which Charlotte Brontë attended while teaching at Healds House in Healds Road, where Miss Margaret Wooler ran a private school for girls. (...)

The two sisters used to walk down to Dewsbury to attend services at Dewsbury Parish Church where her father Patrick Brontë had been curate some years earlier. (Jane Chippindale)

Movieviral interviews the writer Wendy Hobbs: 

James Murphy: Favourite Books

W.H.: I am drawn to autobiographies because you get a glimpse into the subject’s world, experience things very different from our own, and this can often be more entertaining and stranger than fiction. I also never tire of the classics and in particular Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald and Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier.

SoloLibri revies the Italian translation of Mrs England by Stacey Halls:

 Mrs England (Neri Pozza 2023, traduzione di Massimo Ortelio) è il terzo romanzo dell’autrice inglese Stacey Halls, bestseller del Sunday Times, fra i dieci finalisti di Future, iniziativa del Women’s Prize dedicata alle voci più promettenti del romanzo di domani, miglior libro dell’anno per le librerie Waterstones, presente nella selezione del Walter Scott Prize per il romanzo storico e del Portico Prize.

La figura della bambinaia o dell’istitutrice ha sempre affascinato la letteratura di tutti i tempi. Pensiamo a Jane Eyre, scritto da Charlotte Brontë nel 1847 sotto lo pseudonimo di Currer Bell, che si rivelò il libro-capolavoro della scrittrice inglese, che seppe descrivere con perizia e passione le peripezie della bambinaia più famosa dell’Ottocento. (Alessandra Stoppini) (Translation)

Vein (Spain) talks about the latest album by Carolina Polachek:

‘Hopedrunk Everasking’ (los títulos de las canciones, las Brontë estarían orgullosas) es una de las canciones menos accesibles del disco, pero también de las mejores. (Antonio Rodríguez) (Translation) 

AnneBrontë.org posts about "The Amazing Secret Of The Brontë Tin Box". Brussels Brontë Blog has a post about the recent talk by the historian Roel Jacobs: "Brussels in the Brontës’ time". Eyre Buds's podcast now talks about The [Jane Eyre] Cathy Marston Ballet.

Finally, an alert at the Minneapolis Institute of Art:

Public Tour: Inspired by Books

Tuesday, February 21, 2023
11:30 am to 12:30 pm

February Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

Inspired by Books tours, facilitated by Mia guides, will relate works of art to popular books. A new book will be presented each month. Tours are free and begin in the General Mills Lobby on the first floor.