You probably know right off the bat whether you’re a Wuthering Heights person or a Jane Eyre person. Both, of course, are great. But as chilling as Charlotte Brontë’s mad-wife-in-the-attic yarn may be, her sister Emily’s book—a story of melancholic obsession, of love that seeps into the soil of the grave, of pearl gray skies and majestic, gnarled tree branches—speaks to even darker recesses of the human spirit. It’s a book you either embrace forever or want to burn after reading. [...]
The best this heady, evocative un-biopic can do is surf the wave of her unknowability. Even so, Emily poured so much ardent, forbidden energy into Wuthering Heights that it might be considered a spiritual fingerprint. Wherever this book came from, it’s as real as the sound of the wind. (Stephanie Zacharek)
Given that there are few activities less inherently cinematic than writing, I'm surprised and heartened by how many good movies I've seen in recent years that have convincingly entered the lives and minds of authors. [...]
Emily is strikingly played by Emma Mackey, the French-British actor known for her work on the series Sex Education; she was also the best thing in the recent remake of Death on the Nile. Mackey has the kind of searing gaze that cuts right through any period-piece decorum, and that makes her perfect for the sardonic, self-amused Emily. She's neither as sweet as her younger sister, Anne, nor as well behaved as her older sister, Charlotte, who's memorably played by Alexandra Dowling. Charlotte is studying to be a teacher and wants Emily to do the same, mainly to please their strict clergyman father. [...]
That idea might sound overly simplistic, especially if, like me, you chafe at the notion that great art can only emerge from direct autobiographical experience. But even if the movie plays hard and loose with the facts — some have speculated that there was a romantic connection between Anne Brontë and William Weightman — Mackey and Jackson-Cohen bring so much heat and conviction that their love story sweeps you up in its wake. [...]
Emily marks an excellent writing and directing debut for the actor Frances O'Connor, who's appeared in her own share of English literary adaptations like Mansfield Park and The Importance of Being Earnest. Her witty but unfussy script is rife with echoes of Wuthering Heights, which means it often plays like a ghost story. Much of the movie is set in dim, candlelit interiors, including one terrifying scene in which an innocent game among the Brontë siblings becomes a disturbing kind of séance. O'Connor keeps her camera tightly fixed on Emily even at her most anguished moments, when she seems to be teetering on the brink of madness. Maybe she is. But maybe it takes a little madness to create a work of art, including a movie as good as this one. (Justin Chang)
There’s a practice known as bibliomancy, where readers will open the Bible to a random page in the hopes that the passage they encounter will provide a needed answer to a dilemma. In Mike Leigh’s “Career Girls,” the collegiate heroines practice their own version, called “Miss Brontë, Miss Brontë,” wherein they ask a question and then open “Wuthering Heights” in search of counsel.
How the powerful and provocative “Wuthering Heights” came to be the single novel produced by a relatively sheltered woman who died at the age of 30 is the subject of “Emily,” a powerful debut feature from actor and filmmaker Frances O’Connor. Craftily combining fact, fiction and conjecture, O’Connor captures the inner life of Emily Brontë, a writer presented here as carrying within her the same wind and storms that she immortalized on paper.
The writer-director is aided immeasurably by lead actor Emma Mackey (“Death on the Nile”), whose wide eyes and expressive features convey a torment and vivacity being held in constant check by a repressive society. Mackey never looks at the camera in a conspiratorial, “Fleabag” kind of way, but she allows the camera to plumb the many emotions she silently conveys. [...]
Cinematographer Nanu Segal (“An Evening with Beverly Luff Linn”) perfectly captures the fog and the winds and cliffs and the heather as though this were another screen adaptation of “Wuthering Heights,” while the score by Abel Korzeniowski (“W.E.”) accurately, with just a few instruments, captures the feeling of an anxiety attack in musical form.
It might be stretching the point to suggest that, if “Emily” were O’Connor’s only directorial effort, it would be as well-remembered as her subject’s one novel. But with any luck, this film will simply mark the opening salvo in an illustrious career behind the camera. (Alonso Duralde)
Mackey, best known for playing the gives-zero-effs Maeve in Sex Education, disappears into the role of the meek yet bold, hesitant yet adventurous Emily Brontë. She holds the burden of 1840s societal and familial expectations in her bones, rarely ever cracking a smile. She really only feels compelled to do so when she’s spending time in the luscious grassy hills of the small village of Haworth in West Yorkshire England either by herself speaking the parts of different characters she’s dreamed up, or sneaking outside her comfort zone with her imaginative brother Branwell (Fionn Whitehead). [...]
The detailed production design and the homage to the titular character’s deep appreciation of nature are two of Emily’s strengths. The inclusion of and focus on the mysterious porcelain mask that the family was gifted in real life is also something Brontë admirers will recognize and appreciate. The power that a figurative and literal disguise can have over you—for better or worse—is explored in a very artistically satisfying way. Elements of the supernatural are briefly touched upon in a visually potent scene when Emily wears the mask and speaks to her family and friends while channeling her late mother. Similarly, Abel Korzeniowski’s score is beautiful and strategic. Interspersed between tense conversations Emily has with her sisters are blissful moments frolicking in nature underneath a sweeping score that never ceases to elevate the story. [...]
Director Frances O’Connor effortlessly immerses the audience into Emily’s heart, soul, and mind in this refreshing, storybook-like origin story for a reclusive, misunderstood, and underappreciated author. Heavily influenced and inspired by Emily Brontë’s sole work, Emily is equally mysterious as it is charming as it honors the daunting and exhilarating feeling you get when you put a pen to a blank page. (Emily Bernard)
Emily Brönte [sic] was born into Victorian obscurity, published one mad Gothic masterpiece at 29, and then promptly died, unmarried and by most accounts of her cloistered world, probably unkissed. At least those are the bare facts of her scant biography, though it is not at all the one that writer-director Frances O'Connor conjures in Emily, a fevered reimagining of the woman whose immortal Wuthering Heights was, in this freewheeling portrayal at least, less of a bodice ripper than her own life. [...]
Mackey's Emily is still in some ways the shy and inward girl of record, but she's also ferociously stubborn and full of wild imagination — "the strange one" of her two sisters, the equally literary Anne (Amelia Gething) and Charlotte (Alexandra Dowling), who would herself famously go on to write Jane Eyre. There's also a stern widower father (Adrian Dunbar), a tender-hearted wastrel brother (Dunkirk's Fionn Whitehead), and the aforementioned hot priest (Oliver Jackson-Cohen), who lights a fire in both Emily's mind and her loins.
Without plunging into full anachronism, the film happily plays both fast and loose with history, its tone frequently wobbling between melodrama, magic realism, and the more traditional structures of classic period drama. (The creative process, too, generally gets short shrift, beyond a few long gazes out a window with a quill pen.) Still, there's something gently intoxicating about O'Connor's dreamlike pastoral settings — oh, those wily, windy moors! — and her determination not just to rewrite Emily, but set her free. (Leah Greenblatt)
In this, O'Connor has a perfect partner in Emma Mackey, who plays Emily with sensitivity and freedom. She's not held back by an imposed "conception" of this woman. She's let loose. Her Emily is joyous, sulky, troubled, paralyzed with anxiety, rebellious, and passionate. There's reason to believe all of this is true. The local villagers referred to Emily as "the strange one," and without overplaying it, Mackey suggests why. She can't make eye contact with people. She shrinks from interactions with non-family members. When Michael Weightman (Oliver Jackson-Cohen), Mr. Brontë's new assistant curate, enters the family circle, he disturbs the waters. His sermons are the opposite of Mr. Brontë's fire-and-brimstone declarations. Weightman speaks of a gentle, almost thoughtful God. The Brontë sisters listen enraptured, and they also can't fail to notice he's easy on the eyes. Emily responds to him combatively, at first, poking holes in his arguments, refusing to concede ground. Naturally, he's drawn to her the most.
There are a number of extraordinary sequences, speculative in nature, but which make so much sense thematically and emotionally. "Emily" goes deep. (Surface events are minimal, anyway. A similar issue arises with Emily Dickinson, whose life was not crowded with outer events. But look to "the results." It's possible to never leave home and live a dramatic inner life. This is what Frances O'Connor explores wonderfully well.) There's a scene where Emily, goofing around with her siblings and Weightman, puts on a ceramic mask. At first, it's part of a game until Emily transforms, the mask providing her the anonymity necessary to express the grief beneath the surface, all as a storm rises outside. The scene is an incredible work of imagination, anchored in what we already know and what we can guess at, considering Wuthering Heights. It evokes—without underlining the connection—the book's terrifying opening scene, with the ghost rattling at the window frame, imploring to be allowed inside out of the storm. (Sheila O'Malley)
Olvídate por favor de las Kardashian y recuerda -o descubre recién- que, a mediados del siglo XIX, existieron tres hermanas cuyo reconocimiento no se debía a ‘reality shows’, romances escandalosos ni maniobras de la prensa de chismes, sino a sus grandes habilidades literarias. Nos referimos a las Brontë, representadas principalmente en la actualidad por Charlotte (autora de “Jane Eyre”, la novela clásica que ha sido llevada al cine y la televisión en numerosas ocasiones), pero distinguidas también por la labor de Emily y Anne, responsables de títulos considerados como piezas esenciales de la literatura inglesa. [...]
En el plano estrictamente histórico, sería fácil condenar una cinta que inventa incluso un gran romance para convertirlo en desencadenante esencial del despegue literario; por ese lado, “Emily” muestra plenamente sus costuras comerciales. Pero la estrategia sirve al menos para despertar el interés de las grandes audiencias en una historia que merece ser revisada, y que más allá de cualquier agregado o exageración, nos lleva a conocer de cerca a una mujer que, pese a las restricciones y los prejuicios de la época, logró dejar una huella indeleble en la historia de la literatura universal. [...]
Sin embargo, en su primera incursión como director y guionista, Frances O’Connor, conocida anteriormente por su amplia labor como actriz, logra que todos estos elementos se sientan naturales al respetar el espíritu de la época retratada y ofrecernos un relato fílmico cuya capacidad para el entretenimiento va de la mano con una puesta en escena francamente exquisita.
(Sergio Burstein) (Translation)
CNN Entertainment has a video on the film with short interviews with Frances O'Connor and Emma Mackey.
Vogue interviews Emma Mackey:
If Weightman “has shades of Edgar Linton” to his personality, Emily’s brother Branwell (Fionn Whitehead) is a more Heathcliff-esque character—pushing his younger sister to explore her darker side during opium-fueled treks across the moors. As in Wuthering Heights itself, there are no simple heroes and villains here, with the audience never quite sure of the power dynamic in any relationship. “You’re never on solid ground,” Mackey enthuses. “The lines between the natural and the supernatural, light and dark, desire and repression, are all blurred.” [...]
“Our costume designer Michael O’Connor is known for his attention to detail—so of course I wore the corsets and all of that, which really does impact how you speak, how you breathe, everything. What I really loved, though, is how many of the pieces that I wore as Emily to do chores around the house felt almost… grubby—like actual practical clothes rather than ‘costumes.’ There’s a real difference between the way that Emily dresses at home and when she’s out on the moors as well; her bonnet always comes off at once, like she’s physically shedding her restrictions.”
Notably, filming took place in and around Haworth over six weeks in early 2021 (“hardly any time at all for a shoot, really —especially when you’re doing everything while soaking wet in period dress”). Standing in for the Brontë parsonage? Whernside Manor in Dent, while Blackmire Cottage forms the backdrop of Emily and Weightman’s trysts. The surrounding landscape proved a major source of inspiration for the cast. The whole team rented a house together in Yorkshire—driving an hour out onto the moors to shoot every day. “It’s only in being there that you realize what an influence the scenery had on the Brontë girls—I mean, Emily’s bedroom looked out over a graveyard,” Mackey reflects. “It’s really otherworldly. There’s nowhere to hide in that sort of landscape. The light is haunting, too. You can see every mark on people’s faces—and that’s carried through to post-production.”
Mackey’s primary hope for the film: that it will engage “a younger audience” with the Brontës and help to demystify their work to an extent. “I mean, 15-year-old me is just freaking out about being able to be a part of anything that lets her run around the moors in a corset while screaming her head off,” she says with a laugh. “More seriously, though, this film is a testament to the power of creativity. When you finally do see Emily writing Wuthering Heights, you’re really alone with her and her thoughts. It’s funny because the novel only got its first positive review around 50 years after Emily died. She never got recognized or celebrated in her lifetime. In a lot of ways, this film is our thank you to her—and an acknowledgement of her genius.” (Hayley Maitland)
British-born Australian actress and director Frances O’Connor read Emily Brontë’s gothic novel Wuthering Heights on the school bus when she was 15, vociferously immersing herself in the fictional Cathy and Heathcliff’s doomed lives.
Forty years later, that same sense of magic O’Connor unearthed in Brontë’s world as a teenager infuses her directorial debut, Emily. Though chronologically true to the 19th-century novelist’s abbreviated life (Emily died at the age of 30), it is not tethered to facts about the notoriously private author. “There’s something nice about the fact that she’s a mystery to us. You kind of think that you know her, but at the same time she’s a mystery and that’s lovely,” O’Connor tells StyleCaster.
She clarifies, “It was never a biopic. It was really an exploration of female identity and female authenticity through the lens of Emily Brontë as a character. For me, growing up, I located in Emily a sense of truth and feeling different; [I identified with] feeling like maybe your voice wasn’t being appreciated. I thought that there was a story to be told: how do you find your voice if you don’t see yourself reflected anywhere?” [...]
“I really loved Wuthering Heights, Emily’s poetry and what she stands for: that she was so different from everyone,” O’Connor explains. “She had this unique voice singing out, and I wanted to celebrate that, the essence of who she is. When I read Wuthering Heights at 15 on the school bus, it made such an impression on me; I felt so transported into that world. I loved the characters too; these rebellious anti-heroes and there was something really wild about them that I was drawn to. I didn’t want to tell the story of ‘Emily did this, then she did that’, why tell that story? I wanted to tell a story that felt magical, kind of gothic, and guided by the sensibilities that Emily had as she was growing up.” [...]
“The mask scene was based in truth. The mask was a real object that the Brontës had. It was given to their parents on their wedding eve, though they never found out who they got it from. I saw it as an object to locate Emily’s imagination and her connection to her mother; to explore those things we inherit from mother to daughter in terms of how we see our own image. We set the film up in a way that was quite traditional, but the mask scene really breaks through that and says ‘actually, we’re not watching that kind of film, we’re going somewhere different’. That was the feeling a lot of people had reading Wuthering Heights as well. It’s not a traditional Victorian novel.” [...]
O’Connor admits, “I knew that she was in Sex Education but I hadn’t really watched the show, though my son loved it. I thought there was something intriguing about casting her in the role because she’s got this strong identity, this strong energy, but I wasn’t sure. Anyway, when she came in and read for the part, something happened in the room that was really electric. There’s something so exciting about her acting, and she’s got a great sense of humor. Emily has a lot of very funny moments and I think that’s so real and so human. Rather than being absolutely perfect, Emily is flawed and she has issues; she’s really her own person. There was something really exciting about casting Emma in that role.” (Cat Woods)
The part one route includes the Dumb Steeple, where Luddites mustered prior to attacking a consignment of frames; Hartshead Moor, where the attack took place; The Star Inn, where two Luddites injured in the attack were interrogated by soldiers; a Quaker burial ground; and St Peter's Church, where Patrick Brontë, father of the famous Brontë sisters, was curate. (Paul Kirkwood)
Reader's Digest lists 'Six cats who inspired some of the greatest writers'.
The Brontë sisters and Tom
During their childhood at Haworth Parsonage, the three famous 19th-century novelists enjoyed the company of several pets, but a black cat, named Tom, appears to have been a particular favourite. Family friend, Ellen Nussey, wrote that Tom was treated so well he “seemed to have lost cat’s nature, and subsided into luxurious amiability and contentment”.
Charlotte Brontë later included a description of a similarly pampered pet in Jane Eyre, whilst sister Emily, when living abroad, wrote an essay in French in praise of cats entitled Le Chat. The title character of Anne Brontë’s first novel, Agnes Grey, decides her future husband is the man for her when he rescues a cat from an evildoer. (Margaret Brecknell)
0 comments:
Post a Comment