André Téchiné looks back on Les Soeurs Brontë

The Guardian reviews The Confessions of Frannie Langton by Sara Collins. (Beware of spoilers!)

Frannie is an extreme version of Jane Eyre. She is a powerless child brought up horribly in a horrible place, and her voice thunders in exactly the same way. She often says things that are true, but jarring, such as: “A man writes to separate himself from the common history; a woman writes to try to join it.” Her pronouncements are just like those of Jane, who isn’t afraid to tell Rochester that she loves Thornfield in part at least because she has not “been buried under inferior minds”. Like Jane again, Frannie is awkward and pretentious in her cleverness because she has never been allowed to exercise it properly. Rochester calls Jane a caged bird, but Frannie is a battery hen.
When her master brings her to London, she is technically free under English law, but in fact she becomes a new sort of slave in the household of George Benham, another “scientist”. This is where Frannie meets Madame, Benham’s wife. She is Frannie’s Mr Rochester, and she’s just as far into her moral overdraft as all the old Byronic heroes; an opium eater, she is prone to “adventure”, and her affection for Frannie is soon diverted by a rival. (Nastasha Pulley)

Indeed, in an interview for Refinery 29, Frannie Langton credits the Brontës with influencing her during her formative years.

What other books did you read in your formative years? I grew up on a small island so there wasn’t always a lot to read and I exhausted everything our library had. Books were really precious because I had to go to a lot of effort to get them, there was no Amazon or Kindle back then. I had lots and lots of teenage obsessions and I would just read around them. I must confess, I was really into regency romances! I think they actually stood me in good stead though because I’ve now written a quite literary novel about the regency. I also loved the Sweet Valley High and Nancy Drew books. Apart from those though, that are very age-specific, I don’t think my tastes have changed much. I loved the classics – Jane Austen and the Brontës – then I discovered Toni Morrison, Zora Neale Hurston and Alice Walker. I was also obsessed with Helter Skelter, about the Charles Manson cult, and I had a Stephen King phase. I think he’s massively underrated, he’s a phenomenal writer. The short stories he [King] wrote as Richard Bachman were great. (Frankie Mathieson)

On the occasion of the broadcast of the documentary André Téchiné, cinéaste insoumis, Télérama (France) has French film director André Téchiné look back on some of his films, including Les Soeurs Brontë.

“Les Sœurs Brontë” taxées de “sœurs Gaumont” (1979)
« Tout a été douloureux, du début à la fin, dans l’histoire de ce film. A la Gaumont, autour de Daniel Toscan du Plantier, le grand producteur, il y avait des divergences. Mon projet originel portait sur la disparition du frère, comme vampirisé par ses trois sœurs. Beaucoup de réunions furent nécessaires pour rassurer les dirigeants de l’entreprise et prouver que la place que j’accorderais à Branwell Brontë (joué par Pascal Greggory) n’empiéterait pas sur celle d’Emily, Charlotte et Anne…
Le film était extrêmement coûteux, car tourné dans le Yorkshire, sur les lieux mêmes où avaient vécu les personnages — les dialogues étaient d’ailleurs tirés des témoignages de l’époque. Et puis je voulais un style désincarné pour cette histoire de fantôme. Un ton mat, neutre, récitatif.
Dans leurs magnifiques costumes, signés Christian Gasc, les trois actrices, Isabelle Adjani, Marie-France Pisier et Isabelle Huppert, se sentaient complètement verrouillées. Et les riva­lités étaient inévitables. Marie-France Pisier, en particulier, souffrait beaucoup de devoir porter les cheveux en arrière — je trouvais que ça lui donnait beaucoup de noblesse. Elle avait du mal à se voir ainsi, jugeait que ça la vieillissait, qu’elle avait l’air d’être la mère des deux autres. Pour les trois, mon travail de metteur en scène consistait à les empêcher de jouer, alors qu’elles avaient très envie de performances…
Au Festival de Cannes, l’accueil fut glacial — il fallait déjà accepter l’idée de sœurs Brontë qui parlent français. Le film fut rebaptisé “les sœurs Gaumont”, en toute mal­veillance… Marie-France Pisier dé­nonça une cabale. Depuis, une réhabilitation critique a effacé ces mauvais souvenirs. » (Louis Guichard) (Translation)

The Eyre Guide reviews Reader, I Married Him, edited by Tracy Chevalier. On her new YouTube channel, Rachel Sutcliffe discusses 'Parent alienation in Anne Bronte's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall'. Nick Holland announces that he has launched a new website in advance of Anne's bicentenary next year: Anne Brontë 200.