Freedom of thought

BBC Culture recommends '11 of the best films to watch this October' and one of them is

2. Emily

The star of Mansfield Park and The Importance of Being Earnest, Frances O'Connor would have been a shoo-in to play Emily Brontë if someone had made a biopic of the author 20 years ago. Instead, O'Connor has written and directed a Brontë biopic herself, and cast Emma Mackey (Sex Education) in the lead role. How did the shiest and most repressed of the three sisters come to write the passionate Wuthering Heights? O'Connor's acclaimed directorial debut suggests that Emily's hedonistic brother Bramwell (Fionn Whitehead) and a handsome local priest (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) might have had something to do with it. "Shot with breath-taking beauty and acted with extraordinary emotion and grace," says Christopher Schobert at The Film Stage, "this exploration of the life and development of Emily Brontë is tremendously enveloping… O'Connor, who also scripted, adroitly manages the feat of making a 19th-Century period piece burst with contemporary feeling."

Released on 14 October in the UK and Ireland, and 28 October in Turkey

Why Now recommends it, too.

Emily / October 7 [sic]

Emily is Frances O’Connor’s directorial debut and examines the life of writer Emily Brontë. Sex Education’s Emma Mackey stars as the titular Emily, who’s life was cut short at the age of 30 after she wrote Wuthering Heights. Mackey’s sublime turn is supported by Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Fionn Whitehead and Gemma Jones. (Maria Lattila)

While Ouest France reviews the film after it was screened as part of the Dinard Festival du Film Britannique (Festival of British Cinema).

Ne vous attendez pas à un énième biopic sur la vie d’un monument de la littérature anglaise. Emily, de l’actrice devenue réalisatrice australienne Frances O’Connor, est un premier film très réussi sur la vie imaginaire d’Emily Brontë.

Sous les traits de l’excellente actrice Emma Mackey (Sex Education, Mort sur le Nil, Eiffel…), Emily revêt un caractère rebelle, provocateur loin des attentes de sa communauté religieuse et de sa condition de femme du début du XIXe. Imaginiez-vous qu’elle portait la formule Freedom of thought (liberté de penser) tatouée sur l’avant-bras ?

Dans les landes du Yorkshire loin desquelles elle étouffe, l’autrice des Hauts de Hurlevent se construit à travers ses relations avec son père dont elle cherche la fierté, ses liens tumultueux avec ses sœurs Charlotte et Anne, la fascination dangereuse pour son frère Branwell, mais surtout son amour passionné mais interdit pour Weightman.

De ses premiers poèmes à la découverte de l’opium, Emily transgresse, elle s’émancipe et devient la femme libre qu’elle a décidé d’être.

En suivant son héroïne solitaire courant sous la pluie, Frances O’Connor livre un bouleversant portrait de femme, qui résonne très fort aujourd’hui. Un film d’époque si moderne… (E. C.) (Translation)

An adaptation of Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own is going on stage at the Phoenix Theatre in Bordon (Hampshire, UK) on October 19, at 7.30pm and Liphook Herald advertises it as follows:

Take a wry, amusing and incisive trip through the history of literature, feminism and gender. Meet Charlotte Brontë, Jane Austen, Aphra Behn and Shakespeare’s sister, Judith. Travel to the far-flung future of 2028. But whatever you do, keep off the grass. (Paul Coates)

Hertfordshire Mercury has an article on the short-sightedness of the Stevenage Borough Council which is planning to build a car park and toilet block in the Forster Country fields - which were made famous worldwide by local author E.M. Forster.

Stevenage residents were shocked to discover this month that the plans now brought for further approval by the Council. The plans include extensive construction to landscape the natural meadows, and to tarmac over them with a road, a major car park and a large toilet block, as well as adding gravel paths and bollards and an electrical grounding tower.

Chairman of the Friends of Forster Country campaigning group John Spiers is hugely disappointed and claimed that Stevenage Borough Council have laid the "final nail" to end local heritage in the Herts town.

John said: “You wouldn’t find a council building a car park on the West Yorkshire moors of Wuthering Heights or the Dorset vales of Tess of the D’Urbervilles. We are pained and baffled by Stevenage council’s failure to love Forster Country. (Cameron Rutherford)

Well, never say never given the appallingly low degree of reliability of councils in general when it comes to these things.