If you had your hopes up for a female-led movie that doesn’t rely on a man to move the story, you will be miserable for 130 minutes. It’s a swing and a miss to take a historically influential female character and illustrate her in such an unsavory light. Her erratic indecisiveness shows Emily to be a character who loses motivation easily if it doesn’t involve an attractive man.
This unfortunate story arc doesn’t even feel worthwhile because the love story between Emily and William is about as cliché as they come. A handsome stranger blows into town, then all the ladies fall in love with him. All the ladies except the main character who initially acts dismissive of him. Of course, she eventually comes around and the two fall in love, embark on a risky love entanglement and send shit sideways for the other people they love in their lives.
“Emily” has a strikingly similar premise as Greta Gerwig’s adaptation of “Little Women” in that it revolves around a female author with tight sister bonds who goes down a path of self-discovery, falls for a dreamy boy, loses family members and goes on to change the face of literature, but it isn't written or directed as well.
Besides longing for what could have been, there aren’t many negative things to say about “Emily.” It’s anything but bold, but it’s well-acted and has a few well-composed shots. Besides that, you’ll forget about this movie’s existence in a week. It fits in well with every other costume drama you’ve ever seen in that it is literally every other costume drama you’ve ever seen. But for a first attempt, O’Connor could have done worse. (Chris Shields)
A podcast by
Radio Milwaukee discusses whether 'a mix of fact and fiction works for'
Emily.
The Daily Wildcat features the Scoundrel and Scamp Theatre's take on Polly Teale's
Brontë.“In 'Brontë', we are telling the story of […] these three phenomenal women who lived in remote England and yet were able to craft some of the most passionate and enduring stories of the 19th century,” Bryan Rafael Falcón, the artistic and managing director of the Scoundrel and Scamp Theatre, said. “The play moves the audience backwards and forwards in place and time … into the lives not only of the three sisters but also into the characters that they created […] you get to see the […] events in the sisters' lives that then impacted the stories that they wrote.”
The play is incredibly ambitious in its scope, following the sisters and their brother Branwell through each defining moment of their lives from their childhood to their deathbeds. All the while, characters from each of the sisters’ novels come out of the woodwork and provide insight into the minds and hearts of the Brontës. Consequently, the play’s unconventional style and non-linear format make it a technical and directorial challenge to perform. [...]
With a cast of only six actors, a play with the technical demands of "Brontë" is a tall order, but Falcón expressed his pride over the performances of the cast.
“I’m just so proud [of] how [the cast] are able to bring these personalities from long ago and make them truly live […] as people who have understandable, believable desires that bring about both joy and tragedy to their lives,” Falcón said.
Although "Brontë" may have an engaging and uniquely told plot, the heart of the play is centered around fundamental questions about human nature and its need to create art.
“I think anybody who creates […] sometimes asks themselves the question ‘why do we do it?’” Falcón said. “What drives us to be willing to make choices in life that cause challenges and pain? There [are] always consequences to the artistic path, whether you are taking a job that pays a lot less than medicine or science […] or just [dealing with] the demands of being an artist on relationships. This play really delves into that. It asks the question of these three sisters: Why did they write? Why did they do what they did? In a similar way, it raises the question for the audience […] What drives us? What makes us strive to create?” (Juliana Siml)
The Argus has an article by a 'young reporter' on 'Women’s history, and why it’s important'.
Throughout history, we can see examples of exceptional women being suppressed by societal misogyny. Take Rosalind Franklin, for example- an academic; founder of the DNA double helix structure- who didn’t get credited nearly enough for her contributes. Some of the biggest influences in the literary world: Jane Austen, Louisa May Alcott, The Brontë Sisters- to name a few, all published written work under either male pseudonyms or their intials. If this isn’t proof enough that women are and always have been disproportionate to men, then what is? These ideas are the reason that Women’s History Month is so important. Although progression has undeniably been made (a lot of it, in fact), there is still a long way to go. Remembering them is a good place to start.
Nation has writer Julia Bell pick seven books that influenced her and one of them is
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
The first novel that I read and deeply understood. Added to the fact that we swapped with the vicar of Haworth when I was a teenager and went to stay there for two weeks. Not in the parsonage but in the new build house which replaced it.
I always felt an empathy for Charlotte Brontë and the circumstances of her childhood. I recognised the diving into imaginative play as a means of escaping oppression. And Jane Eyre is a true feminist heroine, choosing her own path in spite of the social pressures aligned against her. There’s a poem about this in the collection.
The Washington Post transcribes a conversation with Sara Collins and Karla-Simone Spence about
The Confessions of Frannie Langton. MS. ANDREWS-DYER: [Laughs] And, Sara, you described "The Confessions of Frannie Langton" as the Black "Jane Eyre," and for those who haven't had the pleasure of reading your award-winning debut novel on which this series is based, can you briefly describe the story and tell us how you came up with the premise?
MS. COLLINS: [...] And for me, I mean, yes, the "Jane Eyre" reference is appropriate because it really came--I spent my life reading to fill gaps. I really do believe that reading is the way that we inform our understanding, not only of the world but our place in it, and I had this obsession in particular in my teenage years with gothic romances. So, you know, I gobbled up the Brontës, and I had been left with--irritated, angered, in fact, by the gap that there had been in my reading--the fact that all of those books I loved had never centered a woman like me of my background. And so this--my mission with the novel, and it's one that we translated to the adaptation--was, as I've said, to put a Jamaican woman in Jane Austen territory, to produce a story--and we did focus on story that works on the level of story--to entertain audiences but also to engage audiences with this kind of forgotten, overlooked aspect of British history. [...]
And it's also a kind of meditation on women's anger. You know, we started with sort of "Jane Eyre," but it--and that's a novel very much about women's anger and also mad women in attics, you know. And these two women and their coming together really should get people thinking about women's anger and when it can be channeled for good and when it's channeled self-destructively, and we see examples of that with both of these characters.
Full casting and creative team have been announced for Wuthering Heights the brand-new adaptation of Emily Brontë's classic novel, opening at Royal & Derngate, Northampton from 24 April - 6 May, with a national press night on Friday 28 April ahead of a UK tour, playing Oxford, London, Coventry and Newcastle. (Stephi Wild)
But let’s shift from self-flagellation to prescription. Because there’s still the second caveat to mention: I’m not reading 19th-century novels to myself, but I have read them to others recently. Specifically, I’ve read them aloud to my older children, first “Pride and Prejudice” and now (in a slightly more intense experience) “Jane Eyre.” (Ross Douthat)
Ara (Spain) interviews Rebecca Solnit and asks her about the recent controversy about the rewriting of Roald Dahl's books.
Solnit no está muy a favor de reescribir libros. "Me sigue gustando mucho El melocotón gigante de Roald Dahl y no recuerdo que fuera especialmente cruel, podemos escribir nuevos libros y conservar los antiguos", asegura. "La fierecilla domada de Shakespeare va de un hombre que apalea una mujer fuerte e independiente hasta dominarla; no creo que haga falta quemar ningún libro, quizás es más divertido cambiarlos y escribir nuevas versiones y con nuevas perspectivas", asegura.
De hecho, Solnit ya lo hizo con
Cenicienta liberada (Bindi Books). No es la única. Jean Rhys (Dominica, 1890 - Gran Bretaña, 1979) escribió una preqüela [sic] de Jane Eyre, la célebre novela de Charlotte Brönte [sic], desde el punto de vista de la primera esposa de Rochester, Berta Mason:
Ancho mar de los Sargazos. (Sílvia Marimon Molas) (Translation)
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