Emily, Is That You?

What? There's a movie coming out this month about Emily Bronte? (In the UK--there's no US release date yet.) Why didn't I know about this sooner? Let's watch the trailer (here's the link). 

Hmmm. Must've been the wrong link, the wrong trailer. That didn't look like Emily. Oh, wait, no, there's the title. Emily. Hmmm. Well then.

I admit first and foremost that I'm reacting to the trailer only. Trailers are generally sensationalized. Maybe the movie is completely different. But for the sake of conversation, here is why the trailer leaves me questioning whether I will even watch the film at all when it becomes available for me to watch. 

My Victorian novels professor liked to reference "the Bronte myth," this idea of the Bronte sisters as these wild figures wandering out on the moors. It's an idea that stirs up people's imaginations and has been in large part responsible for people's fascination with the sisters--but it's not an entirely factual look at the three small town, parson's daughters. A couple of years ago, we had that quiet film To Walk Invisible that aimed at showing the reality of the sisters' lives without sensationalizing them. This film is obviously taking a completely different direction and just sticking with the Bronte myth, adding to the embellishment. 

We get it. Emily was the more disturbed of the three sisters, if that's the word you want to use. Even though Charlotte is labeled the genius, the argument can be made that Wuthering Heights is a more perfect novel than any of the ones Charlotte wrote. And when you read the sisters' poetry, Emily generally has the best. There is obviously that "artistic disturbance" to her writing, that deep way of thinking about all aspects of life. And all of those thoughts were contained in one shy young woman who didn't like to venture out and was hesitant to share her writing even with her sisters. Of course our imaginations latch onto that and want to make it so melodramatic and modern.

I realize in watching the trailer that I know less about the specifics of Emily's life than I do about Charlotte's. I don't know whether her tutor friend in the trailer is based on a real person or not. I would imagine he is--unless the movie really is just throwing reality out the window. (By the way, is Branwell in this movie? What's a sensationalized Bronte film without the drunk brother?) But even if Emily had a close friendship with him in reality, what's this passionate kiss in the kitchen? Come on. Did we forget what era this is? This is why I sometimes have only so much patience for period films: they're too modern. And oh, yes, then we have to follow with her father's voice warning her about bringing shame on the family. Yes, father Bronte was harsh on his family--but let's call that what it was without having to add more to it. I sense the stirrings of modern, feminist perspective--and I don't think the Bronte sisters would have been modern feminists even if they had been born in the current era. But that's a whole conversation.

Yes, the fact that the sisters were women who were writing and then even publishing what they wrote went against the norm of society. It was quite bold of them. But those stirrings in the heart that lead many of us to write are common to humanity. I really love reading their writings and studying their lives; I can relate to a lot of things with them. But the Bronte sisters were just people. Emily Bronte was just a quiet woman living in a small town and thinking deep thoughts because she observed so much life in every little thing she saw. That's why her novel is set similarly in a small town dealing with a very isolated set of people. It's all about getting to the humanity of it. 

The Brontës Who Walked and Lived

I approach movies based on the novels of the Brontës with hesitation: some are good, while others are so far from the content or theme of the original that it hardly seems fair to slap the same title on them. I've literally stopped watching at least one no more than ten minutes in. It would follow, then, that I might wonder how filmmmakers would approach a movie about the Brontës themselves.

2016's To Walk Invisible (written and directed by Sally Wainwright), however, does not aim at romanticizing or embellishing. As such, it is quite a stark film. It just shows life--how three women in the nineteenth century came to be published writers. Emily, the fiery and bold one who is somehow also the most private one. Anne, the solidly good woman, the peaceful spirit in spite of all she has seen in life. Charlotte, somewhere in between the two. Then also their brother Branwell, who has given in to the worst of life and so has, essentially, chosen alcoholism over the childhood hopes of writing. Their father, who is getting up in years.

The very title suggests the anonymity and quietness of these sisters (in certain contexts) and the film does indeed show it. They talk amongst themselves and they talk to others, but they are also largely silent even during moments when a modern script might inaccurately choose to have them speak. For instance, their father will come in and speak to the sisters are length, then leave. They listen but don't speak. Not because they had nothing to say but because that was the place of a nineteenth century woman. We're used to period films in which the women are always talking, but that's because the scenes are either inaccurate or because they mainly take place in social situations. Day to day life for a Victorian woman included much silence. This film expressed that--and not in a way that criticizes it, either. Charlotte still goes to talk to her father about important matters and to give her opinion and they have a good relationship; things were just different.

What captivates me (and so many of us) about the Brontës is their blending of fantasy and reality. Charlotte uses the greatest touch of fantasy in her writing. But even Emily, who would seem not to, who would seem to be writing about very harsh and real things, is writing with this sense of the fantastical. What is so captivating is that these women loved imagination and they also had very much seen the real world and all that it is (both the good and the bad) and so they saw the importance of real life. They, in a sense, saw that fantastical quality in real life--and then wrote about real life in a way that gave it that elevated sense of meaning.

That's what this film reminded me. Real life can be brutal. Real life can be gorgeous. Real life can be dull. Real life can be exciting. Life, with all of its intensities, whether family, friends, sickness, wealth or lack of, weather, fear, faith--life.

Sometimes it is when we walk quietly that we are able to see all that life is. Maybe no one even sees us as we're doing so--but it doesn't matter because we are living. The Brontës didn't create their great work later on when all the world knew their names (well, okay, Charlotte did some of it once she became publicly respected, but even then her fame wasn't to the degree that it is today). They did it in the quiet--and they would have done so even if time forgot them. Do you see what I mean? It's great when time remembers people (like John Keats) who didn't receive much recognition during their lives. But the truly wondrous thing is that, even if time forgets your name, if you lived, then that is your incredible achievement and it is not negated.

Titles for the Fall

With fall, I would think that there would be plenty of stories to mention the fall harvest and that sort of angle. Plenty of them do mention the harvest briefly, but it usually doesn't seem to form the center of a story for the simple reason that the fall harvest is a good time and stories need conflict in order to have any sort of plot. So it's more common for stories to have an overall sense of the decay and overall windiness of fall than of the bounty of the harvest. At random, I've chosen three titles to touch on today.

"The Fall of the House of Usher" by Edgar Allan Poe. I mentioned decay, so naturally I was thinking of this story. It's all about decay: the decay of the house and the decay of the people in it and the decay of the family in general. For a dark look at fall, this is the story. Since it's Poe, it naturally also ties in well with Halloween. More, though, than the "spooky" elements of the story, it's the elements of nature that he describes that make this story fit in so well with the atmosphere of a season of the weather.

Silas Marner by George Eliot. I don't remember if this short book focuses in particular on any one season. But the overall feel of it has always made me think of fall. Silas Marner is, in many ways, at the autumn of his life. He is no longer young and he has nothing to make him look forward to the next day--and when he loses his gold, he loses all his happiness. Yet he finds a new kind of gold in the form of a gold-haired child who falls into his lap and becomes a daughter to him. The color gold, simply, is reminiscent of autumn because it's the color that many green leaves turn. And the sense of the old that will soon be replaced by the young is very much like the changing seasons: the blooms and green grasses and leaves fall and fade away in autumn to make way for fresh ones to come in spring.

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. Probably this book has more of winter in it than spring, but it feels more like fall. There is so much talk about the wind and the isolation and the moors and the wind, all of these harsher elements of weather. And then there is Heathcliff. He is Nature, this inexplicable and unstoppable force, this harsh element of weather that rushes in and takes over for a season before fading away again. He's too alive to be winter; instead, I think of him as fall (winter is his death). Here is a combination of the previous two titles in the sense of darkness and seasons that will change.

From a daily perspective, no, I don't think of fall itself as dark. It's an exciting time, when the weather cools off enough to start going outside again more often (or at more times of the day). While the wildflowers of spring are beautiful, so can be the dry grasses of autumn. And with the holidays coming up, you start getting a nesting feeling that takes you into the short days of December. So, no, I don't think of fall as dark; it's just that there are some wonderful dark elements to books that focus on the changing of seasons.

Star Wars & Wuthering Heights

I was thinking about the first time I read Wuthering Heights. I was thirteen, and I don't remember being particularly disturbed by it or even needing to define or give reason to its plot or its aims (I waited until college to start thinking about its theme). But it was always a story of compelling, memorable characters and settings.

Which all reminds me much of my experience with Star Wars. When I was young, I looked at the costumes (which are what define the characters, though I didn't think of it in that way at the time) and at the different locations and sets. I liked the blue milk that Aunt Beru pours, the way that Luke throws the poncho over his head on the way to the Millennium Falcon's docking bay (side note: the only thing that The Force Awakens was missing was a poncho--Episodes VI and I both had ponchos), the pink clouds above Bespin, the way Luke comes out in ROTJ looking all cool dressed in black and using the Force, the green trees on Endor, all of these things were Star Wars to me.

And then I got older and started to think about what it all meant--after I had already absorbed and memorized everything.

So on to my comparison. I want to cover (quickly) four items.

Generations

Wuthering Heights (I'll just call them WH and SW) can be confusing to read the first time because it deals with multiple generations and they mostly all have variations off of two or three names. Confusing names aside, SW also deals with generations--and in the same mixed up order. First you see (in SW) the children, then you go back and see the parents, and then you go forward and see the children's children. So both stories blend and constantly reflect back on not only the personal identity of the characters but also their parentage--and the way that their parentage affects them. Sometimes they have a positive legacy from their parents and sometimes it is a negative one. Either way, they're all in it together because they're family and it's the family that the audience is focusing on.

Good/Evil

SW is an obvious story of good versus evil, with the Force representing both sides and with characters struggling to stay on one side of the spectrum. WH is a little more complicated and certainly less direct: there are characters you would describe as good and characters you would describe as bad and characters that are either good or bad at different moments. But I think you are aware as you read of this concept of different people making different choices about what they do and therefore about who they are. Whether or not WH is a story about good and evil, it is a story that dwells on both the positive and the negative.

The Villain

And both WH and SW have a memorable, ruthless villain. Darth Vader was a legend as soon as he first walked on screen; even though he was almost flat for most of the time (before you learned about who he was and therefore about the conflict that came to define his character), he was so established that it didn't matter. He is powerful and terrifying and unforgiving. Heathcliff is similar in his colorful characterization: you read him and you can just imagine him there and you do not want to ever meet him because he is so cruel. Whether or not you can apply the word evil to him is debatable (as everything is): he sort of just is. He does act evil at many times (though you kind of wonder if Cathy had married him and they had just gone off to live quietly away together if maybe he wouldn't have been that bad--but that's irrelevant because she didn't). Either way, they're both known as villains (unless you've only watched bad WH movies where Heathcliff is portrayed as a lover--yes, there's a love story in WH but it isn't like that at all).

Healing

Ah, the best part. You know, SW is one of my favorite fictional representations of redemption. You have Darth Vader, a completely evil figure, and you learn that he was once a man and you see him decide that he regrets his choices--and he chooses to forsake his past and become a new person, someone good again. The generation of evil ends with that one choice and he frees his son (and daughter) to start a new era free from the Emperor. In WH, the healing also comes with a new generation. At the end of the novel, both Heathcliff and Cathy are dead and it is Hareton and young Cathy who are alive, finding peace and essentially declaring a resolution to be content, if that is the right way of putting it. They are setting aside the "sins of the father" so to speak and choosing to move on with their lives like regular people, finding some happiness after all that's happened. A new generation and a new start.

Both stories have intense imagery, of people, of places, of actions, and of emotions. There is strong conflict and quite a bit of darkness. But in the end both stories find a quiet place, a place where hope can grow even after all the bitterness and hate--and that is the kind of hope that is inspiring, otherwise it means nothing.

Oh, and my songs for this post are Breaking Benjamin's "Great Divide" and "Ashes of Eden."

 

Wuthering Heights: Seasons of Good & Ill

I wasn't even going to write anything about this movie until I glanced at the Netflix reviews and saw that, with a couple of exceptions, most of them were terrible. Really? Was it really as bad as that?

The thing is, I've never watched another movie adaption of Wuthering Heights. I just couldn't, ironically, stomach any others. I only started watching one and stopped a few minutes in: it was too ridiculously different from the book. Although I believe that there is a love story within the book, there is much more to it--and it is a very specific kind of love story.

The 2011 adaptation of Wuthering Heights by Andrea Arnold was, from start to finish, confusing and disturbing. Slow, too. But that, my friends, is why I could stomach it. The novel is confusing and disturbing and multi-layered (which can force slower reading). It's a brilliant masterpiece, but it is also confusing and disturbing. So for the movie to include these rather non-cinematic traits was, in my view, a success, whatever else the film did or did not do. Everything that is outside of the cinematic norm (from the lack of music, the often close camera angles, the dialogue shown from a distance, the quietness, the nature shots, the violence, etc.) is what helps make this movie different and moving in a much more methodical way.

That isn't to say I loved everything about this movie. For instance, while the cinematography constantly likened Heathcliff to Nature, implying the theory that the cycles of violence in the story are just seasons of Nature that will run their course and then pass away, there is no cycle after Heathcliff. There is no story of the "new generation" that takes over once Heathcliff and Cathy and Linton are all gone. But, as I understand it, this isn't something that most films include, anyway. And it's understandable: the plot is long, convoluted, confusing, and circular. It's a great plot, but a difficult one to portray on film. So while this version may not have portrayed all the cycles, at least it got one near right.

It needs at least a mention to address the (first) casting of Heathcliff as black. What could have been a complicated introduction of race into the story felt, in fact, more subtle. It simply helps to emphasize, for modern audiences, Heathcliff's isolation. In the book, he does look like an outsider and he is nearly always treated this way; the casting just gives a visual to this difference. It also helps to further liken Heathcliff with Nature. In the scene where he starts covering Cathy in mud, it isn't as if he's trying to make her black--it's as if he's trying to connect her deeper with the earth.

All this said, I still wouldn't recommend the movie to most viewers. It's more of an art house film, and yes, you're right if you call some of it disturbing (but I thought The Hunger Games was disturbing, and look how popular that was). So watch it if you're familiar with the book and want to ponder one visual approach to the story.

Whisking Up the Poems Again

Back in March, I wrote about some of my favorite poems from the Brontës in a copy I got from the university library. While the copy of my own I have now acquired is not nearly as exciting in looks, it appears to be pretty much the same in content--and font/typeset/whatever-you-would-call-that.

This copy is part of the Classic Reprint Series and was in fact just published last year. While it is an unexciting paperback, it was also a simple price of eight dollars--compare that to other prices you might find for Poems and you'll appreciate what this series does. It's making rarer, "Forgotten Books" available to the public at an affordable price. And what I was trying to explain about the "typeset" was that I believe the format and font and everything of this book is identical to the original published copy of Poems. Hence the phrase "classic reprint" rather than simply "forgotten classics." In the back, there is even a page with original advertisements for the sisters' novels--which, you'll note, were published after the first publication of Poems.

If you go to the Forgotten Books website, you can download up to five ebook versions for free if, unlike me, you prefer ebooks to physical copies.

Neglected, Little, Splendid Brontë Poems

But alas, the library due date for my copy of Poems has come yet again and I've decided I shouldn't keep renewing it anymore. How I shall miss thee, dearie, little book. I was beginning to think you were mine, so accustomed had I grown to seeing you perching on my desk.

As you can see, this copy was the 1978 edition by Rowman and Littlefield. The library had two different versions and while the other was a much earlier edition, I chose this one because it still referred to the sisters under their pseudonyms (Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell). I thought that meant it would be more like the original copy they published.

Being such a, ah, fan of the Brontës, it was a pleasure to read their poems, even if they are recognized (almost only) for their novels. True, some of the poems in here weren't the most wonderful in the world, but some were rather good and all of them helped to illuminate the sisters' writing as a whole.

Although Charlotte is the one I claim to have the greatest connection with, often Emily's poems seemed to come across with the greatest (or most often) strength, making me wonder why they aren't read more. Maybe I can see why the casual reader wouldn't read them, but why don't literary scholars read them more? In classes I have taken as an undergraduate, there are poems we have read that I felt weren't as "good" as some of the ones in this book. (Of course, I understand that, as a scholar, you read things for a variety of reasons: it may be their artistic merit, their subject matter, their popularity at the time they were written, etc.).

As much for my own records as anyone else's, I kept notes on which poems stood out while I read. From Charlotte: "Mementos," "Frances," "The Teacher's Monologue," "Preference," "Evening Solace," and "the Missionary." The last one, naturally, reminded me of St. John: I'm beginning to see his character in a new way and reading this poem helped me see just what Charlotte may have intended with his character. From Emily: "Stars," "The Philosopher," "Remembrance," "The Prisoner," "Hope," "Sympathy," "Plead For Me," and "The Old Stoic."While some of Charlotte's poems I marked because of how they reminded me of her other writings, Emily's poems were often very good on their own. She seems to be the one who got the most out of this format (although I really shouldn't compare them). From Anne: "Home," "Memory," "The Student's Serenade," and "Fluctuations." While I certainly marked less of her poems, you have to love Anne's artistic voice. "Fluctuations" was actually the last poem in the collection and it was very beautiful. (It also reminded me somewhat of Midnight Sun. Enough said on that sub-topic.)

Now I sigh. I'll have to get my own copy of Brontë poems someday.

On the Brontë Treasure Trove

I first picked up my (first) copy of Jane Eyre when I was around ten. I was browsing the Barnes & Noble children's classics and thought the cover, the mysterious plot summary on the back, and the hints at Charlotte's dark/sad early life influencing the book all looked rather interesting. I couldn't at the time put a name to what was drawing me in: the Gothic.

It wasn't until a year or two later than I actually got through reading the book (I had started it, but been unable to continue). I read Emily's Wuthering Heights not long after, and followed about a year later with Charlotte's Villette. Within the next three years, I had also read her Shirley and Anne's Agnes Grey. Sometime around my first year of college, I finally got to Charlotte's The Professor and somewhere in there I also read two of her novellas written in her teens. I may have thought something along the lines of, oh, I've read all her books now, all Emily's, and have only one left of Anne's (The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, which has been sitting waiting on my bookshelf for years).

Not.

I'm only beginning to grasp the vastness of Brontë material that's out there. I picked up a copy of the sisters' poems at the school library and I've been reading a couple a day. While some you could call simple, others are quite good, especially Emily's. And I have a copy of Charlotte's Tales of Angria--and there are plenty of Angrian tales not in that volume. While Angria was the fantasy world Charlotte and her brother Branwell wrote about, Emily and Anne wrote about Gondal--so there are the Gondal stories, also. Then there are the handy copies Selected Letters of Charlotte Brontë and The Belgian Essays. Some of this material is relatively new to publication. What may seem like material just for scholars is available to everyone.

Just think about the amazingness of that. With a few clicks online, you can have pages and pages of Brontë material at your disposal. The seven novels are just the start. These sisters wrote. A lot. So to only read their novels (especially to only read Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre) is to ignore all the rest of what's out there. It's like a Tolkien fanatic only reading The Lord of the Rings (okay, I don't know that the Brontës had as many piles of notes as Tolkien did, but who does?)

Happy reading.

Helen: The Modern Cathy?

I usually try and spread out my posts on Primeval, but I don't have another topic I really want to focus on right now and my Primeval posts have been getting a decent amount of views, so here I go with more rambling about the show.

Cathy, assiduous readers will recall, is from Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights (and it is Cathy senior I am discussing). Cathy is, of course, at the center of a love triangle with Heathcliff and Linton--she chooses Linton, but really loves Heathcliff. She is also, at certain points, sort of like the unrestrained feminine force. She even seems on the psycho side at times. (It's things like this that make the novel so entertaining to read and analyze . . . )

Like Cathy, Primeval's Helen sets up her own triangle. Back when she was married to Nick, she had an affair with Stephen. In Seasons 1 and 2, Helen seems to go back and forth between the two, trying to gain the trust of whichever one she thinks will listen to her. It doesn't take long for Cutter to dismiss her, so it is Stephen who ends up trusting her (essentially to his doom, you could melodramatically say). Would that make Cutter Helen's Linton and Stephen her Heathcliff? Maybe. But you could also argue for the opposite. Cutter also becomes the man Helen can't have (since he keeps rejecting her), like Heathcliff (although Cathy could have chosen Heathcliff--sort of).

Let me return to the "unrestrained feminine force" idea. Helen is completely mad. And completely smart and driven. She's disturbing because she always lies and we hardly ever know everything she knows or what exactly her plan is. She says things against humanity, but always comes back to humanity--back to the ARC, to Cutter, to Stephen. I suppose you could say that she's disturbing to Stephen because she's desirable, even though he knows what her personality is like. Is she femininity gone completely off? Sort of. Although this isn't because she has been, like a nineteenth century character, suppressed--it's just because she's Helen.

I wonder what Cathy would think about Helen. She might think Helen has some good ideas, but I think Cathy would be very unlike Helen if she were born today. If that were the case, would she have had any reason to ever pick Linton over Heathcliff? The two of them could have just lived their life together, not like Helen who had to constantly be discovering new things and feeling in power essentially over existence. Since Helen's character isn't responding to repressed Victorian women's ideals, she has to respond to other things. Technology, science, ethics, knowledge, awareness, privacy and publicity, that sort of thing.