In the damp moor, under a leaden sky, she runs, a slender silhouette with a feverish gaze. Her name is Emily, Emily Brontë, and as evidenced by her novel The Wuthering Heights, his sensitivity is matched only by his brilliance. Not that she knows, not that she was told. Her voice, she does not seek it as long as she tries to impose it in this XIXe century in which the literary genius of a woman is more tolerated than celebrated. But she is determined to be heard, to be considered, even if it means jostling, even if it means transgressing. With Emily, Frances O’Connor signs a remarkable first production, with an incandescent Emma Mackey in the title role. We spoke to them exclusively.
“I’ve loved Emily Brontë for… for so long that I’ve forgotten when,” confides Frances O’Connor, with whom we spoke at length at TIFF last fall.
“I identify with her, probably because she was an introvert too. She represents to me this idea that you have to be yourself, whether or not it is deemed acceptable according to the dominant mentality. And it goes without saying, I love his novel, The Wuthering Heights : I always wondered how could be – really be – the one who imagined this story. »
Although she does not play in her first film, Frances O’Connor is first and foremost an accomplished actress, whose talent moviegoers have been able to admire, among other things, in Mansfield Park (Letters from Mansfield Park), superb adaptation of the Jane Austen novel by Patricia Rozema, and HAVE (AI Artificial intelligence), no less remarkable adaptation by Steven Spielberg of an unfinished project by Stanley Kubrick.
The writing process spanned ten years, to pursue Frances O’Connor. “I came back to it between my different engagements, each time with a salutary perspective. I was able to carefully reflect, deepen, discard or choose many biographical and fictitious aspects. In such a way that I ended up with a very complete, very dense and organic final version. »
The truth of fiction
These “biographical and fictitious aspects” bear witness to both a quest for historical truth and a desire to tell stories. Seemingly contradictory, these two poles align perfectly in the film.
“While I was doing my research, I already knew that I would not confine myself to only established historical facts. It was also out of the question for me to shoot a linear biography. And then, I wanted not only to integrate The Wuthering Heights to the story, but to echo it in the very existence of Emily: it is such a passionate novel, so full of exacerbated feelings…”
Two characteristics which, precisely, contradict the austere vision that we still have of the young author. And if, all this time, we had confused the personality of Emily Brontë with the rigorous environment in which she lived, father pastor obliges?
I was a fan of her novel, but I confess that I knew very little about the life of Emily Brontë. Reading the script, I was very curious. Curious to find out more about this woman…
Hence this illicit liaison with William Weightman, the young vicar who was really a regular in the Brontë household, but whom the filmmaker reinvents as a torn lover of the exalted Emily. An addition to rose water? On the contrary: we are in pure Gothic romance as practiced by the author.
“Beyond this kind of mirror game between her life and her work, there was, for me, something natural in this relationship, in the way it fits into Emily’s inner journey as I tell it. Obviously, it’s an impossible love, since William is a supporter of patriarchy and narrow religious dictates, while Emily is close to the elements and has this furious and beautiful energy. She lives for creation, for art. William has that in him, hence his attraction, but he suppresses his artistic impulses. Dramatically speaking, it’s rich. Emily is human because she has this overflow of feelings within her, while William is human because he is inconsistent with his feelings. »
However, Frances O’Connor does not neglect those close to her heroine, portraying with acuity the complex family dynamics between Emily and Branwell, this tormented painter brother, as well as between her, Charlotte and Anne, these two sisters who are also poets and authors.
Immersion and proximity
Finally, if the period reconstruction turns out to be as precise as it is evocative, the filmmaker’s gaze on the protagonist is, on the other hand, resolutely modern.
“This context of the nineteenthe century becomes almost incidental, opines FrancesO’Connor. What interested me above all was to make this emblematic literary figure human. I wanted to generate a closeness between her and the public; make the audience feel like he’s there with her. Hence this work on sound: the noise of the wind and that of the birds, the rain, the breaths, which are sometimes slightly amplified, as if to play with the unconscious of the public… This hand-held camera, very soft but very alive, it was there for an immersive purpose. »
During this cinematographic adventure which will have lasted more than a decade, Frances O’Connor’s perception of her idol grew in complexity as her level of admiration increased. However, there is an immutable observation, an observation that the filmmaker summarizes as follows:
“When all is lost, the possibility of creating remains. To write, when nothing is going well, and to transform misfortune into beauty…”
The film “Emily» hits theaters February 24.