Meanwhile, on the moors
'Emily' gives voice to literary giant Bronte
Frances O’Connor’s lifelong fascination with Emily Bronte has spurred her writing-directing debut with “Emily,” a portrait of the indomitable 19th century author of “Wuthering Heights.”
“Wuthering Heights” remains a bewitching portrait of a brutal, complicated antihero in Heathcliff, obsessed with Catherine who cannot marry him due to class differences and instead marries Edgar. In death Heathcliff remains haunted by great love.
“These rebellious characters really stayed with me. I just felt I always wished I knew who she was,” O’Connor, 55, began. “So, knowing I wanted to write and direct my first film, I wanted something that I felt very passionate about — and also something to do with female authenticity and female voice.
“I felt I could locate those themes in ‘Emily’ because she was so original with this fierce intelligence.”
O’Connor’s film is, “The story about a young woman trying to find her voice.”
This Bronte’s life of solitude was ideal. “Emily really engineered her life so that she could just be at home and write. Anytime she left home, she would get sick and had to return to the parsonage,” O’Connor confirmed. “She set a life up where she could have all these domestic duties but really live a life of solitude and quietness on the roads around the house. She had all this time to write which is pretty smart I think on her part.
“Within the film we play with elements of the novel ‘Wuthering Heights.’ We get into her biography where I set up this thing between Emily and her brother Brantwell as a little bit like Heathcliff and Cathy. And the curate William Weightman would be here as Edgar.”
Emily Bronte died at 30, never having married. Yet “Emily” presents a torrid affair between Emily and the curate.
Citing their history, O’Connor explained, “There was a period of time where it was Brantwell, Emily and Weightman kicking around the parsonage for a couple of years. I just thought, ‘Well what happens?’ I don’t think she had an affair, but she might have been watching these guys in terms of prototypes for Heathcliff and Edgar.
“Weightman was a real person. He was an incredible flirt. Everybody fell in love with him,” she added. “He died when Emily went away to Brussels. For my story, it’s important that she connects to someone on her journey to become who she is.
“And for her to fall in love with the patriarchy and the patriarchy to reject her and say, ‘There’s something ungodly about you!’ is just very helpful for what I want to say in the film.”