Zero and I went to see the new film Emily, about Emily Bronte. The opening scene shows Emily's death bed, and her older sister Charlotte asking her from where she got the inspiration for her novel Wuthering Heights. The film then takes up that theme of a search for the inspiration, not so much for the novel, as for the inspiration that lay in Emily's own life. And it does this by reading into Emily's life episodes from the novel, and adding a bit of fictionalising that is not present in the novel. At the time of seeing the film I had no familiarity at all with Wuthering Heights, and my efforts at reading Anne Bronte some years ago did not go anywhere. Charlotte Bronte, however, has been thoroughly read over the years. As a result of my unfamiliarity with Wuthering Heights, though, I came out of the film completely baffled by it.
As I post, I am now about one third of the way through Wuthering Heights, and so it becomes possible to have a more intelligent appreciation of the film. If you have not read Wuthering Heights, much of this film will pass you by. One interesting aspect of the film is the way in which, by reading episodes of Wuthering Heights into the relationship between Emily and her brother Branwell, it suggests that the novel's portrayal of the relationship between Cathy and Heathcliff takes inspiration from that in real life between Emily and Branwell. I suspect that the film makes rather more of this idea than is really there (some of the transference from fiction to life is almost as literal as to be direct quotation), but a comparison of the two relationships is probably worth a master's dissertation for someone. More easily, one can think that the account of Mr Earnshaw's dissipated life in Wuthering Heights drew in part on Emily's experience of her brother's alcohol and drug addiction.
A first element of pure fictionalising in the film is Emily's romantic affair with the curate of the parish, of which her father is the incumbent. A second element is the scene with Branwell, where he and Emily are shown on the moors acclaiming in favour of "freedom in thought", and having those words inscribed on their forearms. The romance in particular is portrayed in somewhat soap operatic way, and lacks real conviction. And whilst Haworth probably has a tattoo parlour now, I suspect it did not have one in the Bronte's time! Both scenes represent a reading of a theme from the 21st century back into the 19th century in a way that is rather false to the situation of the Bronte family. The film makers might delight in expressing this in terms of making the story attractive to a younger audience, but that is a thin disguise for the falsity involved.
Alongside the more or less blatant fictionalising, there are other ways in which the film attempts to be very realistic. Scenes inside the parsonage at Howarth do look as if they have been filmed in a way that accurately reflects the rooms of the house itself (though it is too long since our visit to Haworth for me to be able to judge that definitively). Branwell's employment on a local railway station is true to life. There is also an attempt to represent the proximity of the moors to the parsonage. It is easy to recognise that the placing of Wuthering Heights on the moors of Yorkshire draws on Emily's experience of the moors above Haworth; but it's portrayal in Emily is, frankly, embarrassing.
At one point during a "Questions and Answers" at the Toronto International Film Festival 2022, where Emily premiered, there is a question about the cinematography. It occurs at about 14:38 in this Youtube clip: Emily Q & A: TIFF 2022. I have no idea who the cinematrographers referenced in Frances O'Connor's response are, but it was particularly the scenes (supposedly) shot on the moors that left me unconvinced. Even a gently waving tree branch at one point was not enough to drive the possibility from my mind that the scene had been shot in a studio with effects for the backdrop. I certainly do not think anyone would roll down the side of the moor above Haworth as Emily and Branwell are shown doing in the film without coming to grief very quickly on the rough ground. I was highly amused by the scene showing Ellen Nussey jumping down from a stile, which did not show either the stile or the ground onto which Ellen jumped ..... see above about the thoughts of shooting in studio. Filming took place in Yorkshire and, I believe, at least in part in Haworth, in April/May 2021. Perhaps therein lies the clue to its problem in portraying the moors effectively, as this is a rather short filming timescale to capture the different moods of the moors live. Thunder and storms can perhaps readily and fairly be taken from Wuthering Heights into the film, but they appeared to me as badly chosen from a special effects CD that might be used in theatre; and, at one point, as if there were a screen of "rain" played between the camera and the actors. In two scenes, the parsonage window is opened and delightful bird song heard .... again, it sounded too much like a badly chosen track from an effects CD, as I suspect the Yorkshire moors would more typically host the harsher sound of crows or jackdaws.
There is one point on which the film touches but which it does not in my view fully develop, and that is the relationship between the three Bronte sisters. There are points where Emily's aloofness from her sisters and the resulting drama is portrayed (eg the mask scene) but I want to explore this more fully in reading a biography of the sisters.
Even now that I have gained a greater awareness of the film's intentions through reading Wuthering Heights, I think I am still finding the film to be rather unsatsifying. Which seems to contrast with other reviews ....
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