By Fred Blosser
I
approached the 2013 Blu-Ray edition of André Téchiné’s “The Bronte
Sisters†(1979) with mild interest, which was mostly piqued by the powerhouse
casting of the three leading young actresses of 1970s French cinema -- Isabelle
Adjani, Isabelle Huppert, and Marie-France Pisier -- as Emily, Anne, and
Charlotte Bronte. Imagine a 2014 U.S.
film teaming Scarlett Johanssen, Jennifer Lawrence and Shailene Woodley. With vague memories of “Devotion,â€
Hollywood’s melodramatic 1946 Bronte biopic, I was doubtful that the film
itself would be particularly compelling.
But I was pleasantly surprised.
Relating the formative events in the lives of the three sisters and
their brother Branwell (Pascal Greggory) in straightforward, episodic form,
Téchiné’s interpretation is first-rate: excellently acted, emotionally moving,
and visually striking with starkly beautiful cinematography by Bruno Nuytten on
the Yorkshire moors where the Bronte siblings lived their sadly short lives.
In a new documentary about the making of the film, included as
an extra on the Cohen Film Collection Blu-Ray, Téchiné recalls that he wanted
to stay true to the facts of the Brontes’ lives without speculation or
embellishment. Similarly, he “demanded a
certain austerity of acting†from the cast to complement the unadorned style of
the narrative. Beginning with a scene in
which Branwell, proud but also uncertain about his talent, unveils his painting
of his three sisters and himself, the movie proceeds to cover decisive moments in the siblings’ lives. Emily, a free spirit, capers on the moors in
boy’s clothing. Charlotte, the quietly
ambitious sister, convinces their aunt to lend money so that she and Emily to
go abroad to school. Anne, the dutiful
one, stays behind to take care of their father, aunt, and brother.
Initially, this approach seems a bit cold and distant, but as
the movie continues, it becomes clear that Téchiné’s decision was a wise
one. The unfolding vignettes are quietly
powerful in illuminating the close and sometimes contentious relationships
between the sisters. This
matter-of-factness pays off especially well in the later segments of the film. As one tragedy after another besets the
family, the scenes relating to the deaths of Branwell, Emily, and Anne are all
the more affecting because they aren’t amped up with banal dialogue and syrupy
background music. Téchiné is helped
immensely by the costuming, set design and cinematography (as he acknowledges
in the making-of documentary), which recreate mid-19th Century England in
astonishing detail.
A certain playful sense of humor surfaces occasionally,
leavening the bleakness of the story. When the sisters submit their first novels as Acton, Currer, and Ellis
Bell, speculation runs wild in the publishing world: are they the same person,
are they male or female, are they a man and a woman collaborating? Deciding it’s time to reveal the sisters’ true
identities, Anne and Charlotte travel to London to meet with their publisher in
person. “I am Currer Bell, and that is Acton,†Charlotte says quietly when she
and Anne appear unexpectedly in the publisher’s office. “We are three sisters. There is no man.†Pisier delivers the lines with perfect
deadpan matter-of-factness.
Adjani, Huppert, and Pisier are luminous. Interviews in the making-of documentary
reveal that the actresses had a sometimes intense off-camera rivalry,
complicated by existing relationships with other people in the production
crew. (Téchiné and Pisier were friends;
Adjani and Nuytten were romantically attached.) It’s a measure of Téchiné’s talent and the actresses’ professionalism
that the three women convincingly project a sisterly bond of support and
affection, with perhaps the real-life rivalry only erupting strategically on
screen in scenes where the sisters’ love for each other is strained. I wish Patrick Magee (“Marat/Sade,†“A Clockwork
Orangeâ€) had more to do as the head of the Bronte family, and his distinctive
voice is lost because his lines are dubbed in French by someone else, but
nevertheless his presence is used effectively if sparingly, Bronte purists will be pleased that he,
Téchiné, and co-writer Pascal Bonitzer portray the Rev. Patrick Bronte
sympathetically as a caring father and progressive clergyman, reflecting modern
scholarship that refutes earlier prose and film portraits of Bronte as a
domestic tyrant.
In
addition to the making-of documentary, the Cohen Film Collection Blu-Ray
includes two trailers and an excellent audio commentary track by film critic
Wade Major and Bronte scholar Sue Lonoff de Cuevas. If you’re as unfamiliar with the subject
matter as I was, I might almost suggest that you listen to the commentary
before playing the movie, since Major and de Cuevas illuminate many details
about Bronte history and about the production aspects of the movie that
deepened my appreciation of the film. Although the making-of documentary doesn’t include Adjani or Huppert
(Pisier died in 2011), many of the other key cast and crew are
interviewed. This is an excellent
Blu-Ray package, highly recommended.
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