Emily Interview: Emma Mackey and the Cast on the Brontë Sister Dynamic
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 ต.ค. 2024
- You’re likely well aware of the classic Wuthering Heights, but what about the voice behind the iconic 1847 novel? That’s exactly what Frances O’Connor digs into in her feature directorial debut, Emily, starring Emma Mackey as Wuthering Heights author, Emily Brontë.
Given the degree of mystery surrounding Emily and the Brontë family, O’Connor takes a part fact and part speculation approach to her story. Emily is the second-youngest of the Brontë siblings. There’s Alexandra Dowling’s Charlotte, Branwell Brontë played by Fionn Whitehead, Mackey’s Emily, and then the youngest of the Brontë siblings, Amelia Gething’s Anne. All bonded, all quite different, and all feeling some form of pressure courtesy of inner demons and/or societal expectations. In Emily’s case, she’s forced to navigate an oppressive patriarchy and being branded “the strange one” in order to find and embrace her true vocation.
In celebration of Emily’s world premiere at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival, O’Connor, Mackey, Dowling, Gething, and Oliver Jackson-Cohen who plays William Weightman, the local curate, all visited the Collider Supper Suite and Media Studio at Marbl to discuss their experience bringing O’Connor’s vision to screen.
Special thanks to our TIFF 2022 partners A-list Communications, Belvedere Vodka, Marbl Toronto, COVERGIRL Canada, Tres Amici Wines, Toronto Star, and Blue Moon Belgian White beer.
#emmamackey #oliverjacksoncohen #emily
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Though at first I was horrified by the fact that the film takes such liberties with the true Bronte story, as best we know it, I changed my mind as it does not claim to be the real story and I feel this helps it to capture the real spirit of Emily. People commenting that she was shy, small, quiet, are missing something. In fact she was tall, and could be outspoken, as with Heger in Brussels. Emma Mackey was my Emily exactly.
What most biographies fail to put across is antagonism between both Emily and Branwell and Patrick the father, because they both absolutely rejected his Christianity. This fact that they were in effect 'partners in crime' comes across well in the film though. The BBC film, 'To Walk Invisible departed from the usual in showing Branwell swearing at his father over his 'stupid religion'. I think Fionn misses this when he talks of the security of having a parson for a father. Imagine being tutored all your life by a father whose beliefs you despised; that was a large part of the reason for Branwell's downfall.
Emily was not shy, and certainly not autistic, as some have recently suggested (her understanding of human interactions and emotion was exceptional as demonstrated in Wuthering Heights). She simply despised small talk and kept quiet on matters that would stir up the dysfunction in the family. Anne was the most conventionally Christian for the time, and Charlotte also believed in the Christian god, while Emily saw god as a force in nature and 'in her breast'. In her poems though, it was a different matter and she put across exactly what she thought, which is why she was so angry with Charlotte for reading them. Charlotte was not capable of understanding Emily, as demonstrated by the way she rewrote her poems after her death, changing words inappropriately.
Something else that is never put across honestly in most biographies and films, including this one, is Branwell's (and Patrick's) involvement in Freemasonry. John Brown, Sexton and Branwell's friend was a significant figure in the local lodge and introduced Branwell to Freemasonry where he rapidly got promoted to master. There is much evidence that freemasons in the area gained wealth by a scam involving them becoming witnesses to wills. This I think could be what really happened with Mrs Robinson and why Branwell protested so much. He blatantly said that his only hope for escaping his troubles was to marry Mrs Robinson and gain the wealth she inherited ailing husband died; a despicable thing that shows us the rogue in Branwell. The threat to his life that later came to him if he ever saw Mrs Robinson again, may well have come, I think from his fellow freemasons who stopped him from inheriting, and probably threatened the woman too. Wills were their business! The book, 'Charlotte Bronte's Thunder', though mostly a far-fetched attempt to claim that Charlotte revealed the awful truth in her books through anagrams and masonic symbols, contains a lot of detail about this takeover of wills, with reference to research into actual wills of the time that were involved in the scam.
The movie is very beautiful. Especially the camera work and the soundtrack is outstanding
I hate how they made up the relationship between W and E. 🙄
Perri You rock !
Nice
This interview was GREAT
🙌🙌🙌
@@PerriNemiroff It really was. U were great ❤️