The Brontë sisters
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The Brontë sisters |
| Original title | Les Sœurs Brontë |
| Country of production | France |
| original language | French |
| Publishing year | 1979 |
| length | 120 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | André Téchiné |
| script | André Téchiné, Pascal Bonitzer , Jean Gruault |
| production |
Yves Gasser , Klaus Hellwig , Yves Peyrot |
| music | Philippe Sarde |
| camera | Bruno Nuytten |
| cut | Claudine Merlin |
| occupation | |
| |
The Brontë sisters (Original title: Les Sœurs Brontë ) is a French film drama by André Téchiné from 1979. It tells the life of the Brontë siblings , who are played by Isabelle Adjani , Marie-France Pisier , Isabelle Huppert and Pascal Greggory .
action
West Yorkshire around 1836: In Haworth , a small English town in the middle of a barren landscape, the four siblings Charlotte , Branwell , Emily and Anne Brontë live with their elderly father , a pastor, their strict aunt and their governess Tabby. Branwell, who tries his hand at painting, has just completed a portrait of himself and his sisters. He strives for an artistic career and befriends the sculptor Joseph Leyland in a town. He has to admit, however, that he cannot compete with the emerging photography . Like his sisters, he therefore wants to devote himself more to poetry. In addition to writing poetry, Emily prefers to roam the surrounding moors. The fact that she always wears trousers, which is not appropriate for a woman, and that she also comes home dirty, meets with incomprehension at Tabby. Occasionally Emily is accompanied by Anne on her hikes. When Anne picks wild roses by a watercourse and is delighted by their beauty, Emily says that she prefers the husk , which is green in winter, to the flowers that fade quickly . Emily then angrily pounds the flowers. Charlotte, the most ambitious of the siblings, hopes to be able to publish her and her sisters' works, but a potential benefactor advises her in a letter not to assert herself as a woman in a male domain.
Four years later, Anne worked as a governess for the Robinsons, a wealthy family with a large estate. Meanwhile, Charlotte, who wants to open a school in Haworth, persuades her aunt to give her and Emily enough money to travel to Belgium , where Charlotte wants to improve her French. Once in Brussels , Charlotte falls in love with her teacher, Monsieur Heger. The death of their aunt causes Emily and Charlotte to return home soon after. While Emily is happy to be home again and takes care of the sad Branwell, Charlotte can hardly wait to return to Brussels and see Monsieur Heger again. The married teacher, however, coolly rejects them.
Through Anne, Branwell gets a job with the Robinsons as tutor to young Edmund. While Branwell is treated from above by the strict master of the house, Mrs. Robinson feels increasingly drawn to Branwell and finally lets himself into an affair with him. When Anne learns about this, she resigns and returns home with Branwell. Charlotte also returns to Haworth after learning that her father is gradually going blind. Both Charlotte and Branwell suffer from lovesickness. However, Branwell still has hope for a future together with Mrs. Robinson, since the death of her sick husband is only a matter of time. After Mr. Robinson's death, however, Mrs. Robinson Branwell sends a letter declaring their relationship over. A clause in her husband's will forced her to choose between her heart and her husband's fortune. Emily finds the devastated Branwell in the moor and brings him back home, where he washes his image out of the portrait he painted of himself and his sisters that same night. In the following years he hides in his bed and becomes addicted to laudanum . One evening a storm kindles a fire in his room, which Branwell, unconscious from laudanum, does not notice. His sisters can barely save him from the flames.
Impressed by a poem by her sister, Charlotte manages to persuade Emily to publish her poem. Based on a joint volume of poetry , the three sisters each have a novel published under the male pseudonyms Ellis, Acton and Currer Bell: Emily's Sturmhöhe , Annes Agnes Gray and Charlotte's Jane Eyre . Although Emily's novel has received harsh criticism for the wildness of its male protagonist, all three novels cause a sensation in London's literary circles. The true identity and gender of the three authors are quickly speculated, whereupon Charlotte and Anne decide to introduce themselves to their publisher George Smith. Meanwhile, Branwell dies of malnutrition caused by opium . Emily and Anne, in turn, develop tuberculosis . Unlike the obedient Anne, Emily refuses to seek medical attention and insists on taking care of the household as usual. When she finally agrees to see a doctor, it is already too late. After her funeral, Anne got worse and worse. At her request, Charlotte takes her to the sea, which Anne has never seen. Anne dies before she goes home.
Charlotte, with only her frail father by her side, marries the assistant pastor Arthur Nicholls and concentrates again on her career as a writer. Together with Arthur she finally travels to London, where she visits the opera at the invitation of her publisher George Smith and makes the acquaintance of the renowned writer William Makepeace Thackeray .
background
The portrait painted by Branwell in the film was adapted to the faces of the main characters. Jean-Pierre Kohut-Svelko was responsible for the production design. Christian Gasc designed the costumes .
The film premiered on May 9, 1979 in France, where 695,446 viewers saw it in cinemas. In Germany it was shown for the first time on June 16, 1980 by ARD on television.
Reviews
The lexicon of international film pointed out that the film, “despite the remarkable authenticity even in details, is less about a historicizing appreciation of early Victorian living conditions than about the strangeness and fascination in the personality of the artistic person”. The "sensitivity of the subject [...] finds its correspondence in the composition of the image".
According to Prisma , director André Téchiné “subtly [portrayed] the different characters of the siblings” and “also made their relationships with one another” into a “drama about unequal talents and opportunities”. "Precisely in detail," says Cinema , Téchiné illustrates "the contrast between the sisters' cheerful works and their cramped lives". In this way, literary history “gains life”.
Awards
At the Cannes International Film Festival in 1979, the film took part in the competition for the Palme d' Or, with which, however, Volker Schlöndorff's The Tin Drum and Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now were awarded.
At the 1980 César Awards , Téchinés Film was nominated in the categories of Best Cinematography and Best Editing .
German version
The German dubbed version was produced by Interopa Film GmbH , Berlin.
Web links
- The Brontë sisters in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Detailed review on slantmagazine.com (English)
- Pictures of the film on cinema.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ cf. jpbox-office.com
- ↑ The Brontë sisters. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .
- ↑ cf. prisma.de
- ↑ cf. cinema.de ( Memento from June 10, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ The Brontë sisters. In: synchronkartei.de. German dubbing index , accessed on August 1, 2018 .