Les Soeurs Brontë (1979)
Directed by André Téchiné

Film Review

André Téchiné directs this intensely sombre portrait of the famous Brontë sisters with a love of his subject and an acute artistic vision.  The film's heavy, repressive mood evokes the harshness and injustice of the life that the Brontë sisters endured.  The passion and colour that is so vivid in their novels was absent from their daily existence, and the film's appropriately gloomy cinematography - which uses dreary earth colours to emphasise the cold, remote feel - brings this home with great poignancy.

The film's main asset is its extraordinary cast.  What a casting coup to put Isabelle Adjani, Marie-France Pisier and Isabelle Huppert in the shoes of the Brontë sisters - three, by now, near-legendary actresses playing three of the most important figures in English literature.  Each gives a superlative performance; each strengthens the bleak mood of the piece; each portrays a soul of incalculable fragility and insight.   No, it is impossible to imagine this film without three such magnificent actresses.

For the part of the Brontë's brother, Branwell, Téchiné cast the then comparatively unknown actor Pascal Greggory.  In this role, possibly the most complex and interesting figure of the film (partly because so little is known about the character), Greggory excels, giving a hauntingly introspective performance which provides a dark focus for the narrative.  Branwell's love interest is played by the wonderful Hélène Surgère, a renowned character actress whose performances are characterised by great inner force and emotional depth.

Téchiné originally intended to make the film earlier than he did.  In 1974, he wrote a script with Marilyn Goldin on the life of the Brontë sisters, but this was abandoned.  Having completed his 1976 film Barocco, Téchiné returned to the subject and developed a revised script with Pascal Bonitzer, a critic on the Cahiers du cinema.

Film Synopsis

After the death of his wife, the pastor Patrick Brontë lives in the small village of Haworth in West Yorkshire, England, with his three daughters - Charlotte, Emily and Anne - and his one son Branwell.  The family leads a simple life and from an early age each of the children shows a talent for creative writing.  They continue their artistic pursuits in their spare time when they have each found work, as governesses or private tutors.  Branwell is the first of the siblings to gain recognition from other writers, following the publication of his poems.  Then each of his sisters begin their own literary careers, with their first novels going into print in quick succession.

Just when the Brontë clan appears set for fame and fortune disaster strikes.  Branwell has lost his heart to a woman who is fifteen years his senior, Lydia Robinson.  When she declines to marry him, the young man succumbs to a crushing depression fuelled by drink and drugs.  Branwell's death at the age of 31 is soon followed by that of Emily, struck down by tuberculosis.  The following year, Anne dies from the same disease, and only Charlotte is left, consoling herself with her growing literary success.  Of the Brontë sisters, she is the only one to find true happiness, by marrying the man she has always loved, her father's curate Arthur Nicholls...