Les Soeurs Brontë [The Brontë Sisters] ** (1979, Isabelle Adjani, Marie-France Pisier, Isabelle Huppert) – Classic Movie Review 10,584

Emily Brontë: ‘I spit on love and all its vanity’.

Director André Techiné’s 1979 biographical costume drama Les Soeurs Brontë [The Brontë Sisters] stars a most formidable French acting talent line-up in Isabelle Adjani, Isabelle Huppert, Marie-France Pisier, as well as Pascal Greggory, Patrick Magee, Hélène Surgère and Roland Bertin.

Emily Brontë (Adjani), Charlotte Brontë (Pisier) and Anne Brontë (Huppert) live with their brattish brother Branwell (Greggory) at Yorkshire rectory of their strict father, the Reverend Brontë (Magee), and write their first literary works.

This version of the literary story centres on Branwell, who has a tragic affair with an older woman. The presence of France’s three leading Seventies actresses guarantees interest, but this is a rather camp, silly film, in direct descendance from Hollywood’s equally daft Devotion (1946). It is hard to accept the Brontë Sisters as attractive and as French as this.

There is a lot of top talent involved, but Les Soeurs Brontë is a pretty tedious film with a sadly off-kilter French idea of English heritage literary culture, saved by the cast and Bruno Nuytten’s superb cinematography in Eastmancolor and in Yorkshire, England.

It was released at 120 minutes but the original cut runs 180 minutes.

It is simultaneously shot (in Eastmancolor and in Yorkshire, England) in two versions (French and English) with the same cast.

It was released in France on 9 May 1979.

Pascal Greggory was born on 8 September 1954 in Paris.

Les Soeurs Brontë [The Brontë Sisters] is directed by André Techiné, runs 120 minutes, is made by Action Films, Gaumont and France 3 (FR 3), is released by Gaumont (1979) (France), is written by André Techiné (scenario and dialogue), Pascal Bonitzer (scenario and dialogue) and Jean Gruault (participation), is shot in Eastmancolor by Bruno Nuytten, is produced by Alain Sarde (executive producer), Yves Gasser, Klaus Hellwig and Yves Peyrot, is scored by Philippe Sarde (music adaptor) and designed by Jean-Pierre Kohut-Svelko.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 10,584

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