To Walk Invisible The Brontë Sisters (MASTERPIECE)

MASTERPIECE
Airing 3/26/2017 @ 9:00 PM
Preview: 0:30 | TV-14 | CC

Ever since they were revealed to the world as quaint country-women, the Brontë sisters have fascinated legions of devoted readers. MASTERPIECE brings these remarkable literary geniuses to life with a beautifully filmed and acted two-hour drama, To Walk Invisible The Brontë Sisters.

Written and directed by Sally Wainwright (Happy Valley, Last Tango in Halifax), To Walk Invisible depicts the evolution of secluded, dutiful clergyman’s daughters into authors of the most controversial fiction of the 1840s. The drama stars Finn Atkins (Eden Lake) as Charlotte, who shocked society with her edgy epic, Jane Eyre; Chloe Pirrie (War and Peace) as Emily, author of the darkly gothic and disturbing Wuthering Heights; and Charlie Murphy (Happy Valley) as Anne, whose penned the true-to-life love story The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.

Also starring are Jonathan Pryce (Wolf Hall) as their distracted father, Reverend Patrick Brontë; and Adam Nagaitis as the sisters’ only brother, Branwell, whose wild and dissipated life contributed to vivid characters in each of their novels.


READ MORE HERE: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/episodes/to-walk-invisible-the-bronte-sisters/

Wolf Hall' actor Mark Rylance: 'My wife said the books were good, so I said yes'

SUNDAY EXPRESS
Published: 00:01, Sun, January 11, 2015
By DAVID STEPHENSON



We love our period drama. A glimpse of the schedules, particularly during autumn and winter, reveals a surfeit of costume delights, from Downton Abbey to Call The Midwife, from The Musketeers to Channel 4’s soon-to-be-seen Indian Summers.

However, the quality can vary wildly and so can the attention to detail, with the viewers often wondering, given the modern language used in dialogue, whether they are actually watching a drama set, for instance, two centuries ago.

Worry ye not, viewer, about the quality on offer later this month in BBC2’s Wolf Hall. Adapted from the best-selling historical novels of Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies, this six-part series about the political chicanery of the Tudor court raises the bar for its costume rivals.

It has one of the performances of the year from Mark Rylance, in the lead role of Thomas Cromwell. He is ably assisted by Damian Lewis, pictured, as Henry VIII, and Jonathan Pryce as Cardinal Wolsey. Not a regular TV face, Rylance is known for his striking performances in the theatre, and is a two-time Olivier Awards winner.

As the author Mantel herself points out, “Mark Rylance gives a mesmeric performance as Cromwell, its effect building through the series.”As lawyer to Wolsey, Mantel describes him as both “hero, and anti-hero”, which indeed he is, although by the close of episode one you will be rooting for Rylance’s Cromwell all the way.

Unlike many authors, who are often indifferent about TV adaptations, Mantel is inspired. She says: “It’s a privilege. It’s illuminating, exciting. It’s not, as people sometimes think, in any way odd or jarring. It seems to continue a natural process that goes on in the writer’s head. “As you write, you see and hear. To have the images transferred to the outside world, to hear the voices externally, is a kind of magic, but it’s also a logical step.”

The choice of director is inspired, too. To enhance the political intrigue of a Tudor royal household, Peter Kosminsky, whose work mostly includes factual dramas, has given the production an authentic, contemporary feel.

But where do you begin with two 500-page novels? “I guess it starts with Peter Straughan’s script,” says the director. “Many people have done incredible work on this show.

Many on it acknowledge that these are some of the best scripts they have ever read. They are the best I’ve read. I knew the books, but to turn that into six hours of TV is an extraordinary feat.”

The stories are about “revenge”, says Straughan. “It’s also there in the novels, but that’s the theme I decided to run with. Thomas sets out for revenge for the fall of Wolsey, and the drama is about the consequences that flow from that.”

Rylance hasn’t done a major TV lead since 2005’s excellent The Government Inspector, about tragic whistleblower Dr David Kelly, which was also directed by Kosminsky. Why return to TV? Rylance is breathtakingly honest. “My wife said the books were very good! And I liked working with Peter, and it was obviously a wonderful part.”

But what was it specifically about the role that drew him to it? “There can be few characters in literature that keep most of their judgments and thoughts to themselves. He doesn’t reveal it, or show very much. I expect a lot of people who have read the books will watch the show, so to manifest him in a way that wouldn’t limit their imaginations of what he was like, was quite a challenge. I also wanted him to be a real person.”


READ MORE HERE: http://www.express.co.uk/entertainment/tv-radio/551265/Wolf-Hall-Mark-Rylance-interview

Best of British cinema - The New British Film Festival showcases the latest quirky offerings from the U.K.’s film industry

By Yekaterina Kravtsova

The St. Petersburg Times

Published: November 23, 2011 (Issue # 1684)

FOR SPT Tanya Wexler’s ‘Hysteria,’ set in the Victorian era, tells the story of the invention of the vibrator.

British cinema has always stood out in world cinematography for its way of depicting the problems of an entire generation — and sometimes of all of mankind — through an individual story.

This is probably the main common characteristic of the films chosen for screening at the New British Film Festival that kicks off in the city Wednesday, as the majority of the stories to be screened go deep into history to show the reality of modern society.

The festival aims to show the latest achievements of British cinema in all its facets. Despite the fact that the festival program in St. Petersburg is a shortened version of that shown earlier this month in Moscow, the diversity of the themes touched by British directors has not suffered.

Opening with the drama “Perfect Sense” starring Ewan McGregor and Eva Green, the festival continues with the family drama “Archipelago,” the teenage drama “Neds,” the nonfiction film “The Bengali Detective,” and comedy drama based on real events “Made in Dagenham,” before winding up with the comedy “Hysteria” about the Victorian origins of the vibrator.

“The festival is basically a showcase of contemporary British cinema, and this concept requires us to show various genres,” said Alexei Laifurov, a representative of CoolConnections, one of the festival’s organizers.

FOR SPT A still from ‘Made in Dagenham,’ based on the true story of female plant workers’ struggle for equal rights.

The festival’s opening movie “Perfect Sense” is the latest offering from the critically acclaimed director David Mackenzie, who has previously been awarded several prizes by the British Film and Television Academy and Berlin Film Festival. “Perfect Sense” also won an award at the Edinburg International Film Festival. The film tells the love story of two very different people at a time when love threatens to disappear completely across the world due to an unknown virus. While Mackenzie has chosen a severe metaphor for the derogatory attitude of people to their feelings — an attitude that in the film leads to a worst-case scenario outcome — the director leaves a flash of hope that a magic solution can be found to preserve the feeling of love in people.

“Neds,” showing later in the week, is a film about a talented and intelligent teenager named John in 1970s Glasgow. John fails to realize his potential due to the circumstances of time and place and life itself. The film shows just how easily a spark of talent can be extinguished, and raises the problem of violence and unjustified aggression among young people — a problem that remains painfully relevant in both the U.K. and Russia — but stylistically, the film represents complete immersion into the unstable atmosphere of the 1970s.

Another film that takes the audience back in time is both amusing and yet a truthful, sombering story of women’s struggle for equal rights. The story takes place in 1968, less than half a century ago, when the idea of equal pay for women was not taken seriously, either by the government or by heads of enterprises, who were invariably men. But the female employees of the Ford factory in Dagenham thought differently, and decided to change history.

In some sense, a history-changing moment also forms the basis of another film represented at the festival, “Hysteria,” starring Hugh Dancy, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Jonathan Pryce. Tanya Wexler, director of the film — which has caused a stir around the world — tells the story of the vibrator as a Victorian invention designed to cure female hysteria. While the intimate subject matter of the film has left a lot of people shocked, Wexler herself once said that she had to make this film, even if it was to be her last film ever.

The New British Film Festival runs from Nov. 23 to 27 at the Formula movie theater in Galeria shopping mall, 30A Ligovsky Prospekt. For a full schedule, visit www.ukfilms.ru.

St. Petersburg Times