Wild Nights with Emily is one of those rare examples where a viewpoint in stark contrast to mainstream positions is offered free from any form of quarrelsome debate.
As Luisa Cutzu well summarised in her review, the movie revolutionises and corners the superficial and (let’s be polite!) orchestrated reconstruction that the academia has made of Emily Dickinson over the years. In fact, perhaps this is not quite the right way to put it, because the film's elegance does not corner the opposing fighter, but rather makes one forget his existence.
The fact that the movie is low-budget makes it even more valuable, enriched by the irony of the script, the unquestionable talent of the actresses and the attention to the characters.
However, yesterday's conversation revealed an element that I find much more powerful than the reversed perspective: the desire not so much to reclaim a queer dimension and attach it to the historical character, but rather to give women back their narrative in History.
An approach I would like to see more often in moviemaking and TV.
Sudden and brutal (I say this as a viewer who was enjoying the vision!) was the discovery of Emily's illness and her passing away.
A necessary step, though, to introduce two of the most amazing split-screen scenes of my life as a viewer.
The first: Derrick T Tuggle on the left and Molly Shannon on the right intertwining the verses of 'I Died For Beauty'.
The second: Sue washing Emily's body on the left hand and Mabel erasing Sue's name from the letters on the right hand.
P-U-R-E-P-O-E-T-R-Y
Kudos to Madeleine Olnek
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