“Firelight,” Gothic Masterpiece Film

In this space, I’d occasionally like to mention a movie that never won a large audience but which everyone should see.  The film in review today is Firelight, a gothic drama starring the great French actress Sophie Marceau in the lead role of Elisabeth. 

The highest achievement of the film is William Nicholson’s, who is screenwriter and director.  He is brilliant in his creation of visual systems.  Fire and light are set off against snow and darkness; as are life and death.  The most potent visual element is a glass gazebo located in the middle of a pond.  The gazebo goes from cold to warm as the movie progresses, and the pond creates isolation for it and danger around it.  Some of the most haunting moments of the movie are pantomimes involving this gazebo.  And just when you think that Nicholson has used the gazebo for all its potential, he uses it a final time with unforgettable poignance. 

No amount of directing brilliance can save a weak story; but here Nicholson the writer has given Nicholson the director a powerhouse tale. The script could be called unoriginal because of its debt to the novel Jane Eyre and to any number of stories with old houses, a gloomy hero, a vulnerable heroine, and a wife in the attic; however, this view overlooks how Nicholson has exploited and transformed these archetypes.  His skill in building suspense and creating powerful scenes is aided by the gothic tradition, yes, but that tradition has been around a long time because of its great potentials.  It does not guarantee a powerful novel or film, but it gives the writer tested sources.  The writer can handle the ingredients unoriginally to create hackwork—and many trees have been felled to publish hackwork gothic stories–or he can arrange the elements in a new pattern with fresh  meaning; Nicholson has done the latter.  He has also added to the gothic mix another traditional story:  that of a woman bearing a child for pay.  I have never heard of these two traditions in the same story, but in Nicholson’s hands they mesh perfectly 

 Granted, Nicholson in his overall effort was immensely aided by two brilliant actors; but you can’t forget how important to actors, even seasoned actors, is a director who knows how to work with them.  If a director doesn’t, you get a miscarriage movie like Jerry Maguire, where good actors were led into terrible performances.  

 Nicholson brings Sophie Marceau, especially, to a level of artistry that I’ve not seen from her before. The actress has many difficult scenes to play, but you don’t see her performance as a series of brilliant successes.  She plays challenging moments with such skill that her choices seem inevitable.  It is only later, as you reflect on the movie, that you realize what she has accomplished.  Her choices are tasteful, right, and beautifully realized.  Her great moments do not obtrude because they are part of a single effect.  George Bernard Shaw once wrote that a good actress will achieve two or three good “strokes” in a role.  A very good actress will achieve a whole series of strokes.  But, with a great actress performing, her entire role is one stroke.  By Shaw’s measure,  Sophie Marceau belongs in the pantheon of great actresses.   

 Stephen Dillane portrays Charles, the man who hired Elisabeth to bear his child.  He has the difficult acting task of presenting several dark elements in a character without making the character unsympathetic for an audience.  I imagine this role was the most difficult to cast; any undue emphasis, even the wrong voice or features in an actor, could make Charles a villain.   If it is possible to apportion credit, Nicholson deserves a considerable portion for finding the right actor and for assisting him in a role that demands finely tuned work.  Mr. Dillane, or course, deserves the larger part of the credit.  When the camera rolled, it was up to him to deliver the goods, and he did. 

 The balance of this review should be read only after you have seen Firelight.  The following passages contain spoilers and depend on  references that make no sense if you’ve not seen the movie.   

 Firelight takes a classical three-act form.  The primary plot concerns the relations between Elisabeth and her daughter.  This is the most emotional plot; it charges the entire movie and provides the peak moments.  The dramatic question of the principal plot is, as such questions always are, simple and strong:  in this case, Will Elisabeth get to be a mother to her own child? 

 Let me break down the primary plot into its three parts.  Act One, which runs about thirty minutes, as it should,  ends when Elisabeth finds her daughter after years of searching.  Act Two ends when bankers arrive to seize the assets of Charles’s estate. Act Three ends with the death of Charles’s wife.  All after that is postlude.  The movie’s final images are of Charles, Elisabeth, and the girl leaving the huge house that has become a symbol of loss and death.  The primary dramatic question is now answered with a yes.  Yes, Elisabeth gets to be a mother to her own child.   

There are a number of subplots.  The most important of these is the relationship of Charles and Elisabeth.  The theme of the Charles-Elisabeth line is “love reclaimed,” which repeats the major theme of the story’s primary plot.  Another subplot is the tragic relationship of Charles and his former wife.  This is the plot that presents such extraordinary challenges to Mr. Dillane.  The major theme is “some loves cannot be reclaimed.” Its minor theme is “life cannot be held hostage to death.”  These two subplots have more than just thematic importance:  they shape the main plot. 

The least successful subplot concerns an old-maid sister of Charles’ former wife.  The plot does nothing to affect the main line of development—or of any other plot—and its theme is unimportant.  The competition between the beautiful Elisabeth and this unattractive old sister is one-sided enough to become cruel.  If this lady is meant to provide comic relief, I must say I didn’t find myself laughing.  And at the end of the film, we have no idea what will become of her.  She is left without means or home, discarded like so much rubbish by Charles and Elisabeth–and dropped from the plot in the same unfeeling manner. 

This cruelty does not help us forget that Charles is actually a murderer nor does it help us forget the harsh views he occasionally expresses.  You could argue that Charles is an evasive man and that his harshness surfaces when he pulls away from a painful subject.  However, an audience doesn’t have time to make a psychological analysis during the rush of story events, and Charles comes across as callous.  Dillane minimizes this character element, but no actor could erase it:  it is built into the role.   Fortunately, these dark moments are few.  Were this not so, the murder that Charles commits would be seen as consistent with a cruel character. He would be a villain and Elisabeth his accomplice! 

 There are other subplots and other characters in the film, and Nicholson has made all of them contribute to the central effect of the story. 

The cinematography by Nic Morris is on par with the direction of Nicholson.  The lighting creates compelling moods, and the camera movements are so well motivated that you don’t notice them. 

 If you enjoy being almost hypnotized by the beauty of a story and its telling, Firelight is something you must see.  Its visual elements alone will create a deep impression on you, and you will never forget the performance of Sophie Marceau.  Time, I am sure, will see Firelight’s being honored beside the greatest art of film’s first century.