Verborgenes Feuer (1997)

Verborgenes Feuer: Directed by William Nicholson. With Sophie Marceau, Stephen Dillane, Dominique Belcourt, Kevin Anderson. In 1838, lovely governess Elisabeth agrees to bear a child of anonymous English landowner, and he will in return pay her father’s debt. At birth she, as agreed, gives up the child. Seven years later she is hired as governess to a girl on a remote Sussex estate. The father of the girl, Charles Godwin, turns out to be that anonymous landowner. So Elisabeth has to be her own daughter’s governess, and she can’t reveal the secret of her tie with little Louisa.

“This film really made me search the net high and low to read more about it, and to see whether other people think the same. Here, I found out that many people think the same.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eSearching the web, as I said, I also ran across the directoru0026#39;s statement that I cite here:u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eInspired by Nicholsonu0026#39;s fascination with 1940s movie love stories, Firelight is a film that awakens the romantic spirit in each of us. For his film directorial debut, Nicholson wanted to create a boundless romantic story about lovers forced apart by outside forces. To do so, he had to set his story in another place and time. u0026quot;To achieve that old-fashioned level of romance,u0026quot; the writer/director asserts, u0026quot;I had to go back to a place and time when there were forces stronger than individual desires. Contemporary love stories are relationship stories because the obstacles that prevent people from loving each other are essentially self-induced. These kind of stories can be charming, but you canu0026#39;t build up an enormous head of steam with them. I wanted to create a story about how love can redeem people, about how it can totally change their lives. I wanted to create that tragic feeling you have when two people are perfect for each other, love each other, but yet cannot have one another.u0026quot; Nicholson set out to write a film in which the focus was on people and their emotions. As he worked on the screenplay, Nicholson developed a very clear and simple visual style for the film. u0026quot;I wanted peopleu0026#39;s feelings to be the central issue of the film and I wanted nothing to distract from that. The idea of firelight became central to what the film is about. The story is about light, about winter, about coldness and empty rooms where the eye goes toward the one source of heat, the fire.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eTo conceive a good film is one thing, but to make it, is altogether different, sometimes very hard. Nicholson succeeded fantastically but praises must be given to all the cast as well, Sophie first.”