Firelight - 1997

Firelight (1997) is a period romance/drama film written and directed by William Nicholson. It was Nicholson's first, and to date only, film as director. I'm sorry the video preview has no audio. It's a must-see film. Sophie Marceau is absolutley wonderful in this romantic period masterpiece. In 1838, Swiss governess Elisabeth Laurier agrees to bear a child for an anonymous Englishman. In return, the Englishman will pay all of her father's debts. They meet over three nights at a lonely island hotel. Despite their wish for detachment, they develop a deeply passionate connection during their lovemaking by firelight. Their feelings grow after they converse on the beach and at the hotel. Elisabeth gives birth to a girl, Louisa, nine months later. As agreed she gives the child away, but never forgets her. She begins to keep a journal of watercolor flowers and plants, adding a page for each holiday and birthday they are apart. The anonymous Englishman is Charles Godwin, a landowner and struggling sheep farmer. He can barely keep the debtors of his philandering father, Lord Clare, at bay. Charles's wife, Amy Godwin, is paralyzed and catatonic due to a horseriding accident. Amy's sister, Constance, runs the Godwin household. Never having forgotten the voice of her daughter at birth, Elizabeth manages to track her down seven years later, and get herself hired as Louisa's new governess. Charles rejects Elisabeth, and demands she leave immediately. However, Constance insists that he give the new governess a month in order to find a new situation. Showing Elisabeth the catatonic form of his wife, Charles forces Elisabeth to swear never to reveal to Louisa or anyone the nature of their previous relationship.

Room With A View - 1986

A Room with a View is a 1908 novel by English writer E. M. Forster, about a young woman in the repressed culture of Edwardian England. Set in Italy and England, the story is both a romance and a critique of English society at the beginning of the 20th century. Merchant-Ivory produced an award-winning film adaptation in 1985. In 1998, the Modern Library ranked A Room with a View 79th on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. The 1985 British drama film directed by James Ivory and produced by Ismail Merchan is a close adaptation of E. M. Forster's novel, and even uses his chapter titles to divide the film into sections. The film stars Helena Bonham Carter as a young woman in the restrictive Edwardian culture of turn-of-the century England and her love for a free-spirited young man. Maggie Smith, Denholm Elliott, Julian Sands, Simon Callow, Judi Dench, Daniel Day-Lewis, and Rupert Graves round out the principal cast. Elliott and Smith were nominated for Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, but lost to Michael Caine and Dianne Wiest from Hannah and Her Sisters.

Tess - 1979

Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented, also known as Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman, Tess of the d'Urbervilles or just Tess, is a novel by Thomas Hardy, first published in 1891. It initially appeared in a censored and serialised version, published by the British illustrated newspaper, The Graphic. It is Hardy's penultimate novel, followed by Jude the Obscure. Though now considered an important work of English literature, the book received mixed reviews when it first appeared, in part because it challenged the sexual mores of Hardy's day. The original manuscript is on display at the British Library, showing that it was originally titled "Daughter of the d'Urbervilles.

The 1979 "TESS" film directed by Roman Polanski, as an adaptation of Thomas Hardy's 1891 novel Tess of the d'Urbervilles tells the story of a strong-willed, young peasant girl who finds out she has title connections by way of her old aristocratic surname, who is raped by her wealthy cousin, whose right to the family title may not be as strong as he claims. The screenplay was by Gérard Brach, John Brownjohn, and Roman Polanski.

Polański made the film because the last time he saw his wife Sharon Tate alive (before she was murdered by Charles Manson's family), she had given him a copy of Tess of the d'Urbervilles and said it would make a great film. The dedication at the opening of the film reads simply: "to Sharon".

Although the film is set in England, it was filmed in Locronan, Brittany, France. Polanski was wanted as a fugitive in the United States, and he could have been extradited from the United Kingdom.

On 28 October 1978, cinematographer Geoffrey Unsworth died of a heart attack during the third week of shooting. Most of the scenes he shot were exteriors in the first half of the film and can be distinguished by their use of fog and slight diffusion. Ghislain Cloquet shot the remainder of the film, including most of the interior scenes, without diffusion. Unsworth and Cloquet were both named in the successful nomination for Academy Award for Best Cinematography. Cloquet alone was nominated for and won the César Award for Cinematography. This is the perfect film for a rainy afternoon or night.

Secrets and Lies - 1996

This is probably one of the most memorable scenes in film. This was such a great one. It's a must-see. It's dramatic but it has a bit of comical bits as well. Brenda Blethyn is amazingly good.


Secrets & Lies is a 1996 British film directed by Mike Leigh and starring Brenda Blethyn, who won the award for Best Actress at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival. The film won numerous other awards, including the Palme d'Or, and received five Academy Award nominations.


The film tells the story of Hortense Cumberbatch, a successful black optometrist, who is adopted. She chooses to trace her family history and discovers that her birth mother, Cynthia Purley, is a working class, 'downwardly immobile', white woman. She meets her and later meets Cynthia's brother, Maurice Purley, a photographer, and his wife Monica, and Cynthia's daughter Roxanne.