Wonkette Movie Night: Wild Nights With Emily

Wild Nights With Emily begins with Mabel Todd narrating the story of Emily Dickinson’s life. Todd says she is the first publisher of Dickinson’s poetry in 1890. But she also wants to make the story about herself. Speaking of when she first met Emily in Amherst, Massachusetts, in 1880, she says she had heard talk of an unusual sister of Mr. Dickinson.

Jumping back and forth in time, Mabel explains that after Dickinson’s death, her sister Lavinia had opened Emily’s desk and found thousands of poems. With Mabel’s assistance they began sorting through the literary works and erasing the name of the lover the poetry had been written for.

The person that Emily had expressed her love to in all those thousands of words was Susan. And that is why she was erased.

The story drifts back in time to Emily’s youth and her first meeting with Susan Gilbert. Both young women had read a romantic scene for an audience at the Amherst Shakespeare Society and after their performance the pair went for a stroll. Emily asks Susan if she can kiss her “like a man would.” And their romance began. The movie shifts back and forth from their relationship’s youthful beginning to their adult years and Susan’s marriage. Interwoven are lines from Dickinson’s verses.

The movie delves into the frustration that Emily experienced while trying to get her writing published, and the insulting dismissal of men who could not grasp that a woman could be intelligent and deserving of being heard. That was 1880. Over 140 years later and that hasn’t changed much in some places.

After mansplaining the Brontë sisters to her, an old man says to Emily,

“No man would want to marry a woman more clever than he.”

I say a smart man would elect her president.

Wild Nights With Emily stars Molly Shannon, Susan Ziegler, Amy Seimetz, Dana Melanie, and Brett Gelman. Directed by Madeleine Olnek.

Wild Nights With Emily is available for $3.79 in the usual places. On Kanopy with a library card.

To make requests and see the movie lists and schedules, go to WonkMovie.

Tonight’s cartoon is from 1942, “The Dover Boys At Pimento University” or “The Rivals of Roquefort Hall.” A Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies animated short directed by Chuck Jones.

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