Coky Giedroyc, director of the most recent BBC version of
Oliver Twist and the BAFTA Awards nominated miniseries
The Virgin Queen, is the chosen director for the 3-part Wuthering Heights production. We read on the
The Dench Arnold Agency website the following:
Marella Shearer (Makeup and Hair) is presently working on 'Wuthering Heights' directed by Coky Giedroyc and produced by Radford Neville for Mammoth Screen.
Some interesting coincidences (or not). Coky Giedroyc also directed some episodes of Blackpool, that was written by Peter Bowker who is now the author of the new WH script. And in Oliver Twist (2008) she directed
Tom Hardy and Sarah Lancashire.
EDIT: Grenville Horner is the production designer of the production (as seen on
his on line CV). Grenville Horner also was the production designer of Jane Eyre 2006.
Categories: Movies-DVD-TV, Wuthering Heights
Three parter, eh? That's slightly novel for ITV; hopefully the book might at last get a decent adaptation.
ReplyDeleteThree parts for the first part of the novel means that it could be really detailed and in-depth, even if cut short. We will see!
ReplyDeleteI hope they include both gens; I still maintain that it's due to the Olivier version - and to an extent the lack of a decent adaptation (bar the very good, yet sadly outdated '78 BBC version) that the blossoming love and understanding between Cathy and Hareton doesn't get as much press as the more infamous one.
ReplyDeleteTom Hardy was in The Virgin Queen as well!! It'll be intersting actually to see Wuthering Heights directed by a female.
ReplyDeleteMany people consider the second generation to spoil the story for them - like an anticlimax. And there's the theory that Emily herself had initially written only the first part and had to add the second generation for the three-decker when Charlotte's The Professor wasn't accepted. So I think it goes back and deeper than just the Olivier version, although that's surely an influence as well.
ReplyDeleteI do wonder whether there will be something unmistakable about it being a woman directing it.
I remember reading about that theory in 'The Birth of Wuthering Heights'. I'm not sure i really agree with it. Although, i do think the novel's most powerful scenes are in the first half. I do think the themes and the true message of the book become apparent in the second half. Plus, i think it's that half of the book that really makes Heathcliff the complex, first rate charcter he is.
ReplyDeleteBut, i'm not suprised many feel it's an anitclimax after Cathy's death because that is such a huge powerful scene.
I was watching The Virgin Queen a few weeks ago actually( If only i'd known then). I think Coky is a good director and Tom is a good Heathcliff, although, he doesn't really look the part. I'm sure he can act the part.
I find the theory interesting, but the fact that Emily may have had to expand her novel doesn't necessarily mean that she wrote on from where she had left off. She may have initially written a shorter version of the novel as we know it or she may have added things elsewhere not just at the end. The novel appears so seamless to us that it's hard to figure out whether she really had to do so.
ReplyDeleteWhat a coincidence for you. Well now you have your background :)
'And there's the theory that Emily herself had initially written only the first part and had to add the second generation for the three-decker when Charlotte's The Professor wasn't accepted.'
ReplyDeleteI don't buy it! Anyway, Wuthering Heights is so seamless that I probably wouldn't have had noticed it anyway, unlike Charlotte's (although I love it to bits) Shirley.
I watched TVQ early last year, and was pleasantly surprised: it bodes well for this production; although Tom Hardy (saw him recently in ITVs 'Flood') isn't my idea of a Heathcliff.
Although I just said in Sienna Miller's post that she doesn't fit my image of Cathy let me add here that an actor's best friend is quality make-up and clothes and a good script, and of course their acting skills. Ruth Wilson and Toby Stephens wren't anyone's first idea and then they were wonderful on screen, weren't they? Tom Hardy could be good.
ReplyDelete