He’s an aggressive bully, moody and unpredictable, prone to fits of domestic violence and vindictive cruelty. And women can’t get enough of him.
Heathcliff, the brooding anti-hero created by Emily Bronte, remains one of the most desirable male characters in English literature, up there with Mr Darcy, Edward Rochester and Gabriel Oak. And with Heathcliff it seems that, like David Beckham and Brad Pitt, women adore him and men want to be him. Or at least the Prime Minister does. Gordon Brown recently likened himself to the central character in Wuthering Heights when an interviewer suggested that many women viewed him as a swarthy Heathcliff-like figure.
“Absolutely correct,” he replied, before adding: “Well, maybe an older Heathcliff, a wiser Heathcliff.”
Now that a new television adaptation of Wuthering Heights is being made, it looks like we’re about to fall for Heathcliff all over again.
Filming is under way at Oakwell Hall in Birstall on the ITV production, starring Sarah Lancashire as housekeeper Nelly and Andrew Lincoln as Edgar, Cathy’s husband. Heathcliff is played by Tom Hardy, nominated for a Best Actor BAFTA this year for his role in TV drama Stuart: A Life Backwards, and newcomer Charlotte Riley is Cathy.
Wuthering Heights is the biggest production ever filmed at Oakwell Hall. The 300-year-old property has been closed to the public during filming, and furnishings reflecting the household’s post-English Civil War period are in storage. The manor house, home to the Batt family in the 1600s, has Bronte connections; it was the inspiration for Fieldhead in Charlotte Bronte’s novel Shirley and was the location for a 1920s silent film version of the book.
Costumes from the new TV production of Wuthering Heights are to go on display at the Bronte Parsonage Museum in Haworth.
The new version has been described as ‘edgy, cool and raw’, with speculation that a distraught Heathcliff kills himself on hearing about Cathy’s death.
I hope they don’t tinker with it too much; where TV dramas based on cherished novels are concerned it doesn’t do well to mess about with the plot. I remember an awful adaptation of Rebecca when a rugged Max de Winter carried Mrs Danvers from a burning Manderley, emerging from the flames like Bruce Willis in an action flick.
Then there was ITV’s Jane Eyre a few years ago, which ended with Jane and Rochester smugly strolling along a riverside in glorious sunshine with a brood of children looking like a family in a washing powder advert. “Reader, we had 2.5 children, a people-carrier and a utility room” should have been the closing line.
The new Wuthering Heights drama is said to stick closely to the idea of Heathcliff and Cathy as teenagers.
Writer Peter Bowker says: “In Charlotte Riley I believe we have found the perfect Cathy, and Tom Hardy has the power and charisma to be the definitive Heathcliff.”
What exactly is the definitive Heathcliff and why, 160 years after Wuthering Heights was written, do film-makers continue to fall under its spell?
“It’s a fascinating book, there’s nothing else like it in 19th century literature. It has become part of popular culture and inspires countless interpretations, from film to ballet,” says Ann Dinsdale, collections manager at the Bronte Parsonage. “It’s a huge life-changing novel, one of those books people think they’ve read even if they haven’t.
“It’s a universal story which translates into different settings. The novel has been translated into at least 26 different languages.”
Ann says Heathcliff’s romantic appeal is largely down to films. “He’s one of the darkest characters in literature, he’s brutal, violent, cruel, vindictive and unkind to animals. He turned to domestic abuse and dug up the remains of his dead lover,” she says. “But there’s a romantic ideal of him, based on films. None get it quite right, although I have a soft spot for the 1970 film starring Timothy Dalton which is suitably bleak.
“I hated the 1939 film. It was billed as a great love story and I think it’s largely responsible for the romantic gloss cast over the novel. I don’t like Laurence Olivier’s style of acting but his performance was better than Merle Oberon’s (Cathy) who was wimpish and worldly.
“A lot of films tend to end with Cathy’s death, but it’s only when you cover the whole story that you get a rounded view of Heathcliff. In later years his plans for revenge come to fruition. He kidnaps Cathy’s daughter, he’s cruel, abusive and a broken, tormented man. He’s not an attractive, brooding young man anymore. You have to retain that element of Heathcliff.
“The 1992 film covered this section of the book, with Ralph Fiennes, as Heathcliff, cruel and violent in later scenes.”
Ann is hopeful that the new TV drama will portray Cathy and Heathcliff as teenagers. “The novel is so tightly plotted you know what ages the characters are, but they’re usually played by older actors. People tend to forget that Cathy and Heathcliff were passionate teenagers, full of angst and raging hormones.” She may have only lived to be 30, but Emily Bronte left a lasting legacy. From heartless roughnecks in romantic fiction to brooding soap villains – think Cain Dingle, Charlie Stubbs and Sean Slater – the sexy bad boy that women can’t resist has his roots in Heathcliff.
“Women want to be loved by him, and somehow tame him. We can’t resist trying to reform a rake!” smiles Ann. “There’s a vulnerability about Heathcliff; something in his past must have made him that cruel. We don’t know where he came from before Mr Earnshaw finds him but we can speculate that he was found abandoned and had been through a tough time. Then he suffers at the hands of Hindley, and is tormented by Cathy’s marriage to Edgar.” Does part of the fascination stem from the fact that he was created by a young woman with little experience of life? As far as we know, Emily Bronte had no passionate love affairs other than with the moorland surrounding Haworth, so where did all that sexually-charged drama come from?
“These are larger-than-life characters, inspired by Emily’s readings of works by writers like Byron and Shakespeare,” says Ann. “There’s little surviving evidence about Emily; she didn’t form friendships outside the family and was regarded as a free spirit. She and her work continue to fascinate because we don’t know as much about her.”
In the first exhibition devoted solely to Emily, running at the Bronte Parsonage Museum all year is a portrait of her loaned by the National Portrait Gallery. “It’s a rare opportunity to see it outside London. It was originally part of a family group portrait and one of only two known portraits painted by Branwell,” says Ann.

Labels: Movies-DVD-TV, Wuthering Heights

Posted by Cristina on Monday, July 28, 2008 at 1:07 PM | Permalink

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At 7/28/2008 04:03:00 PM,  Jennythenipper said...

Hard to see how they will be teenagers when the actors selected are 27 and 31!

It does look intriguing, though, thanks as ever for the heads up on this production.

 

At 7/29/2008 12:23:00 AM,  Cristina said...

I think they've been played by older actors, so we can't really complain too much :P

Hopefully good will come from it...

 

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