Undead Heathcliff

First of all, as we read on Associated Press, Wuthering Heights 1939 is now available (regrettably only for US viewers, unless you navigate on the stormy sea of the US proxies) online on Hulu (check our sidebar):

At the Google-owned YouTube, there is the YouTube Screening Room, which every two weeks, adds four new films — mostly independent works — to the site. Hulu, the joint creation of NBC Universal and News Corp., has hundreds of films available for stream, from "Basic Instinct" to "Wuthering Heights." (Jake Coyle)

Another Wuthering Heights adaptation, Studio One's 1950 one with Charlton Heston recently released on DVD is reviewed on EInsiders:

Although most of us are attuned to having seen Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon in the classic Bronte tale of "Wuthering Heights", did you ever think you would get the chance to see it performed by the late, great Charlton Heston? It, too, is included here; and while Mr. Heston would not have been my first choice to play the lovesick Heathcliff, it is a treat to see him in a role that is far removed from any other he ever played. (Frank Cifaldi).

McSweeney's publishes an analysis of fifty years of popular songs condensed into single sentences, including Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights:

I'm an 18th-century fictional character and I want to do it with another 18th-century fictional character. (Marc Haynes)

Curiously, you will find that all the other forty-nine songs have basically the same summary.

According to Highland Park Courier News the author Letitia Harmon is a Brontëite:

Harmon has been a big fan of 19th century English authors Jane Austin and the Bronte sisters since she was 15.

Louis Nowra talks about love and passion in literature in The Australian. The Brontë sisters, as an abstract object, are referenced:

There are several novels by Colette that are beautiful studies of the complicated dance of emotions men and women go through when they fall in love, and the Bronte sisters describe brilliantly how a woman is attracted to a demon lover. But there are few others that immediately come to mind as significant works written about the love between a man and a woman.

PR Week-UK makes a reference to the Heathcliffgate:

Brown is an arrogant, angry man who has surrounded himself with attending courtiers. He considers himself complicated in a good way, the brooding academic, recently comparing himself to Bronte's Heathcliff. He resembles more the sinister farm hand Jud Fry in Rodgers & Hammerstein's Oklahoma. (Tara Hamilton-Miller)

Pegasus News informs about a new production of Charles Ludlum's The Mystery of Irma Vep in Azle, TX:

The Mystery of Irma Vep, presented by Azle Arts Association's Popcorn Players. The Mystery of Irma Vep is a campy tribute to Gothic horror films, liberally stealing from well-known film classics like Wuthering Heights, The Mummy's Curse and Alfred Hitchcock's Academy Award-winning Rebecca. Literary detectives will also recognize dialogue lifted from Ibsen, Shakespeare, Poe, the Bront*s, Omar Khayyam, and Oscar Wilde. (Shawn Parikh)

The New York Times mentions the web Booksthatmakeyoudumb and gives the following (disturbing) preview:

A look at Griffith’s “books that make you dumb” project is here: booksthatmakeyoudumb.virgil.gr. A preview: “The Book of Mormon” apparently doesn’t make us as dumb as “Wuthering Heights.” (Virginia Heffernan)

We already posted about this funny site here.

After this miscellanea of Brontë references, the Heathcliff-Edward Cullen (with some Jane Eyre appearances) list of references of the day:

The good news? Director Catherine Hardwicke knows it's cheesy, and she does what she can to contain the fromage. "Twilight" is packed with wry, understated humor, and Hardwicke gets lively, authentic performances from her young cast, even when they're standing on northwestern U.S. moors and saying Bronte-ish stuff like, "That was the first night I dreamt of Edward Cullen." Yes, she says "dreamt." (Chris Hewitt in St Paul Pioneer Press)

"It's so superficial, so much more about that vampires make pretty boys and pretty young women. They're beautiful and have this romance around them, the frills and the lace and the trappings of the vampire that have more to do with Meyer's interest in things like the Bronte sisters and Jane Austen's 'Emma.' (Chris Garcia in Austin American-Statesman quoting Thomas Garza, chairman of the Department of Slavic and Eurasian Studies at the University of Texas)

Thankfully, Hardwicke tossed some interesting character actors into the mix — notably Anna Kendrick from “Camp,” now all grown up with the décolletage to prove it — to imbue the second bananas with some spark for the few moments they can pull focus from Jane Eyre Lite and The 100-Year-Old Virgin. (Alonso Duralde in MSNBC)

Also, characters Edward and Bella have conversations about classics they're studying in their high school literature courses - books like “Wuthering Heights” and plays like Shakespeare's “Romeo and Juliet.” This has inspired some students to check these classics out of the library, [Sue] Johnston said. (Russ Keen in Aberdeen American News)

Got what, you say? Well, that "Twilight" isn't about special effects or horror, for a start. It's a Gothic romance reconceived for 21st-century teens. Bella Swan (played by Kristen Stewart) is the new girl in Forks, Washington, where she's moved in with her dad. Forks may not be Wuthering Heights, but it's wild, and it's wet, and her lab partner in biology class has a Heathcliff-Darcy-Rochester thing going for him. When she sits down beside Edward, he looks like he wants to throw up. (...)
The second half is more tongue in cheek, closer to "Buffy" than the Brontes. A vampire baseball game? The pure Bella doesn't even get to first base. (Tom Charity in CNN)

[Robert] Pattinson[, Edward in the film based on Twilight,] believes that it is Edward's gentlemanliness that compares him to the likes of classic characters Heathcliff and Mr. Darcy, and that these men are so well responded to because of their chivalrousness-not to mention dashing good looks. (Jess Herbine in Drexel University Triangle)

Thus was born the incarnation of the vampire as a sort of undead Heathcliff, a mysterious, tormented alpha male. That opened the Pandora's casket from which issued a thousand fanged lotharios. (Pittsburgh Tribune-Review)

Forbidden love, ancient curse, teenage lust and repressed urges are given a heightened quality that make them luridly palpable. Heathcliff had his moors, and "Twilight" has the Pacific Northwest, whose monochromatic skies, fog-shrouded vistas and verdant rainforest, accented by shafts of sunlight, are the visually dreamlike expression of the characters' stormy longings. (Duane Dudek in The Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel)

Did the girls giggle because they found Edward impossibly good-looking? Or because he looks flat-out ridiculous? I couldn't tell you, because this Edward Cullen, with his brooding eyes and mile-high blond quiff, is both. Part Elvis, part Simon Le Bon, and a direct descendant of both Heathcliff and the Leader of the Pack, the movie version of Edward Cullen -- who's 17 going on 1,700 -- is a pure pop creation, a fantasy who's taken up temporary residence in the body of an actor. When this Edward speaks haltingly to the love of his (eternal) life, new girl at school Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart), his diction is stiff, Victorian. (Stephanie Zacharek in Salon)

The blogosphere today brings an essay linking Jane Eyre and Kant's Categorial Imperative, courtesy of The Writings of Joel David Harrison, a brief post (in Swedish) about Wuthering Heights 1998 on Matkonster & livsmönster, a post about the original Emily Brontë's novel on Eagleton Book Notes, an Anne Brontë sampler made by Horas Buenas (in Spanish) and a brief review of Classical Comics's Jane Eyre on brochettes:

In terms of editing, I feel that they did a pretty good job- I don't think anything important from the original was left out, and generally the book was fast paced and kept the reader engaged. There were a few times where I felt that a bit of background information should have been given, as I think the jumps between certain scenes may have been a bit abrupt for someone not familiar with the material. Still, I think this is an excellent way of introducing someone to a classic who is reluctant to tackle the lenghty original, and it may even encourage them to read the actual novel after this.

Categories: Brontëites, Comics, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, References, Theatre, Wuthering Heights