1939-2009. From casting beauties to sex and violence

The Sunday Express is warming up for the next airing of Wuthering Heights 2009 in the UK (our sources say next DecemberSeptember):

Wuthering Heights goes sadomasoquistic for ITV

The Emily Bronte work is given the full gory Gothic treatment of sex and violence in an ITV adaptation.
In what is often described as one of the greatest love stories in literature, anti-hero Heathcliff is shown in a love scene with Cathy with blood seeping through his shirt after a thrashing. “There is an element of sadomasochism running through the novel which I captured in the whipping scene,” says director Coky Giedroyc.
“It is explicit and definitely post-watershed but I wanted to dig deeper into the cruelty and capture the real dark side of the book.”
Producers admit they took a gamble in casting relative newcomer Charlotte Riley, 27, as Cathy but promise she has “edgy appeal”.

Now, let's go back in time, exactly 70 years. To another Wuthering Heights adaptation. The Boston Globe talks about that magical year in Hollywood history, 1939. Mentioning Wuthering Heights 1939:

And more: “Wuthering Heights,’’ maverick producer Samuel Goldwyn’s bet that moviegoers would go for Bronte if you cast beauties like Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon and hired Gregg Toland to shoot it. The all-female, all-star “The Women,’’ which puts the 2008 remake to shame. (Ty Burr)

And Robert Osborne, prime-time host and anchor of Turner Classic Movies, says to Los Angeles Daily News:

"I think 'Wuthering Heights' is terrific, and many of the films on that list are awfully good. But having just hosted a screening of 'Gone With the Wind' in New York City to a packed house — that film still has power." (Rob Lowman)

Brian Morton writes in the Sunday Herald about the pleasures of re-reading:

Time is short and the shelves are full, but re-reading should be a component of every book lover's life, even if it means there are some books that remain forever closed. There used to be an academic dinner party game called "Humiliation": points for every major classic you'd never actually read and only heard about; 50 points for the professor of English who'd never got around to reading, let alone re-reading, Hamlet. I got 20 for Jane Eyre; still haven't got round to it.

The Salt Lake City Romantic Novels Examiner interviews author Katalina Leon:

Of all the past great Romance authors, who would you say had the greatest influence on you/your writing style?
I have several for very different reasons. In my mind the great grandmother of all Romance novels is Charlotte Bronte’s “Jane Eyre.” It’s my favorite book I’ve read it a dozen times because it has everything love, conflict, transformation and redemption. It’s perfect. (Fran Lee)

The San Diego Reader publishes a (very bad) review of Wide Sargasso Sea 1993:

This Gothic-romantic costume drama about colonial life in the West Indies (the heat, the drums, the perspiry chests) comes from highborn literary stock: Jean Rhys's speculative "prequel" to Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre. Or in a nutshell: whence the madwoman in the attic? But the Australian filmmaker John Duigan, the man responsible for the likably laid-back Flirting and The Year My Voice Broke, seems on this project somewhat out of his depth. Notwithstanding the underwater dream scenes (tentacle-like seaweed, slow-motion) and a black-magic potion scene (distorting camera lens, lots of candles), the direction is a bit neutral, detached, uncommitted, unatmospheric. For the opposite properties, especially the opposite of the last one, you could hardly do better than go back to that earlier alliance between Jane Eyre and the West Indies: Val Lewton's I Walked with a Zombie.

Finally, in the blogosphere A bookworm reviews... Jane Eyre.

Categories: Brontëites, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Wide Sargasso Sea, Wuthering Heights