The Blubfest of snarls or simmers

Wuthering Heights 2009 is all over the UK news. The Mirror talks with Charlotte Riley and Andrew Lincoln or more precisely they digest some of the interviews that appeared on the ITV press pack.

Get prepared for a blubfest as the latest adaptation of Emily Brontë's epic tale arrives on the small screen this Sunday and Monday on ITV1.
The drama has a stellar cast, including Tom Hardy as Heathcliff, Charlotte Riley as Cathy, Sarah Lancashire as Nelly and Andrew Lincoln as Edgar. (Sarah Wallis)

The New Statesman poses a question:

Will Tom Hardy snarl or simmer as Heathcliff? New adaptation. (Rachel Cooke)

The Yorkshire Evening Post goes a little further explaining how the economical crisis has also arrived to the Heights:

I was interested in some of the comments in particular.... "Screen Yorkshire's valuable investment and productive support along with the fantastic crew and facilities in the region" and Hugo Heppell's comment "We hope this production will further cement Yorkshire's reputation in the top destination in the UK for location drama."
What a pity that several of the 'fantastic crew' i.e. the editing/ post production team at Yorkshire Television, who worked on Wuthering Heights along with many other excellent drama programmes, are no longer employed in the region, if still in the industry, thanks to the untimely loss of almost 200 jobs in June this year.
The team at YTV were creative, talented and dedicated . What a shame more could not have been done to secure their jobs in the region. Yorkshire needs its own properly-funded film and post production facility. I look forward to watching Wuthering Heights but there will be a part of me thinking of those, whose names will appear in the credits, who no longer have a secure future and may never again be privileged to work on such excellent productions. (Glynis Dickson, email)

The Telegraph & Argus goes to Ann Dinsdale, collections manager at the Parsonage:

“It fits into different settings and has been translated into at least 26 different languages,” she says. “It’s a fascinating book, a huge life-changing novel. It’s part of popular culture, inspiring countless interpretations.”
Ann says the romantic appeal of Heathcliff is largely down to films, and she hopes the new TV drama will present a more rounded version.
“He’s one of the darkest characters in literature, he’s brutal, violent, cruel, vindictive,” she says. “But there’s a romantic ideal of him, based on films. I hated the 1939 film. It’s largely responsible for the romantic gloss cast over the novel. “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 he’s abusive, broken and middle-aged. He’s not an attractive, brooding young man anymore.” (...)
Peter [Bowker] will visit the Bronte Parsonage Museum in October to talk about the process of adapting a classic novel for television.
And next month Leeds-born best-selling novelist Barbara Taylor Bradford will be at the Old Schoolroom, Haworth, talking about her love of the Brontes with arts critic and journalist Danuta Kean. (Emma Clayton)

And also in the Telegraph & Argus there's an article on the exhibition of costumes at the Brontë Parsonage. Picture: Jenna Holmes admires the costume worn by actress Charlotte Riley (Source):

Bronte Parsonage Museum arts officer Jenna Holmes admires the costume worn by actress Charlotte Riley as she plays Cathy in the latest small-screen adaptation of Wuthering Heights.
Costumes from the two-part drama, which hits the screens on ITV on Sunday and Monday at 9pm, can be seen in the period rooms of the museum at Haworth, the home of the Bronte family including Emily who wrote the Wuthering Heights novel. The costumes also include the outfit worn by actor Tom Hardy who plays Heathcliff.
Visitors can also see details of upcoming events with writer and pundit Bonnie Greer and Leeds-born best-selling author Barbara Taylor Bradford.

Another exhibition at the Parsonage, Sam Taylor-Wood's Ghosts is the subject of an article in The Moment (New York Times blog):

The passionate, maddening love between Heathcliff and Catherine in Emily Brontë’s “Wuthering Heights” has long been fodder for many artists, from Albert Camus to Death Cab for Cutie. Recently, the photographer Sam Taylor-Wood has expanded the Victorian novel’s influence by shooting the very place that inspired Brontë: the area near the village of Haworth in West Yorkshire. For many years, Taylor-Wood — who shared a country house in the region with her then husband, the art dealer Jay Jopling — photographed the wind-swept lands of heather and moors, and ominous gray skies. In the series, “Ghosts,” which is on display at the Bronte Parsonage Museum through Nov. 2, Taylor-Wood has created romantic, melancholic reflections offset by simple beauty — gray skies, spidery trees, the odd ram — giving a redemptive quality to a harsh landscape. (Marina Cashdan)

Another NYT Blog, Paper Cuts, gives voice to John Williams (editor of Second Pass) to select his favourite bookish playlist:

Wuthering Heights, Kate Bush, Pat Benatar and a thousand others. Like the Cure’s Smith, Bush was a teenager when she wrote this, and it was her debut single. But this is a literary adaptation of a very different sort: There’s dewy sentiment lacquered all over it. In a voice so high that LP listeners must have frequently checked to make sure the turntable speed was correct, Bush sings, “How could you leave me / When I needed to possess you? / I hated you / I loved you, too.” The verses just about drown you, but the melody of the chorus provides a lifeline of beauty (“Heathcliff, it’s me, your Cathy / I’ve come home”), and that might be the reason so many performers have been inspired to cover it, from Pat Benatar to the punk band White Flag to Hybrid Kids, whose jokey version from 1979 is both awfully strange and strangely awful. (Joke or not, the vocals sound like a drunken pirate singing reggae at a karaoke night — not pleasant.) (Blake Wilson)

Michelle Kerns continues her biased gender-oriented book preferences in the Book Examiner. Now for women:

You love and adore Charlotte Bronte; he won't touch your copy of Jane Eyre regardless of your pleas. (...)

75 books every woman should read (...)
9. Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys
15. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
33. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

Sarah Schmelling, author of Ophelia Joined the Group Maidens Who Don't Float mentions the Brontës in an article in The Huffington Post:

Or, how about a translation of The Canterbury Tales--which is actually quite raunchy, any Apatow lover would revel in the fart jokes--without having to memorize the Whan that Aprille? Or any Shakespeare play. The Brontës: yes, Heathcliff and Rochester still hold up.

Grey Area reviews the radio adaptation Jane Eyre 1994 (recently on BBC7), the original novel is the subject of this post on Totally Tina. För nöjes skull posts about Wuthering Heights in Norwegian and Cheerful Cynicism about Wuthering Heights 1939. Eyrial likes Charlotte Brontë stuff.

Finally good and bad news. First the bad news, a letter to the Telegraph & Argus tells us that those hateful clampers are back in Haworth. Now, the good news. Another Brontë Parsonage Blog is going on: The Heart of Haworth is probably more addressed to the local area but interesting nonetheless:

The Brontë Parsonage Museum was recently awarded £50000 by the Heritage Lottery Fund to support an exciting programme of developments that will take place at the museum in January 2010. This blog is a forum for people in and around Haworth to keep up to date with the project, and make comments and suggestions.

The free local residents day on Saturday 8 August was a great success with 270 local people taking advantage of the offer, almost half of whom were first time visitors to the museum. (...)
Remember if you are intersested in having a more in depth opportunity to give us your input and are able to attend either of our residents evenings on 15 and 23 September, please contact Andrew McCarthy on andrew.mccarthy@bronte.org.uk

Categories: Art-Exhibitions, Brontë Parsonage Museum, Haworth, Jane Eyre, Music, Movies-DVD-TV, Wuthering Heights