The Brontës in 3D and Heathcliff, the real man

The Hebden Bridge Times talks about 3D Media Productions, a company set in Hebden Bridge with an ambitious project:

H Gregg, who runs 3D Media Productions and is set to become the first Hebden Bridge resident to make a 3D documentary, is appealing to film enthusiasts to help him with the production of his historical educational piece on the Brontë sisters, which will be shot in Haworth.
Although it will be unpaid work, in return Mr Gregg will pass on his self-taught knowledge of 3D filming, and become part of local history.
“I want to make a 3D documentary about the Brontë sisters, which will be shot at various locations in Haworth, including the museum, which can be sold in Japan and other countries,” he said. “There’s a lot of interest worldwide in the Brontës and in Japan, especially, they use their books as an educational tool, so it would be great to tap into that market.
“I’m working on an almost zero budget, but all I need is a couple of people with a passion for making film and video who want to be part of the future of this industry.” (...)
Indoor filming for the Brontë documentary starts in mid-March and outdoor filming will start later in the month - depending on the weather.
Anyone interested in the project can contact Mr Gregg via email at info@3Dmediaproductions.co.uk or call 07849 843918. For more information visit www.the3Dsite.co.uk

CineEuropa thinks it likely that Andrea Arnold's Wuthering Heights will be present at the forthcoming Cannes Film Festival.

In the midst of the celebrations of the 400th anniversary of the publication of the King James Bible, The Guardian asks several writers about it. Michèle Roberts says:

People in English novels seemed to know the Bible by heart, and quoted from it as though they had grown up breathing in its grave poetry like air. Jane Eyre, for example, is sustained in her travails by it. Though a bullied child, she is a discriminating reader, honest enough to admit to the beastly clergyman Brocklehurst that she does not like Psalms, because they are "not interesting". The hypocrite priest's toddler son sickeningly professes to prefer reciting Psalms to eating gingernuts and so gets extra gingernuts as a reward.

The latest episode of Bones (Series 6, Episode 14, The Bikini in the Soup) has a Wuthering Heights reference:

In the interrogation room, Brennan bluffs and tells Greg that his DNA is on the cake topper, and she also compares him to Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights in that Greg was forced by Wendy to be something less than he was when she forced him to give up his dream of working on a ranch training horses to drive the carriage.  (Nicole Bessette in buddyTV)

The upshot of the murder investigation is that the husband did it, mainly because the victim slept with her swishy but straight business partner. Bones manages to trick the confession out of him with references to "Wuthering Heights." (Mark Whittington in associated content)

take as I am provides the actual quote:

You are like Heathcliff. Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff was a real man but misunderstood. Forced to be something less. The way you had to give up your dreams to ride a carriage, I can only imagine what that is like. Then the woman you do ALL of that for, she goes and gives her heart and the business to another man!" (Writer: Lyla Oliver)

The World Book Night initiative is explained in The Guardian:

On 5 March a million books with a retail value of £8.39m will be given away on World Book Night. They'll be distributed in prisons, pubs, restaurants, at literary events and on doorsteps, with BBC2 cameras showing the action live from London, Manchester and Glasgow. Books are everywhere on the BBC right now – hard to avoid seeing a man walking up a hill talking of Heathcliff or another man sitting under a tree describing Tom Jones. (Ian Jack)

Heathcliff also appears in an article in the Financial Times which mentions the World Book Night too but placed in a wider context:

Love can give them an earthly benison – as Elizabeth’s love did for Darcy – or consume the lover, as Heathcliff was consumed. (John Lloyd)

Hi Fructose Magazine interviews Marci Washington who once again shows her Brontëiteness:

I’ve read that the Victorian novel Jane Eyre plays an important role of inspiration to your work. Can you discuss how you feel about how literature can inspire art and vice versa and why this book in particular has become a patron saint of sorts to your work?
The gothic novel does a really amazing job of being both social commentary and entertainment- it sucks you in with romance and mystery and then, when it has you firmly in its grip, does a remarkable job of conveying meaning and commenting on current social conditions. I took this way of working as a model for my own work- to suck you in and then show you another way of seeing the world- an alternative story to the dominant social narrative. It’s interesting to me how this idea has evolved through literature and into film- horror films operate the same way. Both literature and film are these safe places of fiction where you are free to comment/work out things that cannot be said in other places- a dream space where through allegory and allusion you can cut pretty close to the bone before anyone has even seen the knife. Jane Eyre is an amazing book for way too many reasons to list- I never get tired of reading it. (JL Schnabel)

The Times compares (again) Jane Eyre and South Riding:

In South Riding he would be David Morrissey’s character Mr Carne, gloomy and introspective and with more than a nod to that other great BRH (Brooding Romantic Heroe), Jane Eyre’s Mr Rochester. (...) It gives our gruff hero, who has his house to pay for her care, a softer, more human edge; and it also places an obstacle between him and the heroine. The blueprint is, of course, Jane Eyre. (Sarah Vine)

Screen Junkies lists the ten best romantic drama films. Among them is a Wuthering Heights (1939?):

"Wuthering Heights." The setting is the moors of England. A young wealthy girl falls for the handsome stable boy. This is a story of true love that is thwarted by circumstance. (Breakstudios)

Wake Forest University mentions Jane Eyre in the Senior Oration for the Founder's Day Convocation:

Those students in the class of 2011 may remember one of the application essay prompts was to discuss a literary character with whom one found an affinity. I can still remember vividly my reaction when I first read the assignment. My mind filled with vibrant visions of the illustrious literary heroines: Anna Karenina, Elizabeth Bennett, Jane Eyre, and, even little Scout Finch. Yet my ambitious mind settled on one woman above all others, one venerated by generations of feminists and literary enthusiasts – Jo March. (Ashley Gedraitis)

The Wesleyan Argus covers a recent conference by Michael Cunningham:

He proceeded in a whirlwind of pithy generalizations to broadly define a contextual chronology of British and American fiction. He explained that the true birth of the novel occurred in the “disreputable” days of serialized tabloid fiction and self-improvement tales; then there were the Brontës and the Victorians, who created novels as “higher” art forms, although they were still confined to a moral universe. (Benjamin Soloway)

The Fort Wayne News-Sentinel interviews a local impresario, Julie Eckert Clancy

“So there isn't much time for reading fiction, although I do love what I call romantic classics. I read them in high school, of course, books like ‘Jane Eyre' and ‘Pride and Prejudice' and didn't like them as much as I do now. I reread ‘Sense and Sensibility' fairly recently and liked it very much. You know, you appreciate their beauty when you read them as an adult.”(Betty E. Stein)

The Sydney Morning Herald talks about the Liz Hurley-Shane Warne tweets affaire:

LIZ and Shane. Romeo and Juliet, Jane Eyre and Mr Rochester, Tristan and Isolde, Lizzie Bennett and Mr Darcy, Violetta and Alfredo - Shane Warne and Elizabeth Hurley. In the past few months, it's seemed that this unlikely couple were about to join the ranks of the Great Romances. (Kathy Lette)

Movimiento Generación 80 (Chile) talks about a local reality show, Amor ciego:

Es difícil ver la televisión nacional y no escuchar en los diversos canales, siguiendo una especie de coro religioso, las historias de Edmundo, quizás el símbolo de lo patético de nuestra cultura audiovisual. (...) Es como si tuviéramos el temperamento iracundo Heathcliff –de Cumbres Borrascosas, la excelente novela de Emily Brontë- actuando en un Chile de escenarios realistas y mentiras convincentes al estilo de “The Truman Show”. (Jorge Inzunza H.) (Microsoft translation)

A humourous review of Wuthering Heights is available on the Spanish radio programme Herrera en la Onda (Onda Cero) by Alfonso "El Cani" (February 17).

Rodrigo Fresán is an habitué of this blog. He always slips a Brontë reference in nearly all his articles. This one on Página 12 (Argentina) is about westerns and their antecedents. Wuthering Heights can be named among them:

A Heathcliff como el forastero que retorna a Cumbres borrascosas para vengarse y reclamar lo que considera suyo. (Microsoft translation)

RockLab (Italy) talks about the new album by PJ Harvey, Let England Shake, and says the following about the previous White Chalk:

Lo fa non solo negli aspetti lirici-estetici (già White Chalk giocava con un immaginario più antichizzante e citava, fra gli altri, le conterranee Brontë e la poesia elegiaca inglese), ma anche e soprattutto nella sostanza, una volta tanto decisamente politica. (Simone Dotto) (Microsoft translation)

Kinda Muzik (Netherlands) insists on the same idea:

De Emily Brontë van haar vorig album is in George Orwell veranderd. (Bart Breman) (Microsoft translation)

A late Valentine list from LibriBlog (Italy):

Jane Eyre, di C. Brontë (Newton Compton; € 6,00): Jane Eyre, dopo anni trascorsi tra la solitudine e gli stenti, viene assunta dalla famiglia Rochester come istitutrice. L’amore che nutre verso il suo padrone, che la ricambia, la porterà a compiere scelte importanti e a superare tutti gli ostacoli che la vita le pone. (valentina) (Microsoft translation)

According to Libération, the singer Nolwenn Leroy

aurait aimé vivre au XIX^e siècle, en Angleterre. Gothique, romantique. Sœurs Brontë, Jane Austen, Lewis Caroll, Mallarmé, Chateaubriand, Villiers de l’Isle Adam. (Luc Le Vaillant) (Microsoft translation)

Meredith Blake from Los Angeles Times has a new kitten named Jane Eyre; a curious contest in Novosibirsk with improvised readings of, among others, Charlotte Brontë as read on Academ.info; Татьяна Васильевна Морозова writes an article about Charlotte Brontë a bit melodramatic but nice all the same on ХайВей (Ukraine); a guest post on The Squeee discusses the "terms of endearment" in Jane Eyre; TeeBLiterary posts about Wuthering Heights; LLL Livres et lectures de Lili reviews Lin Haire-Sargeant H. The Story of Heathcliff's Journey Back to Wuthering Heights(in French); Boomerang Books contributes to the Unputdownables Villette Read-alongand We'll Always Have Books begins its own Jane Eyre Read-along; Végétalion reviews Wide Sargasso Sea; The Romance Reviews take a look at the Wild & Wanton Edition of Wuthering Heights by Beth Williamson.

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