As powerful today as it was when Brontë wrote it

The Yorkshire Post reviews the recent concert by the Orchestra of Opera North which included the premiere of the Gypsy Dance piece from Frédéric Chaslin's opera Wuthering Heights:

They rallied to give a lustrous and sensual account of Debussy’s L’après midi d’un faune, and did their best with the stodgily orchestrated and unengaging neo-romantic Gypsy Dance from Chaslin’s own opera Wuthering Heights. (Chris Robbins)

Neo-romantic it is, as to stodgily we don't know as we haven't heard the orchestrated version but unengaging we assure you it is not.

The Halifax Courier recommends Jane Eyre 2011:

[C]ostume dramas never seem to go out of fashion and one of the most famous is the brooding romanticism in Jane Eyre, penned by Charlotte Brontë.

The Dumfries Standard reviews the film:

There is a rawness to the landscape and the grim walls of Thornfield Hall that sends a chill across the film.

Mia Wasikowska was an insipid Alice thanks to Tim Burton but here the Australian actress shows far more depth of character in her restrained but convincing performance as the abused, introverted but stoical heroine.
Michael Fassbender is a rugged Rochester and there is the familiar delight of Judi Dench as Mrs Fairfax with strong support from Jamie Bell as the frustrated St John Rivers who proclaims love for Jane but is cruelly spurned.
This Jane is no pushover.

Worksop Guardian:

It’s rare for a film to hold my complete attention for two hours but this one did. Both Wasikowska and Fassbender held the screen magnificently and I didn’t want the story to end.
Even if period dramas aren’t normally your thing, I would recommend going to see it because this love story remains as powerful today as it was when Brontë wrote it. (Helen Johnston)

And HeyYouGuys.co.uk:

Director Cary Fukunaga ensured the film remained true to the novel and time period, sticking faithfully to Brontë’s plot, including almost every key literary moment so fans of the novel felt that the symbolism and power of the original were kept intact. For a modern cinematic audience, however, this is not enough, and Fukunaga uses subtle camera techniques that keep Jane Eyre up to date and fresh for today’s audience. In particular the scene in which Jane discovers the secret door leading to Bertha’s chamber, with its extreme close ups and dramatic contrast between dark and light the shot was reminiscent of modern horror films. Using conventions such as these, Fukunaga manages to give an audience unfamiliar with Brontë’s work a sense of familiarity, making this Victorian plot accessible to all. (Guest)

The Italian release of the movie is next week and Paperblog has posts with reviews, reading groups and giveaways. Everyeye, Primissima and Il Giornale di Vicenza also publish reviews. The Polish release will be in October 14 and Plejada, dziennik, eMuzyka, students.pl, onet, Deon, Łódź - Gazeta talk about it. Kvällstidningen Expressen (Sweden) has an article about the film and the other previous adaptations, including the Swedish theatrical version premiered last year.

Several Dutch reviews can be found on De Nieuwe Utrechter, Boeken, Spits Nieuws, ED.nl, NU.nl,  De Telegraaf and OpReidsGids recommends a visit to Yorkshire.

At The Southern Reporter the subject is Haddon Hall:

That night in my bedroom, I could hear long skirts rustle across the floor near the end of my bed – I was, at 10, terrified.
Such acute imagination should be expected when you have read Jane Eyre and are in the first few chapters of Wuthering Heights. Even before I left primary school, my head was filled with the dark and passionate love portrayed in the Brontes’ novels. (...) On the day of my visit, there was a great deal of activity as the hall prepared to receive guests to watch a premiere of the new Jane Eyre film. For the third time, Haddon Hall will be Thornfield where the unusual love affair of Jane and Mr Rochester will be acted out for our insatiable love of this classic tale.

Sabotage Times has something to say about Wuthering Heights 2011 and the Brontë cult (including the Haworth  graveyard, clampers, Japanese tourists and Top Withens):

British director Andrea Arnold has broken new ground by casting an unknown black actor in the role of Heathcliff and swapping breathless clinches for gratuitous sex scenes. Coupled with the kind of language that would make Malcolm Tucker blush, it’s fair to say it might ruffle a few petticoats.
Set in the rugged moorland of the Worth Valley – a place I’m proud to call home – Wuthering Heights is not an easy read and for commercial reasons many productions have shied away from some of its darker complexities. Despite some mixed reviews Arnold’s version sounds like it’s attempted to redress the balance between those that have been more withering than Wuthering. (...)
Writing under the pen name of a man – because women weren’t meant to do much other than press flowers and produce litters of sickly runts, Emily Brontë wove together a dark and complex tale that belied her age and experience. As a reclusive virgin it’s staggering to imagine her first and only novel is a “Russian Doll” of a tale with multiple narrators, time shifts and intricately incestuous plots.  It even visits the clammy world of necrophilia in one memorable scene where Heathcliff desperately attempts to dig up his lover’s rotting corpse for one last roll in the heather. (Read more) (Jonathan Lorrimer)

The film will enter competition at the Seminci 2011 (Valladolid, Spain) (22-29 October).

The QMI Agency reviews The Reinvention of Love by Helen Humphreys:

Helen Humphreys' new novel follows a recent trend toward fashioning fiction from the lives of the celebrated.
Such books as Becoming Jane Eyre, Becoming George Sand, Becoming Jane Austen and Daphne, a mosaic featuring Daphne du Maurier and the Brontë sisters, have won wide readerships. (Nancy Schiefer)

Michelle Rowe made a trip to England and publishes her experiences, including a visit to Haworth, in The Australian:

At the parsonage we see the dining room and small table around which Charlotte, Emily and Anne did much of their writing, and Charlotte's bedroom, with her wedding bonnet and veil, writing desk and contents, black evening pumps and trinket box among the items on display.
We learn about the Brontës' ne'er-do-well brother Branwell, an alcoholic who died at 31, regretting that all his life he "had done nothing either great or good" (his sisters were surely a hard act to follow). Also on display is a devastating review of Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre published in The Quarterly Review, which incensed the eldest Brontë sister.

The Parent Paper talks about vampires, zombies and teenagers:

For even more of a twist on classic literature, more mature teens might want to give some of the recent horror-classic mash-ups a try. Two that stand out in this fast-growing body of books is Seth Grahame-Smith’s rework of Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Jane Slayre by Sherri Browning Erwin, based on Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. Following the original plot of both classics, including a lot of the actual text, the new works just add the zombie and vampire elements into the story to explain the action and motives of the characters. Most readers will want to know a little about the classic work, but I’m told by readers who have not read the originals that it’s not absolutely necessary. (Pat Vasilik)

CNN's Geek Out talks with Janet Lee about her Jane Austen Marvel comic adaptations:

While author Nancy Butler was in charge of spinning Austen’s wordy text into five digestible installments, Lee had to bring the world of Miss Woodhouse to life.
“‘Emma’ is a happier story,” she said. “For all of her faults, she’s just apple pie. We wanted to do sort of a bright, pastel, candy-tone kind of feel in the illustration. ‘Northanger [Abbey]’ is making fun of Gothic literature, so you really want it to be more Brontë-esque, on the moors with a hand-to-forehead feel.” (Ashley Strickland)

New Statesman suggests the creation of Enemybook:

Keep enemies close to by staying up-to-date on their family holidays and favourite pastimes. Is Jane Eyre their new favourite book? Maybe you should write as your status that you hate it. Instead of a poke, why not gouge? (Androulla Harris)

The Skinny describes like this a performance in the latest episode of The X-Factor:

Wendy Davis (Penfold from Dangermouse in a dress) presented a Wuthering-Heights-themed PSA on ‘buying stronger locks for laboratory doors.' (Fred Fletch)

Movie Line reviews the film Dream House :

Actually, it may help to think of Dream House as a [Douglas] Sirk movie of sorts, with maybe a little Emily Brontë mixed in — it doesn’t exactly work as a thriller, and not because [Jim] Sheridan and his actors don’t try. (Stephanie Zacharek)

Ria Novosti (in Spanish) talks about the feminism in Jane Eyre:

Esta novela suelen llamarla uno de los primeros textos literarios feministas del mundo. No estoy segura de que Jane Eyre de verdad fuera una feminista, pero poseía ciertas cualidades, que adoptaron las activistas de derechos de la mujer a finales del siglo XX. Era impaciente pero objetiva, franca y ferozmente independiente. Rechazaba los fastuosos regalos con los que la intentaba colmar su novio y ella quería seguir trabajando de institutriz después de la boda para ser económicamente independiente. Además, expresaba abiertamente sus convicciones que eran bastante radicales para aquel tiempo. (Svetlana Kolchik) (Translation)

Fotogramas (Spain) reviews Wuthering Heights 2011:

La estupenda adaptación de Cumbres Borrascosas a cargo de la británica Andrea Arnold, un prodigio de fisicidad y naturalismo que insufla modernidad al clásico de Emily Brontë, más sensorial que nunca , romántico como siempre. (Manuel Yáñez Murillo) (Translation)

Kate Walker's The Return of the Stranger is initiating a blog tour with posts on Talli Roland, Romance Book Paradise, Kylie Griffin and Lucy Monroe.

Le Devoir (Canada) announces the upcoming (next Monday, October 3) airing of Les Soeurs Brontë 1979 in TFO:

Après une projection désastreuse à Cannes en 1979, le film, qui durait trois heures, fut amputé d'un peu plus d'une heure, ce qui explique sans doute les quelques ellipses brutales et autres cassures narratives qui minent la version remontée. Tout cela ne devrait pas décourager le cinéphile de voir Les Soeurs Brontë au moins une fois, la vue étant pour le compte le seul sens réellement sollicité par cette oeuvre splendide, mais inachevée. (François Levesque) (Translation)

The Guardian quotes the first paragraph of the new novel by Jeffrey Eugenides, The Marriage Plot in its review. The Brontë mention can be read in this previous post of ours; on Pajamas Media the author rediscovered Jane Eyre after skipping in high school; Otago Daily Times describes James Taylor as the Heathcliff of folk rock; Virtual Lancaster reviews We are Three Sisters; Life in the Slow Lane and daydreamers, Språkkärringen's Blog (both in Swedish) review Jane Eyre 2011; Musings of an Endless Dimension posts about Haworth and the Brontës; Pensamentos de uma Batata Transgênica posts about the history of the Portuguese translations of Jane Eyre. Ángeles Caso visits the National Portrait Gallery and the Pillar Portrait in La Vanguardia (Spain).