Heathcliff's racelift

The Guardian discusses 'How Heathcliff got a 'racelift''.

Andrea Arnold's new version of Wuthering Heights has put the stray cat among the period-drama pigeons with its earthy realism and distinct lack of social niceties, but chances are, if you know anything about this movie, it is that it has got a black Heathcliff. "Black" meaning the role is played by two actors of Afro-Caribbean descent, Solomon Glave and James Howson.
This fact above all others as been widely reported in the press, perhaps with the expectation that the nation, like a 19th-century dame, would collectively primp its petticoats at the sight of "a coloured gentleman". Arnold's decision to augment Emily Brontë's text with lines such as, "He's not my brother, he's a nigger!" only exacerbates the racial provocation. But the new Wuthering Heights has also drawn attention to the fact that up to now, Heathcliff has been played exclusively by Caucasian actors – Laurence Olivier, Ralph Fiennes, Tom Hardy, Timothy Dalton, the only notable exception being Anglo-Indian Cliff Richard with his disastrous stage musical, Heathcliff (an exclamation mark on the end might have swung it).
In her novel, Brontë leaves Heathcliff's precise ethnicity open to debate, variously describing him as "a Lascar" and a "dark-skinned gipsy in aspect", which only adds to the confusion. Should he be black? White? Roma? Indian? Couldn't they have just cast Colin Firth?
The relationship between the ethnicity of a movie character and that of the actor playing them has never been a straightforward matter, but right now it seems to be particularly complicated, if not downright contradictory. For some, it is a sign that we are moving towards a "colour-blind" entertainment environment of equal opportunities; for others it is a threat to racial boundaries and identities. Now, at least, we have a name for it: "race-lifting".
The term was apparently coined by a rather brilliant wiki called TV Tropes – an online compendium of fiction-writing cliches – and is defined as the changing of a fictional character's race for a derivative work. (read more) (Steve Rose)

The Independent broaches the subject as well:

The casting of the black actor James Howson in Andrea Arnold's new screen adaptation of Wuthering Heights is innovative, because the black historical presence in Britain has been invisible in cinema until now. [...]
A black actor playing Heathcliff is a positive development, but we also need to see more examples of this adventurous casting. (Stephen Bourne)

The Daily Mail has a (sensationalist?) article about James Howson's past.

IFTN interviews cinematographer Robbie Ryan:

With ‘Wuthering Heights’ garnering praise around the globe, the film’s cinematographer Robbie Ryan is enjoying the much more agreeable climate of Los Angeles, after trudging around a wet and windy Yorkshire to shoot the film.
The Irishman had an advantage on the shoot, his self confessed appreciation for mud; “there is quote in the film from Heathcliff, ‘I like being dirty’, I definitely follow that mantra.”
A period drama wouldn’t be what one would naturally expect from Ryan and Arnold, whose previous collaborations include ‘Fish Tank’ and ‘Red Road’, “I remember saying ‘what the hell! I can’t believe your doing that.’ I did it in school and remember thinking ‘oh man that’s a heavy old book’. But it’s one of her favourite books, she was delighted to be making it,” said Ryan, who jumped at the chance to collaborate with her again.
“She had loads of ideas of what to try and to make it different to other adaptations. It was a surprise but after hearing her ideas and what she wanted, I thought she was really going to make something different,” said Ryan, “you see her other films and they are very much based on being real to the story, real to the reality of that place, location is a character.” (Philip Connolly)

And The Irish Times discusses the academy ratio of the film.

Andrea Arnold’s Wuthering Heights has stirred up a fair degree of critical noise. Quite a few pundits adore the thing. Plenty others find its stripped-down aesthetic a little too austere. One (ahem, ahem) aspect of the picture that has, however, been largely ignored is the director’s decision to continue using the cramped 1.37:1 aspect ratio. The casual cinema-goer might shrug uninterestedly at the last sentence. Jeez. You may as well be talking to us about the brand of tripod. Who cares about such technicalities?
There is, however, no way that you can fail to notice Arnold’s decision. [...]
Hats off to Andrea and her fantastic cinematographer Robbie Ryan (wrongly called Ritchie in last week’s Ticket — apologies). Feeling that Academy is the best ratio for representing faces, they have stubbornly offered two fingers to convention and gone their own way. This is, these days, an even rarer move than shooting your film in black and white. Their integrity is impressive.
Explaining her relationship with her DoP, Arnold recently said:
“We have developed our own language, almost. Of course, every film is different and each time we start a new film we talk about how it will be. We do tests. That’s how we decided this time on the 4:3 ratio which I love so much. It’s the prefect frame for a person.”
Check out the film’s eccentric shape — and eccentric ambience — at a cinema near you. (Donald Clarke)

The Herald Scotland comments briefly on the film:

One could hardly expect the director of those discomforting contemporary dramas Red Road and Fish Tank to play ball with a literary classic; Andrea Arnold’s Wuthering Heights was always going to be different. Her approach to Emily Brontë’s gothic romance has been, first of all, to do away with the gothic altogether – gone are Cathy’s ghost at the window and the demonic older Heathcliffe (sic), waiting for his own death – replacing it with her own strain of rigorous realism. She’s also shifted the focus away from the love story to the cruel and brutalising treatment of Heathcliffe (sic). This version is all about the boy.
Arnold makes the logical, though still daring decision to cast black, non-professional actors as Heathcliffe (sic), young and old, their natural discomfort in front of the camera perfectly suiting the feral outsider. Her presentation of the unforgiving landscape and thankless rural life is also spot-on. But overall this is far from perfect: by truncating the story, and denuding it of passion, Arnold has given us a slow and demanding film that merits respect, but not love. (Phil Miller)

While Spectator finds it 'bleak and bold':

As a major admirer of all writer/director Andrea Arnold’s previous work — Wasp, Red Road, Fish Tank — I was looking forward to her version of Wuthering Heights more than I can say, and? Wow! Or, at least, mostly ‘wow!’ It is a ‘wow’ with a few reservations. It is two thirds of a ‘wow’, so perhaps a ‘wo!’? Wo! It is impressively bold. And brave. And brutish. It will rile the purists, which is always good, as riling purists is a particular hobby of mine, and I like to set aside at least half a day a week to do just that. (I favour putting them in a cage, and poking them with sticks every now and then.) Yet it is also so glacial it freezes you out and James Howson, the newcomer who plays Heathcliff in his adult years, may not be up to the job; he just sort of grunts oikishly, as if he were serving you in PC World or Comet. This is why it’s a ‘wo’, not a ‘wow’, although don’t be downhearted: a ‘wo’ is always the next best thing.
Ms Arnold has dispensed with a narrator and has opted to tell the story entirely from Heathcliff’s point of view, as is within her rights. There is no law against it, as far as I know. The film begins with the adult Heathcliff — portrayed as black, for the first time — alone in a room, smacking his own bloodied head against a stone wall, signifying all the grief and hatred and violence he’s already experienced. Time then spools back to Heathcliff as a boy (Solomon Glave) arriving at Wuthering Heights with Mr Earnshaw (Paul Hilton) across the moor, in the dark and the rain, having been plucked as a runaway from the streets of Liverpool.
There is no musical score. Instead, the elements provide the soundtrack. The wind howls. Branches snap. Gorse cracks. Windowpanes rattle. Rain thuds. Mud splatters. Ms Arnold also uses only hand-held cameras, which gives everything a fantastically raw, splintering feel. This is certainly a film of sensation and as a film of sensation it is a beautiful and triumphant and magnificent beast. But, I should add, it may be sensation at the expense of story. It is often dramatically inert; can seem more like a succession of bleak, brutal photographs than a narrative with momentum and, although this may have been Ms Arnold’s intention, it does get a little repetitious. (Oh, no, not more bruised skies! Oh, no, not those bloody branches tapping on the windows again!) (read more) (Deborah Ross)

While Kevin Maher admits in The Times that,

when I looked at the new Wuthering Heights movie I decided that, no, it wasn’t a piece of ill-judged art house hackery but a well-intended effort from all concerned.

Also reviewing the film: Jildy Sauce, b3, Push Start, Ultra Culture, Inter:mission, Certain Waters, The Film Blog and Marionhoney.

The Economist's blog Prospero features Kate Beaton's Hark! A Vagrant.

Perth Sunday Times mourns the death of cricket writer Peter Roebuck:

It was wildly over-the-top and heavy-handed, and it symbolised what made his writing so very unique and special, but also, why he turned others off.
The line set the scene for a match report on a typically grey day of Ashes play in England in 2001 and went as follows: “Neither chill winds nor dark clouds that came like Heathcliff’s scowl over proceedings could quite drain the opening day of its tension or occasion.”
Most writers would have been content to write “grey” or “drizzly”. Not Roebuck. For him, only a reference to the chief character of Emily Brontë’s 1847 novel Wuthering Heights would suffice.

This writer from RTÉ Ten also mentions the Brontës when you least expect it:

Given the elemental power and emotional overflow of Florence Welch's music I half expect her to arrive for our interview like a bedraggled Brontë heroine, all flailing hair, flowing cloak, and a wild look in her eyes. Instead she is perched rather prettily on a table in her dressing room in RTÉ beside a bowl of fruit. (Alan Corr)

Regency Delight continues examining Jane Eyre adaptations and Klarabelle Candy posts about Gordon and Caird's musical adaptation. Women of Yesterday features Emily Brontë.