Passion Beyond Death

The screening of Wuthering Heights 1939 in the TCM programme The Essentials (yesterday, Saturday 19) is commented by some news outlets:

In any other year, Wuthering Heights might have walked away from the Academy Award ceremonies with top honors. But this was 1939, a year that has gone down in legend as Hollywood's crowning moment. It was the year of Gone with the Wind, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Ninotchka, Stagecoach, The Wizard of Oz, and a host of other memorable movies. Nevertheless, Wuthering Heights was still one of the most acclaimed pictures of its time. Although not a financial success on its initial release, Emily Brontë's classic tale of a tempestuous love that retains its passion even beyond death eventually captured the hearts of audiences, and in spite of the numerous remakes and adaptations, this version remains, for most viewers, the definitive film adaptation. (...)
The film is noteworthy, too, for the cinematography of Gregg Toland. Creating a gothic, almost supernatural atmosphere for the tragic love story, Toland refined the deep-focus technique for which he would become famous and which achieved its greatest accomplishment in Orson Welles' landmark Citizen Kane (1941). (Rob Nixon on TCM)

As she has done since taking over co-hosting duties from Alec Baldwin, [Drew] Barrymore will sit down with TCM's learned film host, Robert Osborne to introduce this week's feature.  During their introduction of the film, which coincidentally focuses on only sixteen of the tome's thirty-four chapters, Barrymore will reveal why she holds the film in such high regard. She is expected to tout the film's strong female character, something she's pointed out in most of the film's she's previously introduced as part of her time on The Essentials.
Osborne will no doubt lace his commentary with insider facts, including the popularity afforded its stars, Merle Oberon and Oscar-nominated Laurence Olivier. The duo brought the novel's ill-fated lovers, Cathy and Heathcliff, beautifully to life with the help of Best Supporting Actress nominee, Geraldine Fitzgerald. Throughout his life and career, Olivier would often cite Wuthering Heights, and working with directorWyler as the most educational experience of his life as an actor. (Jonathan Pinkerton on TCM Examiner)

Many movie and TV adaptations have been made of this gothic romance novel by Emily Brontë, but none has surpassed the teaming, in this 1939 movie classic, of Merle Oberon and Laurence Olivier as passionate lovers Cathy and Heathcliff. Their screen romance here is a type of perfection as sheer as the cliffs on which they embrace. No moor, no less. (David Bianculli on TV Worth Watching)

Grough publishes an informal survey to visitors of Top Withins:

Dog walkers mingled with literary pilgrims who had travelled half way round the globe at a windswept ruin high on the Pennine Way.
That was one of the findings of an informal survey of visitors to Top Withens by artist Simon Warner and two tourism students conducted over the Easter holiday.
The ruined farmhouse high above Haworth in West Yorkshire is believed to be the inspiration for Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights and attracts literary fans from across the world. But the building also stands on the Pennine Way, the 429km (267-mile) national trail that runs from Edale in Derbyshire to the Scottish border at Kirk Yetholm. (...)
“We spent two days near Top Withens, on the footpath leading to it and at Brontë Waterfalls, and asked nearly 50 people how far they had travelled, the reasons for visiting and their impressions,” he said.
“It was a fairly random exercise but I think we got a good cross-section of people and it would probably be a similar story whenever you went up there.”
He said: “Beyond a certain altitude it’s a pre-industrial landscape with just the remnants of the packhorse trails visible. (...)
Simon Warner will also be giving an illustrated talk, Picturing the Watershed, in which he will refer to earlier portrayals of the South Pennines uplands by artists like Bill Brandt and Joseph Pighills, and describe how his own landscape techniques have evolved from black and white photography to digital video. The talk, from 2pm on Saturday, 23 June, at the Manor House Art Gallery and Museum, Ilkley, is free and there is no need to book. (Liz Roberts)

The Derby Telegraph presents another walk with Brontë connections too:

This walk follows the River Derwent before gently climbing up the hillside to Hathersage, a village with strong literary connections.
Charlotte Brontë's best friend at school was Ellen Nussey, whose brother was vicar of Hathersage. In 1845, Charlotte stayed at the vicarage with Ellen for about three weeks. Inspired by what she had seen, she wrote Jane Eyre, set in Hathersage.

The Washington Post reviews the latest John Irving novel, In One Person:

Alarmed by the school physician, who claims that homosexual "afflictions" must be treated aggressively, Billy asks Miss Frost if she can recommend "any novels about young people who have . . . dangerous crushes." She leads him to Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, Tom Jones and Great Expectations, hardly what the 13-year-old expected, but not as surprising as what she eventually reveals in the basement of the library. (Don't ask, don't tell!)  (Ron Charles)

Kay Woodward, author of Wuthering Hearts and Jane Airhead, publishes a guest post on girls ♥ books; Viajando nas Letras e Imagens (in Portuguese) posts about Wuthering Heights.