'So much more difficult than anyone imagined'

The Chicago Sun-Times has interviewed Andrea Arnold regarding her take on Wuthering Heights.

Arnold, 51, loved the book as a teenager: “It always stuck with me. I’ve always been drawn to the complexity and dark heart of the story.”
So when she heard a new film version was heading into production, she felt a twinge of jealousy. But as luck would have it, the film’s original director left the project, and out of the blue, Arnold was asked to take over. The project already had momentum, and she had only 18 months to write a script, find actors and complete filming.
But the tight schedule didn’t bother her: “Sometimes it’s good to move fast, because you have to use your instincts. I think some of the best decisions are made that way. When you have too much time to think about things, you can get too safe, and that can lead to the wrong thing.” [...]
The true test of the cast and crew’s stamina came when Arnold decided to shoot the entire film on the moors, a move that brings a visceral immediacy to the story. Unlike any other adaptation of Bronte’s novel, Arnold makes the mud, wind and rain elemental to the storytelling.
“I’m very interested in nature and the way it connects with us, and also the way that it’s very selfish and brutal as well,” Arnold says. “So I knew it was going to be a difficult shoot, but it was so much more difficult than anyone imagined.”
It’s obvious through her films that Arnold is drawn to the darker side of life. “I don’t deliberately seek it,” she explains. “It just seems to be what comes out.” (Mary Houlihan)

Gazeta Wyborcza (Poland) reviews the recent stage adaptation of Wuthering Heights adapted and directed by Julia Holewińska and Kuba Kowalski.

Spektakl Kowalskiego i Holewińskiej wyraża tęsknotę za tym, co brudne, ukryte, nieświadome, ale autentyczne. W dzisiejszym poukładanym świecie, który jest jeszcze bardziej ogarnięty obsesją czystości i kontroli niż epoka wiktoriańska, taka podróż w to skarb. (Roman Pawłowski) (Translation)

Cogo seems to have a condensed version of the review in English:

Emotion and strong visual imagery are at the heart of the new version of “Wuthering Heights” based on Emily Brontë’s book. After so many movie adaptations, which may be called bland, the passionate, strong and gripping spectacle shown in Teatr Studio in Warsaw, may be a surprise.
The scene is divided in half, just as the reality Heathcliff and Cathy existed in. There is the white, almost hospital-like feel of the rich Victorian house, and on the other side the dirt of Heathcliff’s base element. One side engaged in pleasant conversations, tea-drinking and reading books, the other full of curses and potatoes with vodka. The actors do a wonderful job playing with this contrast and using it to express their feelings and passions.

Express & Star opens the review of the new TV series Last Tango in Halifax as follows:

The Brontë sisters knew only too well that the breath-taking Yorkshire moors were the perfect backdrop to a romantic tale.
Two hundred years later and the dramatic landscape has not changed a jot, but the protagonists haven’t quite got the youth and vitality of Heathcliff and Catherine. (Becky Woods)

Tell that about the landscape to people fighting against ever-spreading wind farms, though.

The Star has a brief note on A Peak District Anthology by Roly Smith, again reminding us that,

Classic literary figures from William Wordsworth and George Eliot to Charlotte Brontë and Arthur Conan Doyle have all paid tribute to the landscape.

Benno Barnard writes in Knack (Belgium) about a trip to England and his thoughts on the drawing of Anne Brontë's spaniel Flossy.

Vrijdag
De pastorie van de Brontës in Haworth ligt iets te ver uit de route, want Joy wil nog winkelen in ons beminde Rye. ‘Aan hun achterdeur begonnen de Moors, maar aan de voorkant lag een ellendig stadje, met zesduizend inwoners of zo. Je deelde de plee met twintig gezinnen. Af en toe sijpelde er grondvocht van het kerkhof in het drinkwater en gingen er weer zoveel mensen dood.’ Dit vertel ik Joy aan de ontbijttafel in het Waterton Park Hotel, boven toast en marmelade en spiegeleieren en spek en witte bonen in tomatensaus en zeven soorten ontbijtgranen en thee en koffie en toast en zelfgemaakte aardbeienjam en andere restanten van het Britse imperium. ‘Maar de Brontës hadden een eigen plee. Geen badkamer, zoveel decadentie was nu ook weer niet nodig. Maar wel een plee. Zie je nu hoe verstandig je eraan doet in een pastorie opgevoed te worden?’
Vrijdagavond
Emily Brontë kon ook goed tekenen. Op een aquarel van haar hand – lang toegeschreven aan Charlotte – rent de hond van Anne, de derde zus, in het jaar 1843 over de hei achter een vogel aan. Van weinig honden wordt de naam overgeleverd, maar deze spaniel heette Flossy, dat weten we. Hij is een en al onweerstaanbare opgewekte hersenloosheid; het verlangen van de wolf naar prooi is als hooibroei in hem aanwezig, maar na tienduizend jaar tot speelsheid gedomesticeerd. De lucht is gelig, met een paarse weerschijn van de grond erdoorheen. De apocalyps is al een beetje aangebroken boven Flossy zijn kop. De staart wappert in een hard geworden wapperen, de oren waaien achter hem weg in een gestremd wegwaaien. Twaalf jaar later is alleen vader Brontë nog in leven. De hond gaat als op een na laatste heen, alleen Charlotte overleeft hem nog een jaar. Hij sterft een ouderdomsdood. De drie zussen en hun broer Branwell sterven aan de negentiende eeuw. (Translation)

The Edinburgh Journal discusses society's attitude towards mental health:

Modern society is getting kinder towards mental illness (see Charlotte Brontë's novels) and with iconic figures like Stephen Fry speaking out about their own experience, the taboo is finally dissolving. (Claire Mckay)

Truth be told though, even Charlotte Brontë regretted having made too much of a monster of Bertha later on.

The Hindu features Usha Shenbagaraj’s Dheepam Lending Library.

She could have started a salon or even taught embroidery and crochet classes, but obviously it wasn’t the money she was looking for. Says the avid reader, “I read Jane Eyre and my first Danielle Steel here. My love for books made me buy the library from Thaathaa in 2002 and keep it going when others were closing shop.” (Soma Basu)

Metro London looks at the rise of erotic book clubs:

[Sex writer Betty Herbert's Mucky Book Club] also doesn’t focus on contemporary erotica. Instead, it is ‘very much about quality literature that happens to turn us on’. Continuing this theme, Herbert’s next event, on December 13, hones in on the new flood of sexed-up classics, such as Jane Eyre Laid Bare, and asks whether the original novels are sexier anyway. (Kate Hutchinson)

SugarScape looks at Florence + the Machine's Lover to Lover video which apparently has

got a bit of a Heathcliff and Cathy vibe going on when she strolls about in a misty field and seems to be a pretty emotional video to match the whacking great track. (Linds Foley)

Lili escreve reviews in Portuguese The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. It Would Crumble discusses Dario Marianelli's Jane Eyre 2011 OST. Midgehole Dave has uploaded to Flickr a few recent pictures of Haworth. Sally Jenkins, writer posts about to have "a bit of Brontë luck".