Daring Deconstructions

Sud-Ouest reviews Wuthering Heights 2011 which opens in France next Wednesday:

La beauté du film d'Andrea Arnold est dans cette âpreté, dans ses climats puissants, dans une vision charnelle et rude de la nature. Les personnages ne parlent guère, mais ils bougent, ils galopent, ils s'agitent. Ce sont les corps qui se souviennent et qui s'expriment, qui souffrent et saignent. On n'est pas ici chez des aristocrates en dentelles, mais à la crête d'un lieu où l'on va les joues sales et les bottes crottées. Cette dimension naturaliste, alimentée par une mise en scène attentive aux détails, à la limite parfois du maniérisme mais sauvée par une sorte de froideur finale, ôte au récit une bonne part de son romantisme et de son pathos. (Sophie Avon) (Translation)

The Independent reviews the new Great Expectations directed by Mike Newell and thinks it is not so daring as Cary Fukunaga's Jane Eyre or Andrea Arnold's Wuthering Heights:

Unlike the directors of the recent, more daring deconstructions of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, Newell and his screenwriter, David Nicholls (One Day), have gone for a literal, scene-by-scene translation of the book, with very little of the streamlining undertaken by David Lean for the classic 1946 version.  (Nicholas Barber)

I want art in my life reviews Jane Eyre 2011.

The Sunday Times is excited to see in the upcoming BBC Radio 4 Extra schedule the 1999 radio adaptation of Villette (next December 12th) because it is the only Keira Knightley radio series (recorded when she was barely 13 years old):

She took two parts – that of Polly and Fleur. She was joined by Joanna Page, later of Gavin And Stacey fame. The lead part of Lucy Snowe was taken by Catherine McCormack and other cast includes Dame Harriet Walter, Joseph Fiennes and James Laurenson

The Boston Globe talks about original interior designs. Including this one from Theodore & Company:

Delighted by a pair of cement French garden statuary she took out of storage, interior designer Kate McCusker of Theodore & Company got the yen to redecorate her Beacon Street office. The statues — otherwise known as “Romeo and Juliet” or, if you’re talking to Paula McCusker, Kate’s mother and business partner, “Catherine and Heathcliff” — are mounted on plinths and very French in style. Kate felt they were best suited for either a funky loft or a distinctly French room. The office, being rather small, made Parisian decor the obvious choice. (Marni Elyse Katz)

We cannot imagine anything further away from the Wuthering Heights imagery than this, but to each their own.

The Van Wert Times Bulletin talks about a local theatrical production of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and mentions a passion for reading:

If you're like me, you read a lot of classics in high school and college literature classes. Some of them stuck with me (like Jane Eyre and The Lord of the Rings trilogy), and others were just assignments to be completed. (Dee Fisher)

Riverina Romantics interviews the writer Marina Adair:

Your bookshelf is on fire, you can only save what you can carry what do you save?
The complete works of Jane Austin (sic), Jane Eyre, The Mediator series and Pants on Fire by Meg Cabot, and of course all of Julie Garwood’s historicals.

Alone. Together. Fact. Fiction, Sam Read-'n-Write, xCacharel (on YouTube and in German) and My Little Secret World (in Portuguese) post about Wuthering Heights; ☆My Blog ☆ proposes a very ambitious Brontë challenge; Jak się czy­ta, to się nie myśli o so­bie (in Polish) reviews The Professor; Idiots & Earthquakes. A Writer's Blog and BiblioPepe (in Swedish) posts about Jane Eyre; Portrait of a Maiden reviews the 1997 version; Sogni di Carta (in Italian) posts about Bianca Pitzorno's La Bambinaia Francese; The Simplicicity of Being Curious reviews Wuthering Heights 2009.