Must-see Gem of a Film

GateHouse News Service talks about the DVD/Blu Ray release of Wuthering Heights 2011 in the US:

Coming April 23: “Wuthering Heights” (2011). Andrea Arnold is a remarkably accomplished British filmmaker whose three haunting features — “Red Road” (2006), “Fish Tank” (2009), and this new adaptation of Emily Brontë’s classic 19th-century novel — have hardly gotten any notice stateside. Heathcliff, the hero of “Wuthering Heights,” a poor adopted orphan who grows into a wealthy gentleman, is described by Brontë as looking dark-skinned like a Gypsy; Arnold casts two black actors (Solomon Glave and James Howson) to play the role as a boy and a man — a stark contrast to the popular 1939 William Wyler film version, which starred Laurence Olivier. She shoots the bleak Yorkshire moors setting with an intense, hyper-physical sensuality, inserting extreme close-ups of insects and plant life à la Terrence Malick. Using a handheld camera, a sharp cutting rhythm, and luxuriating in the rainy gray-blue landscapes, Arnold gives the obsessive love between Heathcliff and his adopted sister, Catherine (Shannon Bear and Kaya Scodelario), a tragic fatalism that seems to emanate organically from their beings. Hewing fairly close to the novel (though skipping the second generation of lovers, as Wyler did), this “Wuthering Heights” feels completely reconceived, fresh and relevant. Scenes play out loosely and atmospherically, dialogue is sparse and muted, and yet the class divisions and “civilized” rules at the heart of Brontë’s saga feel as oppressive as ever, and even more arbitrary. This must-see gem of a film is available on DVD and Blu-ray from Oscilloscope Laboratories. (Howard Karren)

We read in the Sunday Times (Sri Lanka) an anecdote about Daphne du Maurier and her house in Cornwall:

However, it was in Ferryside that she discovered herself and the magical world of make-believe and it was from here, while walking that she discovered the derelict schooner Jane Slade, and it was in Ferryside that she began writing The Loving Spirit one “wild day in October with a howling sou’westerly wind and slashing rain, a rug wrapped around my knees, sitting at the desk in my bedroom at Ferryside. Its title came from a poem by Emily Brontë.  (Christopher Ondaatje)

Big Think celebrates the 200th anniversary of Pride and Prejudice highlighting its realistic setting:

A girl tells the housekeeper of her estate, not that she loves the rough boy she’s grown up with, or even likes him, but that she is him… (...)
All the other stories mentioned above contain gaudier trappings: the monsters of The Odyssey, the ghostly moors of Wuthering Heights, the exotic locale and wartime passions of Casablanca. (Austin Allen)

The Times talks about the upcoming film summer season:

These films just endlessly retell origin stories, and studios don't need to find original ideas. People groan when there's a new Great Expectations or Wuthering Heights, but comic books have none of the depth of classic literature. (Jonathan Dean) 

Diario Las Américas describes the Venezuelan situation as

Discursos encendidos, amenazas, incertidumbre. Una situación que merece el título de “Cumbres Borrascosas”’ como en la novela de Emily Brontë. (Marcos Antonio Ramos) (Translation)

Diario de Sevilla (Spain) interviews the writer Manuel Vilas about his novel El Luminoso Regalo:

-Por la novela asoma Cumbres borrascosas, y no parece una mención inocente. Su obra ha dejado atrás la posmodernidad. (Braulio Ortiz) (Translation)

Big Island Rachel's Books reviews Wide Sargasso Sea; Salts Press has visited the Brontë Parsonage; Loud and Little is reading The Tenant of Wildfell Hall; Feasts and Festivals talks about Charlotte Brontë, her Penzance family origins and gives a family recipe of an apparently delicious blueberry pie. And finally, a new tumblr devoted to Jane Eyre, Fuck Yeah Jane Eyre.