An era of rampant new cinematic life for dusty classics

Metro Pulse comments on the release of Andrea Arnold's Wuthering Heights on DVD/Blu-ray.

It’s taking a segue too far to call writer/director Andrea Arnold’s Wuthering Heights “punk,” but her 2012 adaptation of the Emily Brontë classic courses with an undeniable upstart energy. The film begins with a light-skinned black man (James Howson) in a high-collared suit throwing himself against a paint-patched wall in a broken-down room until his forehead bleeds. There’s no romantic swelling of strings—nothing but the huff and thump of his effort on the soundtrack, and rather than capturing melodramatic lighting, the camera’s focus settles on motes of dust wafting toward where he lies on the floor in sere daylight. You are not watching a literary figure hitting his marks and speaking his lines; you’re in a room with a person at the end of his wits.
The man is Heathcliff, the poor adopted son of the master of the titular bleak Yorkshire estate. Brontë described Heathcliff as having a dark “gypsy”-like aspect, no doubt to underline his unsuitability as a suitor for Catherine Earnshaw (Kaya Scodelario), the daughter of Wuthering Heights’ owner. Making Heathcliff’s “other”-ness in this context fully manifest paradoxically allows the story to sidestep period coyness and literary self-consciousness, making it feel even more real, less bound to the typical conventions of the period film.
Not that it needs much help on that front. Though shot on 35mm, Arnold’s Wuthering Heights (Oscilloscope DVD and streaming) often has an immediate, video-like feel, thanks to hand-held shots and intimate camera angles. As with the director’s previous films, Red Road and Fish Tank, there’s a notable lack of gloss and sweetening. The Yorkshire moors are bleak and forever windswept, and the Earnshaws’ lives come off blatantly cold and rough—finding privacy for a conjugal tryst may require a quick clothed lie-down in the grass on an exposed hillside just outside the manor. As a result of this forbidding isolation, the bond between young Heathcliff (Solomon Glave) and young Catherine (Shannon Beer) feels intuitive and intense in way that more polite, romantic versions must force. As their lives and courses diverge and the plot unfolds, Howson isn’t quite screen presence enough to pull off the full gravity of the final scenes, but alongside films such as Cary Fukunaga’s 2011 Jane Eyre, Arnold’s latest promises an era of rampant new cinematic life for dusty classics. (Lee Gardner)

While WhatCulture! states the obvious:

TV adaptations of novels aren’t a new concept. The BBC, for one, has made an industry out of exporting a seemingly endless stream of Dickens, Austen, Brontë, and Collins adaptations. (Antonio Urias)

Lynn Martin discusses feminism in The Commons.

No doubt in the sixties and seventies, feminism was my faith. I know I grabbed the books as fast as they were printed: Adrienne Rich, Audre Lorde, Paule Marshall, June Jordan, Toni Morrison, Margaret Atwood. And those that were history rediscovered: Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Anne Bradstreet, Emily Dickinson, Charlotte Brontë, Zora Neale Hurston.

KSL recommends '6 unique, memorable books your mother will love' and among them are the

BabyLit board books by Jennifer Adams and illustrated by Alison Oliver
Book lovers old and young can’t seem to get enough of these adorable adaptations of classic literature. Three new additions to the series are now available: “Sense and Sensibility,” “Wuthering Heights,” and “Moby Dick.” Also in the series: “Romeo and Juliet,” “Pride and Prejudice,” “Jane Eyre,” “Alice in Wonderland,” “Dracula,” and “A Christmas Carol.” Pair with some fun swag from babylit.com and Mom will be thrilled. (Teri Harman)

KindaMuzik (Netherlands) reviews the album The Lonely Mountains by Kim Janssen:

The Lonely Mountains, afgeleid van een gedicht van Charlotte Brontë, is een logisch vervolg op Ancient Crime. (Niels Steeghs) (Translation)

The poem in question would seem to be Often rebuked, yet always back returning.

Brontë Radio interviews Ann Sumner, director of the Brontë Parsonage Museum:

Since taking over as Executive Director of Haworth's Brontë Parsonage Museum, Professor Ann Sumner, has been placed firmly in the media spotlight.
Following on from a special concert by American singing star Patti Smith, Ann is now to feature in Michael Portillo's "Great Railway Journeys" for BBC Television.
Here she talks to Brontë Radio about her first busy year in charge of the Bronte legend.

Daisy Dolls has an update on the Mr Rochester doll.