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Saturday, January 31, 2009

Saturday, January 31, 2009 10:34 am by M. in , , , , ,    No comments
George Packer's play Betrayed is now being performed in Berkeley at the Aurora Theatre. The San Jose Mercury News mentions the well-known, for the readers of BrontëBlog, Brontë connection:
From the first moments we meet Intisar (an intense turn by Denmo Ibrahim) and her hard-working colleagues, Adnan (Bobak Cyrus Bakhtiari) and Laith (Amir Sharafeh), we see them as quirkily drawn individuals instead of collateral damage. Intisar can quote Bronte by heart. (Karen D'Souza)
More plays. The Ottawa Sun reviews Ann-Marie MacDonald's Belle Moral: A Natural History which is performed through February 14th in the NAC Studio:
A couple of ladies in the audience were comparing it to "Jane Eyre" during the intermission. And I agreed, it does indeed resemble that.
Except that "Jane Eyre" was a brutally romantic tale that peeled the protective layers off the human heart. "Belle Moral" is less interested in Pearl's heart. It's more focused on her mind, and her tenacious will. The play is just amazingly busy with contrary ideas about art and science, religion and evolution, traditional versus contemporary roles for women. It goes on and on. (Denis Armstrong)
The Toronto Star talks about movie adaptations of good books:
This also works for certain classic literary titles – which is to say books more people have heard of than actually read – which also come with the added benefit of being endlessly re-makeable: Wuthering Heights, Frankenstein, Dracula, Jane Eyre, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Oliver Twist, anything by old Bill Shakespeare. (Geoff Pevere)
Samuel Johnson's 300th birthday and the appearance of new biographies about him are the reasons behind this article in the New York Times which also happens to mention Jane Eyre's connection to Samuel Johnson, Rasselas:
But Johnson’s “Rasselas” (1759), an “Oriental tale” whose poly­syllabic pomposity disappointed the young Jane Eyre, is the worst place for readers unacquainted with Johnson to start. (Leah Price)
The Bluff Country Reader interviews the author Amy Hahn who seems to be inspired by the Brontës among others:
Writing inspiration has come from classical authors such as Jane Austen, Charlotte and Emily Bronte, Victoria Holt and Philippa Gregory. (Melissa Van Der Plas)
Matthew Harris in The Times makes a sort of reading biography:
The Enid Blyton phase, I think, was what really got me hooked on reading for myself. Shortly after, when I was unwell, came a couple of terms at a boarding school in the Vumba mountains of Rhodesia. The academy turned out to be pretty unacademic and I was homesick. I turned to books. There was a corridor stacked with them, mostly mildewing in the Vumba mist. By the time I left I must have read every one. Little Men. Then Dickens again. Vanity Fair (I loved it and did understand the ambivalence of Becky Sharp). The Three Musketeers, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Jane Austen, the Brontës (I missed George Eliot), John Buchan ... then, in desperation for another book, even Little Women. A biography of Viscount Melbourne. An introduction to ferns.
The Times of India reports Matt Damon's statement about James Bond ('repulsive', 'imperialist' and 'misogynist', check The Miami Herald):
If Damon's cue were taken, many imaginary would outstrip Bond as rotten tomato recipients: Milton's Satan, Shakespeare's Shylock or Bronte's Heathcliff, romantic anti-hero par excellence, would all be bashed as boors.
Certainly the Brontës are used to illustrate almost any situation. The Oneonta Daily Star Teen Talk writer answers as follows to a reader who wishes to know what is needed to be a writer:
Education is not as much of a worry as you may think. Ernest Hemingway, the Bronte sisters, Jane Austen and even Charles Dickens never attended college, and their novels are very well-known. I think it is safe to say that talent may be more important than a college degree, although I'm sure classes would help. (Chad Shipman)
Now that the Guantánamo prison is finally going to be closed, Real Change News talks with a former prisoner and a former guard. The first one is Moazzam Begg who is not mentioned on this blog for the first time:
During his three years in Cuba, he read whatever he could — Wuthering Heights, copies of National Geographic with the maps removed — but the treatment led Begg to smash up what little he had in his cell on a couple of occasions. (Adam Forest)
On the blogosphere, Sumera's Blog posts about Jane Eyre 1944 (?), rotteneggstrikes posts about Jane Eyre 2006, Daisy's Thoughts on Life, Liberty, and Fiction is beginning Wuthering Heights, lindsay0819 selects some of the most annoying literary characters including a varied showcase of Brontë ones: Rochester, Heathcliff & Catherine and Mr. Brocklehurst. A brief biography of Emily Brontë is posted on Meia Palavra (in Portuguese).

Finally, an alert from the The Bewick Society:
Saturday 31 January 2009 Bewick Enthusiasms Afternoon
Bewick Enthusiasms will be an afternoon of lecturettes by speakers with enthusiasms for particular aspects of Bewick’s life and work or that of his associates. Keith Armstrong will lead us off with a selection of his latest poetry inspired by Bewick and Peter Osborne would like to tell us something about Bewick and Emily Brontë. This meeting is intended to allow our members to share their passion for Bewick so do please come along and if you would like to contribute a five to ten minute discussion on something you find fascinating about Bewick we would be delighted to hear from you.
Venue: Room 1, The Quaker Meeting House (Friends Meeting House), Jesmond.
Date and time: Saturday 31 January at 2pm.
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Some recent Brontë translations:

To Croatian:
Charlotte Brontë
JANE EYRE
ISBN: 978-953-178-991-2
Collection: Strani pisci
Translator: Giga Gračan
Publisher: Naklada LJEVAK
2008
A couple of translations of Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea:
Jean Rhys
ŠIROKO SARGAŠKO MORE
ISBN: 978-953-178-928-8
Collection: Strani pisci
Publisher: Naklada LJEVAK
2008

Jean Rhys
ŠIROKO SARGAŠKO MORE
ISBN: 978-953-178-927-1
Collection: Vrhovi svjetske književnosti
Publisher: Naklada LJEVAK
2008

To Nepali:

We read on the Salesian College's website in Darjeeling, India the following news (dated in 2008):
Miss Garima Rai's Nepali Translation of Wuthering Heights being released by Dr Nupur Das.
Regrettably, we don't know more details.

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Friday, January 30, 2009

Friday, January 30, 2009 4:33 pm by M. in , , , , , , ,    No comments
Cynthia Crossen in The Wall Street Journal admits to her literary flirts:
Fictional men I have loved: first and always, Mr. Darcy (Fitzwilliam was his given name, no wonder he preferred "Mr.") from "Pride and Prejudice." Rhett Butler ("Gone With the Wind"), Maxim de Winter ("Rebecca"), Dr. Zhivago. I had a brief fling with Mr. Rochester ("Jane Eyre") but he turned out to have a wife in the attic. I never warmed to Heathcliff ("Wuthering Heights") -- too dark and stormy.
The Online Rocket (the student newspaper of the Slippery Rock University, Pennsylvania) informs of a new choreography partially based on Wuthering Heights:
The SRU Dance Theatre will be "Setting the Pace" for the rest of the year's productions this weekend when dancers take the stage at the annual Winter Concert. (...)
Christy Trotnik, a 21-year-old senior majoring in dance and English literature, with an art history minor, is choreographing for the first time.(...)
Trotnik pulled from various sources for inspiration, including the children's book, "The Little Prince," contemporary books, "Hamlet," movie clips, and Wuthering Heights.
"There is a duet in the dance, where all the dancers but two leave the stage. That duet is based on a passage from Wuthering Heights," Trotnik said. (...)
The concert is performed at Miller Auditorium at 8 p.m. Jan. 29, 30 and 31.(Kacie Peterson)
The BBC website asks its readers if a good book can be riddled with faults. We noticed the following answer from Mary, Leeds:
I have always thought that it is too much of a coincidence that Jane Eyre meets her cousins after running away from Mr Rochester and the aborted wedding. However, it is still one of my favourite books and I suppose that miracles do happen sometimes!
The Financial Gazette (Zimbabwe) compares Senator Dianne Feinstein with a Jane Eyre character (!):
Senator Dianne Feinstein, with her 60s bob and brown pant suit, resembling a character from Jane Eyre, spoke with such sweetness and eloquence in her welcoming remarks, that I soon forgave her appearance and clung to her every word. (C. Malakoff)
The Waterford Times uses a Brontë vs Austen example to illustrate a grammar mistake:
Here’s another classical usage mistake often placed in a sentence referring to painters or novelists, and it appears on the test all of the time: “The novel Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin (sic) was once more widely read and was more popular in high schools than Charlotte Bronte.”
It’s improper grammar to compare a novel to a novelist. There’s little doubt that when you take the test you’ll see faulty comparison and faulty parallelism questions.
Or the same authors can be used to talk about a 25th wedding anniversary:
Like many other readers of Jane Eyre or Pride and Prejudice, I was a great believer in happy endings. You go through turmoil, and the path to love is strewn with stones, but after lots of drama, you end up with your destined one. Thus, the story ends. (Mara Sokolsky in Jewish Exponent)
Maddy Costa includes Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights in her selection of songs about luck for The Guardian. NZgamer reviews the recently released Nintendo DS's Classic Book Collection:
You’ll get a fantastic selection of Shakespeare’s plays, the complete works of Jane Austin (sic, again), adventure stories like Treasure Island and The Last of the Mohicans. Dickens is in there, two of the Brontes, Eliot, Twain, Henry James… you won’t get bored quickly, because there’s a book for every taste and mood. That is, unless you shun the classics. (Sam Prescott)
The Little Professor presents the following zombie-enhanced Jane Eyre approach (maybe unaware that as a matter of fact there exists I Walked with a Zombie, a 1943 film by Jacques Tourneur which was a reworking of Jane Eyre with Caribbean voodoo):
We all know that if you get in Jane Eyre's way, you die. However, this new take on an old classic reveals the awful truth: Lowood School incubates a virus that transforms young girls into the ravenous undead. Although Jane Eyre thinks that Helen Burns died of consumption, Helen actually spends the novel magically attracted to Jane's vicinity. Expressing her love for Jane in the only way she now can, Helen devours anyone who ever insults, assaults, or otherwise disses her one-time school chum. Notably, the grand climax offers us a very different reason for Mr. Rochester's missing hand.
And thanks also to The Little Professor we have been directed to Cute Overload and this very promising trailer of a quite different approach to Emily Brontë's masterpiece, aptly renamed Wuthering Plains.

Blarney Girl
is reading Wuthering Heights, Laura's Book and Movie Reviews posts about Daniel Pool's What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew, Le Grenier de Doriane (in French), A Level Path and Alcott and Earhart have discovered Jane Eyre, and Romanbloggen (in Swedish) discusses its main character.

Finally, one of the most surrealist Brontë-related things we have found on the net. A dance academy in Brazil named Academia de Dança Jane Eyre.

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Quando la RAI parlava italiano is a selection of Italian television adaptations (by the RAI) of English novels which is scheduled from January 30 until March in Casa del Cinema (Rome). The first miniseries which will be shown are Cime Tempestose (1956) and Jane Eyre (1957):
Friday January 30
SALA KODAK - 17:00
Cime tempestose, by Emily Bronte (first picture)
Director: Mario Landi
1956, 3h50’
Episodes: 1,2,3,4



Saturday 31 January
SALA KODAK - 17:00
Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte (second picture)
Director: Anton Giulio Majano
1957, 5h14’
Episodes: 1,2,3




Sunday 1 February
SALA KODAK - 17:00
Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte
Director: Anton Giulio Majano
1957, 5h14’
SECONDA PARTE: Episodes 4,5
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12:02 am by M. in , ,    No comments
A student production of Gordon & Caird's Jane Eyre: The Musical opens today, January 30, at the Marietta College, Marietta, Ohio:
Jane Eyre: The Musical

Music & Lyrics by Paul Gordon, Book by John Caird
Directed by Stephen M. Rader
Musical Director by Daniel Tadlock

All performances are in the Friederich Theatre of the Hermann Fine Arts Center on the Marietta College campus

Charlotte Bronte's beloved tale of a girl who loves a man she believes is beyond her reach, set to a glorious and moving score that will have you humming along.

January 30, 31, February 1, 6, 7 at 8:00 p.m.
February 8 at 2:00 p.m.

Of the production, senior musical theatre major Britney Koser in the role of Jane Eyre says, “this is a nice approach to a classical story and the music is just beautiful. There are very sweet moments mixed funny moments.”
EDIT (30 January 2009):
The Marietta Times gives more information:
For principal performers Brittney Koser and Jim Vogt, "Jane Eyre: The Musical," opening this weekend at Marietta College, offers beautiful music and fine drama within a classic love story.
"The music is amazing," said Vogt, who portrays Rochester, the leading man. "It makes your work so much easier. You bring yourself to it." (...)
"I think that the biggest challenge for me in any performance, any role, is connecting with my character," Vogt said. "There was a bit of an age difference (18 vs. 40s) that I had to deal with."
Koser, 23, a senior at Marietta majoring in musical theater, said the novel "Jane Eyre" was one of her favorite books when she was growing up.
"I absolutely loved it," she said.
Unlike his leading lady, Vogt had never read Bronte's dramatic, sometimes dark, novel prior to this production.
"Now I have read it and liked it very much," he said. "Reading it filled in the blanks for me. I did have some questions about the story after the first reading, and the novel gave me background."
Vogt, a freshman and fine arts major, said a challenge outside of "finding" the sometimes brooding character is liking him.
"I find that one of the more essential things about playing the part is that you have to like what you are doing," Vogt said. "You have to like the character you play. You have to embrace it."
For Koser, a veteran of the musical stage, the role of Jane Eyre is not the kind she usually portrays.
"The biggest challenge for me is that I don't typically play a young leading lady," Koser said. "The music was all new to me, although I've taken voice lessons since I was 8 years old."
There is also plenty of dialogue between the music - and some more light-hearted moments.
"The biggest thing we've noticed is sometimes, not often, the dialogue seems a bit melodramatic, almost like a soap opera at times," Koser said. "It follows the novel somewhat, but some things had to be omitted, obviously, because of time constraints."
The Theatre at Marietta College production is directed by Stephen Rader with musical direction by David Tadlock. (Connie Cartmell)
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Thursday, January 29, 2009

Thursday, January 29, 2009 2:04 pm by Cristina in , , ,    1 comment
Paper Cuts, a New York Times blog, chats with novelist Kate Christensen, who picks PJ Harvey's To Bring You My Love as one of the songs on her 2009 playlist, says about it:
I once read a description of Polly Jean Harvey as “just a girl who fancies a bit of drama,” which made me laugh, because of course she’s the spiritual kin of Sarah Bernhardt and Catherine of “Wuthering Heights,” this tiny pale girl with a mass of black hair who’s evidently possessed by daemons or faeries. (Gregory Cowles)
The San Diego Reader Weekly interviews ordinary people about their current reads. Today it's one Jeff Cooke's turn. He's reading Breaking Dawn, from Stephenie Meyer's Twilight saga and a couple of questions end up being Wuthering Heights-related:
Compare it to other books you’ve read.
“Romeo and Juliet, Wuthering Heights — two star-crossed lovers, that kind of deal. I love the gothic aspect of Wuthering Heights, how Katherine falls in love with two men and they’re both really bad for her, but both really necessary at certain points in her life. There are two characters in the Twilight series, Edward and Jacob, who are both in love with Bella, and she’s in love with them, but in different ways. She’s really deeply in love with Edward, and then she loves Jacob in a best-friend kind of way. I like Jacob — he’s a good, stand-up guy, and so I’m kind of rooting for her to get with him in the end.”

Who is your favorite character in Wuthering Heights? In Twilight?
“Probably Heathcliff. He’s very brooding, very damaged, very difficult to be around. He kind of reminds me of myself. In Twilight, Bella, because she’s very brooding, very confused, very difficult to be around sometimes.” (Sonia Eliot)
BlogCritics Magazine reviews Jane Eyre, the novel, and finishes with the following recommendation:
I won't spoil it for you. You've just got to get a copy and read it for yourself. Yet, even those who have already read it must do so again --very soon -- before spring comes and ruins the atmosphere! (Marcia Wilwerding)
We sort of agree, but we also must say that Jane Eyre is such a good book that it will bear any season.

The blogs are quite 'wuthering' today: A Truth Universally Acknowledged and Chez Emjy (in French) who both discuss Wuthering Heights 2009. The Egalitarian Bookworm (Chick?) asks readers whether they all 'hate Cathy, or Just Charlotte Riley?' A Reader's Respite has reread the novel and has several questions as well. Mind Playground posts her favourite quotes from the novel.

Ananka's Diary has discovered an article on 'the staircase that inspired Jane Eyre' in the Telegraph archives.

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Several alerts for today, January 29:

1. Jane Mackay talks about Villette in Leicester, UK:
Literature at Lunch at De Montfort Hall, Leicester, UK

The popular series of lunchtime lectures with Dr Jane Mackay, examining the lives, influences and literary themes of our greatest writers and their novels. All lectures are in the Victoria suite and last approximately 1 hour.

Thursday 29th January 2009 - Charlotte Bronte's Villette 12:30 to 13:30
2. A new chance to see Patricia Hruby Powell's impersonation of Emily Brontë:
An Evening with Jane Austen, Emily Bronte, and Emily Dickinson -
January 29th, 6:30 PM
Evergreen Park Public Library, Evergreen Park, Illinois

Patricia Hruby Powell performs her one-woman play, a depiction of three great 19th century writers who dared to break the male monopoly on literary greatness
3. Wuthering Heights 1939 screened in Virginia:
Thursday Afternoon Film Series @ Williamsburg Library Theatre

Williamsburg Library, Williamsburg, Virginia
January 29 – Wuthering Heights (1939)

Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon bring vividly to life Emily Bronte’s dark tale of star-crossed lovers in 19th century Yorkshire. Samuel Goldwyn’s production was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including director William Wyler and Charles MacArthur and Ben Hecht’s screenplay.
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Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Welcome a newly-discovered Brontëite to our ranks. The Guardian reports that author Kate Mosse, among others, will be choosing her favourite books for Waterstone's.
Their selections will then be displayed in stores across the country, complete with handwritten notes from the authors explaining their choices. Hornby's table will launch on 5 March, with Mosse's due in the summer. "To start with 40 sounds like plenty - you think 'great, I can put in all of my favourites'," said Mosse. "But then you start to think about it, and 40 seems so few for a lifetime of writing ... I'm at the stage where I have in mind 100, and then just three."
She has already decided she will definitely include Wuthering Heights, which she has read "at every decade" of her life and found something different in it. "As a writer in my 40s, I'm realising now how much it has influenced me. Of course there are amazing descriptions, and a passionate love story, but I now realise that the reason I keep going back to it is because of the landscape - that's the sort of writer I've become." (Alison Flood)
On the topic of lists, the Guardian also published its very own list of books a few days ago. 1,000 novels everyone must read divided in sections such as love, crime, comedy, family and self, state of the nation, science fiction and fantasy, war and travel. Some Brontës are found on it, although we don't exactly agree to their categories:
Love
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Vilette [sic] by Charlotte Bronte
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

State of the nation
Shirley by Charlotte Bronte
Unfortunately there's no Anne Brontë to be seen, although there are other Brontë-related books such as Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys (under Love), Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier (under Love) or - remotely - Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons (under Comedy).

They say they are open to 'suggestions of crucial books that haven't made it onto our list', so a couple of comments have already taken them to task for omitting Anne Brontë:
I'm sure some would wonder why there's no Anne Bronte? (kafdos)
I second Anne Bronte. Whilst Shirley and Villette have their moments, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is superior to both of these books written by her more famous sister, in my opinion. (ben1283)
On a slightly similar topic, the Irish Herald comments on Gwyneth Patrow's liking for Jane Eyre.

The Belper News has found Holbrook's latest claim to fame: nine-year-old actress Stephanie Duffy, who plays the young Isabella in Wuthering Heights 2009.
Nine-year-old girl from Holbrook is set to star in a new ITV adaptation of Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights.
Stephanie Duffy, who attends the Ripley Academy of Dance and Drama, plays the part of Isabella.
She spent several days filming on location in North Yorkshire and Hawksworth.
Ripley Academy principal Diane Fleming said: "Stephanie loves to perform and this experience has given her the enthusiasm to develop her acting skills further.
"It is many children's dream to appear on television.
"Stephanie really enjoyed wearing authentic Victorian clothes and was filmed playing games with her on-screen brother and attending church with her on-screen nanny."
The Telegraph and Argus has an article on the forthcoming Brontë Trail organised by The Wayfarers.

Finally, T.'s Blog posts about Villette.

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12:54 pm by Cristina in ,    12 comments
Still a couple of reactions to this latest screen adaptation of Emily Brontë's novel.

MOSTLY POSITIVE:

Clare Elfman for Buzzine:
What? Another remake of one of my sacred favorite oldies? No way! I had been burned by the disappointing redo of that great bitchy free-for-all fast-talk classic, The Women, and majorly burned by what they did with the exceptional, unforgettable series Brideshead Revisited and the extraordinary characterizations by Jeremy Irons and Clare Bloom, so that when I saw the new version, I thought: Viewers who have never seen the original will buy this one and miss the nuanced performance of the manipulative mother and the undertheme of Catholicism in pre-war England.

I watched the first few moments of Wuthering Heights, stewing over the betrayal of remaking this classic, darkly gothic-y romance…and then I got hooked.

In the tradition of the nineteenth century novel, the hero suffers and suffers, but everything turns out okay in the end — miraculously okay, and there is never never any actual sex. Too coarse. Not polite.

This new version of Wuthering Heights, presented by Masterpiece Theater Classics last weekend, is something different — realistic, sexual, brutal — and quite caught me by surprise. I’d say that this version does not replace a classic Heathcliffe who comes to Cathy’s room when she’s dying of pneumonia (barely coughing and speaking clearly with a congested lung), who lifts her in his arms to carry her to the window to see her beloved Yorkshire moor, and with a final farewell she simply and quietly dies and then hangs around as a ghost until he dies so that the lovers are reunited in the hereafter.

Not this time around. The story is quiet different. Heathcliffe is a sullen, brutal creature with the wild hair thing. Cathy is not genteel Merle Oberon, but a 2009 contemporary-look Cathy — a strong-willed woman, and she frankly and sexually loves this guy and is willing to betray her wedding vows to join in mutual passion.

Of course, as in the original, her bastard of a brother has resented Heathcliffe since her father had found this little gypsy castaway and brought him home. But this new version, rotten brother with little pretext, has the lowly adopted gypsy boy flogged — an actual shirt-off, hit-with-the-lash floggy scene.

When Cathy is seduced by the wealth and manners of polite Linton and decides to marry him, she has some fantasy of keeping Heathcliffe as a “friend.” Hey, we know passion like theirs, and we’d like to warn them that it won’t work. When Heathcliffe realizes that his Cathy intends to marry someone else, he rides off — torn jacket, wild hair, no money. Cathy would have told him she’d changed her mind, but too late — he’s gone. And why didn’t he write and tell her where he was and permit her to profess her undying love?

So eventually, she marries the rich guy. And when does Heathcliffe return? And when does she see him again? Just after she leaves the church on the arm of her rich, spineless husband.

There is Heathcliffe, himself rich and transformed, and she still loves him. She now realizes that she’s made a terrible mistake. She still has a wild heart. Now he’s had perhaps three years in the “new world” and he’s made an enormous amount of money (it’s never explained how he has managed, in a few years, to get this rich and to get his accent polished and a fine new hair-style). She’s immediately regretful. She rushes out to the wild Yorkshire moor to meet him, and she actually makes love to him! In a nineteenth century novel? Physical love? Well, he says to her something like, “You’ve gone back to that pasty Linton after we’ve ‘lain’ together?” Sounds like sex to me.

Now she’s a mess. She loves this guy and, in his anger, he’s determined to destroy her and her whole family — first to ruin the bounder of a brother. When Olivier did this, he did it with style and as a gentlemen would destroy an adversary. Our new Heathcliffe is really rough-edged and so passionate in everything he does, he comes close to smashing the guy’s head open on the hearth. And once he sees his Cathy with the weak Linton, he goes for the jugular: out of spite, he marries her sister-in-law.

There is an actual sex scene in which this angry Heathcliffe is making love to his new wife, who looks up at him, waiting for a little affection, and he stares down at her (in mid-you-know) and says, “Don’t look at me.” He’s “having his way” with his wife but thinking of his lover.

Poor Cathy is not Merle Oberon, being the lady always. In the classic original, she makes a lovely home for Linton until Heathcliffe returns. In this one, a pregnant Cathy, big enough to deliver, runs out into the freezing storm in her nightgown, where Heathcliffe finds her at their favorite trysting spot, almost dead, and carries her back to her husband.

When Olivier says his famous line — begging Fate that Cathy may not die in peace but walk the Earth as a shadow until he gives up this life and joins her…it’s an Olivier literary curse.

This new Heathcliffe really damns her.

The new version extends to three children: Cathy’s daughter, Heathcliffe’s weak and sickly son by the unloved sister-in-law, and the bastard brother’s son. All these kids grow up, and Heathcliffe manipulates them into pain and suffering, until finally he kills himself to end the agony of this great loss.

The new version does have its “happy ending”…sort of…but the story, in its telling, is forceful, brutal, sexual, powerful. Heathcliffe is played by Tom Hardy, known for his role in Star Trek (without the hair). Charlotte Riley (Cathy) was unfamiliar to me, but she plays a wildly unrepentent woman who doesn’t mind betraying her husband for the rough-edged lover. What surprised me was Andrew Lincoln who plays the weak Linton. Remember him as the best friend of the groom who had a passion for the bride in Love Actually?

I won’t say that this is a “remake” in the ordinary sense, but another version of the book which actually shocked readers when it was first published. Written by a parson’s daughter who knew nothing of life and died at thirty, this was one passionate dream of a novel which, although they threatened to ban it on publication, has never, since that time, been out of print.

Of course, I saw the original when I was young, and I thrilled to the handsome Olivier walking up the rocky path, cold wind whistling about him to find his gentle and beautiful ghost of a Cathy waiting for him, ready to join him in the hereafter.

I’m older and wiser…and today’s wild Heathcliffe and unrepentant Cathy are absolutely destined to end up not in heaven but in hell.

Masterpiece Theater’s Wuthering Heights will surely replay and it’s worth catching…but if you haven’t seen the original, give that a look. See the difference time makes. Olivier’s Cathy dies of a lung affliction with no more than a little cough. The new version has a suffering Cathy choking, unable to breathe. Please do not miss the scene just after his soul-loved Cathy dies when he howls — an animal sound that surely comes out of a hellish underworld.
EDIT:
Savvy Verse & Wit:
Unlike the book, Heathcliff has a softer side, which only turns darker when Catherine's brother, Hindley, takes over the estate after the death of Mr. Earnshaw. Hindley was vicious to Heathcliff as a child when his father brought the gypsy home. Rumors circulate that Heathcliff is Mr. Earnshaw's illegitimate son, and Hindley wants to restore his family's reputation. The relationship between Catherine and Heathcliff grows exponentially from when they were children, and through a sped up storyline and camera effects, their adult-like relationship and wild demeanors are revealed--romping on the moors, becoming intimate, and continuing to engage in childish pursuits of spying on the neighboring Lintons.
What's missing from this movie adaption is the searing hatred Heathcliff exudes on his fellow man and particularly on Hindley. Eventually this hatred and darkness also descends on Catherine after she marries Edgar Linton. More than just Heathcliff's edges are softened in this adaption. He's kinder to Isabella, Catherine, and the subsequent children. Heathcliff's ending is much more sedate than the downward spiral in the novel. Catherine also is a much softer, more lovable character in this adaption. She could be just as harsh as Healthcliff at times. The ending also is more hopeful.
Staying true to the novel may not have been the aim of this movie adaption. I'll rate it 3 out of 5 bags of popcorn because the actors were well selected, the storyline was gripping, and the scenes were gorgeous.
Adaptations and Academics:
Though that modern version is my personal favorite thus far, I’d still like to see a faithful adaptation of the original story. Plain and simple, I’d love to see a straight-from-the-page adaptation that retains the frame structure of the novel as well as all its problematic and sometimes off-putting characters and behaviors. Surely if Austen’s Pride and Prejudice can be done in a grand six-hour BBC production, the same could be done for Wuthering Heights. We need Lockwood to see different shades of Heathcliff; we need to see Cathy and Heathcliff’s mutual cruelty in all its glory to truly understand the psyche of the text. Instead of more truncated, feature-film-length versions like this most recent one, we really do need the whole shebang for this novel to work on film. (Read more)
MOSTLY NEGATIVE:

Girl Detective:
I found the recent Wuthering Heights Masterpiece adaptation on PBS mostly disappointing. It felt romanticized rather than rough, Wuthering Heights looked much too clean, and whoever cast Charlotte Riley as Catherine should be smacked upside the head. Bad enough that she’s slightly cross-eyed, which her umpteen closeups did nothing to hide. But her brows were expertly groomed and her teeth straight, white and polished. She looked more like a modern model for a teen magazine than a wild-child Gothic heroine.

Heathcliff, on the other hand, was done very well by Tom Hardy. His crooked teeth, wild hair, large frame, jolie-laide countenance and well-done acting all helped convey the palpable menace, sexiness and craziness that is this complex character.

I’ll re-read the book soon, as I couldn’t tell quite how many liberties they took with the dialogue
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12:03 am by M. in    No comments
A press release from the Brontë Parsonage Museum
REFURBISHMENT TRANSFORMS BRONTË PARSONAGE MUSEUM

The Brontë Parsonage Museum will re-open on 1 February 2009 following a major refurbishment. The museum’s permanent exhibition, focusing on the Brontës’ lives and works, had been in place for over twenty-five years and although it remained popular with visitors, was in need of renewal.

The exhibition room is located in an extension to the original Brontë house, which was added in the 1870s, nearly twenty years after the Brontës’ residency ended with the death of Patrick Brontë in 1861. The new exhibition, developed with Ilkley based designers, Redman, has taken around eighteen months to plan and is set to transform the space.

Panelling obscuring many of the rooms historic features, including original windows which give views out across the Parsonage garden and graveyard down to Haworth Church, have been uncovered; new state of the art casing has been introduced which will allow for more of the museum’s collection of precious manuscripts and artefacts to be displayed, some for the first time ever; there are bold new graphics and updated interpretation to guide visitors through the Brontës' lives and writing; interactive displays for families have also been introduced to offer fun ways for children to explore the Brontë story; there will also be a completely new decoration scheme and a final flourish to the new contemporary design will be the Brontës’ own words adorning the walls of the room, with some of the most famous quotes from their great novels.

This is the most significant change to the museum in nearly thirty years and will transform our main exhibition space. The exhibition will still tell the Brontë story, but we have focused more on the Brontës’ writing and also introduced imaginative activities that will appeal to young children and families. The museum’s collection has grown considerably in recent years and this refurbishment will allow us to greatly improve the way we display the collection and also show more of it. In terms of the design, it will bring together the historic and the contemporary, restoring many of the room’s original features whilst also presenting the exhibition in an exciting contemporary way.

Andrew McCarthy
Director, Brontë Parsonage Museum

The new exhibition, entitled, GENIUS: THE BRONTË STORY will open to the public on Sunday 1 February.

The exhibition will be formally opened by playwright and critic, Bonnie Greer, at a special evening at the Parsonage on Friday 13 February, 7.00 PM to 9.00 PM.
Also published on the Brontë Parsonage Blog.

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Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Tuesday, January 27, 2009 12:19 pm by Cristina in ,    1 comment
Reviews and comments continue to trickle in:

MOSTLY POSITIVE:

Emily on BrontëBlog:
Oh, I loved it from beginning to end. Part 2 was incredible. Haunting, sad, frustrating, devastating. If it had been a full hour and 1/2, it would have been perfect. I wanted to see more of Heathcliff holding Cathy in bed when she's dying, as that is the consolation the reader/viewer gets for sticking with these two after her marriage to Edgar. That is what keeps us hopeful about their love. That and seeing them together after death watching from the window. But Tom Hardy hit it out of the park. He was truly Heathcliff. I thought Charlotte grew into the role and she was quite great. I loved Burn Gorman. He was fantastic in this part as well.
Hammyflirt on IMDb board:
Even though, imo, part 2 was a let down compared to part 1, I thought the beginning started off decently until about halfway through when it seemed to go at hyper speed with the story. I think a half hour more would have done wonders and allowed the scenes to breath a little better and show more details. I think the acting throughout was all good, esp. early on when Cathy, Heathcliff and Edgar have their confrontation and she is supposed to choose between them. I also liked how Tom Hardy was able to restrain his emotions in certain scenes, but still show his anguish and in others be extremely volatile and unhinged. Though it was a good balance so he didn't come off as an over acted monster. Liked when he is at Cathy's coffin crying and the way he says he can't live without his life and soul. Instead of almost shouting or being too melodramatic, he keeps it somewhat subdued but not dull or boring either. So I guess there were some good scenes in part 2 even though I definitely think it was too rushed at the very end.
Zebrasnake-1 on IMDb board:
I seriously enjoyed pt 2 a lot, in some ways more than pt 1. In pt 1 heathcliff was a lumbering open sore wound, in pt 2 he was a a more well-honed instrument, though starts to rust after his goals are met/
fantastic work by hardy, good work by most of the other crew as well. I would have liked a stronger actress for cathy, i did not feel the chemistry from her end and she just seems a spoiled child.
Fleurfairy on IMDb board:
I thought Part 2 was amazing. Charlotte was alot more passionate as Cathy as you see the jealousy starts to chip away at her and she becomes more unhinged. She was Cathy, in my opinion. Tom Hardy was spectacular. This man is going places! I thought the "Cannot live without my soul" speech was excellent. Restrained, yet very emotional. I literally gasped when Hareton and Catherine burst into the room and see him on the bed. I thought the ending was beautifully done as well. All in all, a great adaptation.
Omnifox on Barnes & Noble Book Clubs:
I have to say I really enjoyed the movie over the book. It was a bit of a departure in how they choose to retell the story but I found it easire to understand all that was going on. The book was one I just could not get into. Very diffrent from Tess. All the characters in this book seemed sellfish and insane. Maybe that was the point of the novel to show how love makes you do crazy things. Very dark. I enjoyed seeing how the plot played out on screen.
MOSTLY NEGATIVE:

In Training for a Heroine:
Flat is the first word that comes to mind. I gave my lenghty opinion on the first part on this same blog so I'm not going to say it again as I have the same issues with it.
I was shocked to see the little time given to Hareton and Cathy's relationship, and more specifically to the absence of such a relationship. The made it seem as if Cathy had always been in love with him which is so not true to the book. I've already talked about this in my first post so I'm not going to repeat it but really, I was hoping for something more.
Catherine and Heathcliff stole the show, as was expected. It disappointed me very much as the book doesn't only focus on them. Poor Nelly, she didn't have much screen time although she's one of the main characters in the novel. The whole thing was too simple and wasn't nearly as crazy as the book, one scream of pain, however powerfully done, does not craziness make. The gothic was barely here, Catherine's ghost made but a short apparition and I couldn't find any difference between the supposed moor and any other country landscape. The music could have supported that but all we had was a score which I agree was beautiful but was only supporting the love story. I disagree. Wuthering Heights is more than that, Bram Stoker used Heathcliff as an inspiration for Dracula. Well, he sure couldn't have used Tom Hardy's Heathcliff for that, all the characters looked very much grounded in reality when it's a novel of excess and surfeit.
There's no questioning the actors' talent, they were all excellent in portraying the characters, it's the script and TV restrictions that are to blame. A longer, more passionate adaptation would have been refreshing and would have introduced new people to an original, shocking story. There was barely anything shocking in what we were shown and I for one won't be buying the DVD.
Cmwerb on PBS Discussions:
At last! A place to share my thoughts on this ill-conceived, embarrasingly executed and generally dismal butchering of a literary masterpiece. Where to begin - wooden acting, bad pacing, worse screenplay, no direction, zero character development. I can't recall a more dislikable and evil Healthcliff than Tom Hardy, or a more grating and obnoxious Catherine than Charlotte Riley, whose dubious acting ability, particulary in portraying any kind of emotion (i.e., jumping up and down or periodically flogging herself in the face when happy, sad, angry - you get the picture) made me cringe.
In the end, we don't care two pins for the fate of this star-crossed pair because they are truly self-absorbed and utterly unlikeable characters whose emotional connection and obsession with each other was neither firmly established nor particularly believable.
I've seen many wonderful renditions of the classics on PBS but sadly, this wasn't one of them. It was little more than a sleazy, transparent attempt to repackage a piece of classic literature as modern day trash TV. Shame on you, Masterpiece Theatre!
w001jep on Barnes & Noble Book Clubs:
Call me old school, but I like to see an "adaptation" come as close to the original as possible. After all, the book is still in print after almost 200 years, so Emily must have done something right. Why would the "screenwriter" think he could tell a better story than Ms. Bronte? Or, if he does, possibly he could write his own novel and hopefully, it would still be widely read in 150 years. What happened to Hindley? What happened to Isabelle? In the book, it's explained, even if in passing. If you haven't read the book, you are left wondering how these two fared. Heathcliff shot himself? I've tried and tried, but I can't find that in the book. He died of madness, (with no shot) if you must put a name to it. Or, possible Kathy got him. You don't quite know.
Mr. Hardy projected cruelty, not anguish. This Kathy must have been a masochist (since you want to drag this novel of darkness and supernatural into the 20th century) to have been attracted even in the beginning to his unfeeling (even before his abuse by Hindley, because, remember how long he was at the farm with the love and regard of the father) Heathcliff. I found him a lout, while Ms. Bronte wanted us to feel his passion, his conflict. Give me Ralph & Juliette, or even Merle and Orson any day. Ms Riley certainly showed more passion, albeit fish-wifey, and certainly died well.
Perhaps the screenwriter thought it would appeal to more modern sensibilitits to include more sex and play down the self-control expected in that time (even though those people were just as lusty as they are now, they seemed to deal with it better). I say less sex, more story
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12:01 pm by Cristina in ,    No comments
Let's start this post with one more example of bookish influence behind the music. The Johns Hopkins Magazine features an article on music duo Matmos and the following crops up:
Daniel is in charge of whatever comes next. He tends to be the conceptual half of the pair, and his concept for the next CD began with a work of scholarship, Nicholas Royle's Telepathy and Literature. Royle sees something telepathic in the relationships between certain literary figures, like Catherine and Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights. Daniel took to the idea: "After 16 years of making music with Martin, I thought telepathy seemed like a fruitful trope for how improvisers sense where all the people in the room are going. That's a kind of telepathy too." (Dale Keiger)
There's an even stronger telepathic connection between Mr Rochester and Jane Eyre, we think.

On a completely different note, Daniel Radcliffe is asked by The Daily Beast about orphans in literature:
There is a whole genre of literature that centers on the orphaned. Your first role at nine was David Copperfield. There’s Oliver Twist. Jane Eyre. Faulkner’s Light in August. Almost every superhero. What’s your theory as to why the genre is so enduring since Harry is perhaps the most famous orphan in all of literature?
I suppose it’s because we love the underdog. I saw James Carville talking on television and he said a fantastic thing. It was during the last days of John McCain’s campaign. I got hooked on political coverage during the campaign. I love that Joe Scarborough chap. Do you watch Morning Joe? I quite like him. What is it he says? “American by luck. Southern by the grace of God.” That’s great phrase-making.
But back to Carville and orphans. He said that McCain should come out as the underdog. He said Americans love an underdog, but they hate a loser. And for an orphan, from the earliest, most basic, most primitive part of your life, things have gone against you. Everything we know about how people work and are successful, in the conventional sense, starts with family. So the notion is for that to be taken out of the picture one has to work doubly hard to achieve things. It is odd that almost every role I’ve played has been a kid who comes from a screwed-up family background because I have had such the opposite of that. (Kevin Sessums)
On the blogosphere, The Elegant Extracts Blog continues to tease about Austen and the Brontës. And Violet Crush reviews Jane Eyre.

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12:03 am by M. in , ,    No comments
We have more information about the Wuthering Heights opera by Frédéric Chaslin & P H Fisher:

There is a new movie trailer on youtube:
This is a trailer following the main themes of Wuthering Heights, the opera, introducing the characters and their associated tunes.
And we have two new promotional posters with Andrew Richards and Olga Peretyatko:



We are very grateful to the librettist P H Fisher for this information.

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Monday, January 26, 2009

Monday, January 26, 2009 1:33 pm by Cristina in ,    1 comment
Peter Bowker, the screenwriter of the latest Wuthering Heights, has been kindly answering questions from members of the Barnes & Noble Book Club message board. Here's a digest of what has been said there, but bear in mind you can still ask your own questions as he will be answering them until January 30.

Many of his answers will be useful to bloggers and other message boards members who have been wondering similar things. We quote from Peter Bowker's replies only as they are pretty self-explanatory as to the questions they are answering to.

In answer to DLF:
It's an odd one with Heathcliff. I think there is a definite suggestion throughout that Heathcliff has "gyspy" blood and the imagery can even point to a reading which could imply he had African or Carribean blood.
However, I think the gypsy stereotype is more likely. There was certainly a growing fear of the "other" in Victorian England and a number of urban myths about "cuckoos in the nest". Strays or orphans that were brought into the family who then consumed it.
There is also the matter of the exact relelationship between Mr. Earnshaw and Heathcliff. There is a plausible case to be made for Heathcliff being Mr. Earnshaw's illegitimate son which does, of course, make him Cathy's half-sister. For the sake of the love affair I abandoned this conjecture fairly early.
I think the most important thing about Heathcliff's outsider status is actually his social class. He is outside the hierachy altogether and that allows him to see clearly where the power truly lies in the society. Therefore he goes away and makes his fortune and of course uses economics to punish both the Earnshaws and the Lintons. I am not saying his sole motivation was class hatred, I think it was actually jealousy and love, but I think his lack of identifiable class certainly contributed to his "outsider" status.
In answer to Connie K.:
Two things determined the opening. A desire to make the younger generation's story count more - and not be read as some kind of tedious bolt-on after Cathy's death - because I think the playing out of Heathcliff's revenge and it's ultimate failure is as fascinating as the Heathcliff/Cathy love story. So I thought by giving it some room at the front we might then buy into those characters more and therefore care about them more at the end. I realise that it makes it quite a tricky watch to begin with (not helped by the similarities of all the names - Linton, Hareton, Hindley, Edgar Linton, Heathcliff, Mr. Earnshaw, Cathy and Catherine) but I hope people make some sense of it.
Also, having abandoned Mr. Lockwood altogether because I think he is a brilliant novelistic device but not a great filmic device (in many ways I see the viewer as Mr. Lockwood, trying to makes sense of these warring families and the monstrous Heathcliff) I thought it was necessary to meet Heathcliff the monster before meeting Heathcliff the damaged child and the rejected man.
There are a hundred ways to start this story but I thought a mystery might be a good way in.
In answer to Everyman:
At first I thought this is going to be such an easy gig, because the language is so wonderful. But then I started writing it out and realised very little of it works as dialogue because it is so heightened and poetic. So I wanted to preserve some of that quality and there are classic lines such as, "I am Heathcliff" which really you cannot lose.
What I did an awful lot was use reported speech and make that into dialogue. Great swathes of the novel are in the form of Nelly reporting on various incidents. I used those a lot.
But characters like Edgar Linton (Andrew Lincoln) spoke so eloquently that it really was often a case of transcribing it.
I would often use dialogue from other scenes and blend them. This seems to work well with big arguments for some reason.
In the end, the time slot over here is very brief and to some extent the structure is determined by the ad breaks. So five short acts times two doesn't give you an awful lot of time. Most of the dialogue has to push the story on, but as I said at the top, there are certain key phrases in Wuthering Heights that cannot be sacrificed.
and:
As I recall he does hear Cathy saying that she intends to marry Edgar. Doesn't he? I thought Cathy told him that Edgar had asked her to marry him and she hadn't said, "No." The thing that puzzled me in the book was that if his motivation was to make his fortune and come back a Gentleman and marry Cathy then why didn't he tell her that. I know men are bad at communicating but that seems a bit extreme! So I thought that his motivation was, at some level, also about punishing Cathy by not contacting her.

I agree. The three year engagement was something of a cop-out. Couldn't find a way to solve the chronology.

I had her falling for Edgar Linton after the dog attack (which is, of course, when she is a child in the book, but as an adult in the film) rather than the night on the Moors because I wanted her to fall in love with Edgar as a caring man who can offer some generosity. When she returns from her first visit to the Grange in the book it seems to me that she is portrayed as this little snob who has been seduced by wealth. I felt it should be more complicated than that. I felt that her marriage to Edgar should make sense emotionally and not just seem like a marriage of convenience. And to be honest, part of the reason we aged the actors early on was so weren't asking the audience to go through the ageing process with three different actors for each role. So probably a pragmatic reason rather than a poetic reason!
and:
I am fascinated by the figure of Joseph in the book. I love his language, I love his fearlessness and I find his bible quoting (and given Emily Bronte was the daughter of the local Parson surely he is based on one of the more enthusiastic members of her father's congregation) both comic and characteristic of a man trying to hang on to some meaning in what is, let's face it, fairly bleak circumstances. And we cast a great actor to play him. But the truth is, his part just got cut and cut and cut, both at script level and in the edit, because he is often commenting on the story rather than pushing it on. This for me, is a great shame, and I think people might just dismiss Joseph as texture but, at one level, he is the harsh Old Testament commentator on events as opposed to Nelly who seems more New Testament and forgiving. So just a matter of time I'm afraid but frustrating nonetheless.

As for the storm scenes - this answer is worse than the last! - we were filming in late Summer and early Autumn and to everybody's immense surprise the weather in Northern England in September was glorious. So there were more storm scenes written. And I agree, the Moor is actually a character in the novel, as is the house of course.
Hope this doesn't sound too evasive!
In answer to Absalom:
Oh, completely with you on this. I think I really had to work to make Catherine in particular sympathetic.
Heathcliff spends a lot of time hitting women and children and Catherine pinches Nelly more than once!
It is a story of two very damaged people trapped in what is a fairly impossible passion for each other. This might sound a rather mundane observation but it is hard to see how Heathcliff and Cathy was going to work out just on the basis of their personalities alone, let alone their personal circumstances. I would argue their relationship was not a "good fit". Their need for the other was also a need to dominate the other. I don't know my Freud well enough to speculate on this but there is something very fixed and unchanging about their passion which is both entrancing and terrifying. Now it could be argued that the very fact they couldn't have each other was what held them in this destructive pattern but I think that Bronte hints at something very destructive at the heart of their relationship from the beginning. When Cathy says, "I am Heathcliff," she pretty much nails it. They can't see each other as separate beings, they feel they are part of the same whole. And although that is passionate - is it actually love?
We find many of his answers highly interesting and enlightening. Lockwood as the viewer is a great concept. And the explanations behind Cathy's 'new' personality and Joseph's quiet self are quite satisfactory.

Do join the book club and ask him questions of you have any.

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11:18 am by M. in ,    2 comments
Some reactions to the second (and final) episode of Wuthering Heights 2009. Our own review can be read here:

MOSTLY POSITIVE

Knighleyemma's Blog:
This adaptation is not very close to the book, but it has several strong points. The music suits the mood of the story very well. The use of unknown actors works well, as we have no preconceived notions of what we’ll see. As characters changed over time, and the actors’ portrayals became more believable.
Tom Hardy, though not conventionally handsome, makes an excellent Heathcliff. This Healthcliff is “very changeable” (like Mr. Rochester), but filled to the brim w/ rage. Hardy is somehow able to make the audience feel some empathy with him at crucial times in the story. I especially enjoyed these scenes: Heathcliff coming to tea after Cathy and Edgar Linton’s marriage, confronting her on the moors after she’s been w/ Edgar, and holding/comforting the nearly-dead Cathy at the crag.
Tom Hardy does a lot of acting with his eyes and facial expressions, as Healthcliff is a mysterious man. But he’s also able to say the dialogue with conviction. The low/deep voice he uses makes you lean forward and pay attention. He created good chemistry with Cathy (Charlotte Riley), but I felt he was a much stronger actor. He’s older and has had much more experience. (While I watched him, I thought of Gene Hackman, another actor who is very masculine, intense, and able to stay in the moment.)
Burn Gorman, an actor you may’ve seen in Bleak House, did a terrific job as the depressed, unstable, and alcoholic Hindley. The young lady who played little Catherine (Cathy’s daughter) did very well also; she was full of her mother’s curiosity and energy. Edgar was handsome, likeable, but weak (as in the book).
There were many things different from Bronte’s book, most notably Healthcliff shooting himself. Also, no one mentions that Healthcilff might be Mr. Earnshaw’s son by a Liverpool whore. There is no way to be certain that he and Cathy “hooked up” at the crag (as plainly shown/said in Part I). Could it have happened? As my mom said- yes, but people didn’t state these things explicitly then. Heathcliff doesn’t physically abuse wife Isabella, though he says hurtful things and neglects her.
What didn’t work was the scene where Cathy confesses to Nelly her feelings for both Edgar and Heathcliff. The actress didn’t put too much emphasis on these important lines. Before he rode off, Healthcliff was supposed to hear part of her speech (Edgar wants to marry her, it would degrade her to marry a “servant”, and so on.) But in this film, Healthcliff goes off while she starts talking about Edgar. Too bad- missed opportunity for the director!
Ultimately, Heathcliff and Cathy’s love was obsessive and destructive. Cathy was torn between Heathcliff (passion/uncertainty) and Edgar (wealth/respectability). Because of his tortured past, Heathcliff was ”more full of hate than love,” as Cathy says. He wanted revenge so badly that he nearly destroyed the younger generation. When he came back a rich gentleman, Healthcliff was unable to rid himself of his emotional baggage. He was his own worst enemy!
Farfaraway:
I hadn't read it--the only Bronte sister book I've read was Jane Eyre, which I loved--so I had no idea what the story was about. The first installment ran last Sunday, and the final hour aired tonight. I waited the entire week to find out what happened to Heathcliff and Catherine, and I could watch the whole thing over again. It was one of those painful, bruising, perfect love stories without a happy ending (my favorite kind). It's the kind of story that becomes a part of you. If you can find it at your library, or your PBS station reruns it later in the season, do watch it. It was beautiful.
solielvert on imdb board:
Sadly, it is the 1978 bbc version which follows the book exactly, and proves in its boringness and lack of soul that following this marvelous book word for word isn't necessarily the answer to making it work on screen. There is first and foremost a soul, a mood and a landscape that must be captured, if that is done then you have it, whatever mucking around is done with the rest of it. I think they have done that beautifully with this version. my biggest gripe was that it wasn't given enough time.
The 1992 version and the 1998 version technically followed the book the best, but the actors weren't right, and there was none of the magic of the book. You can't replace that with special effects.
Eyris on imdb board:
I was pleasantly surprised by part 2 and overall I think they did a pretty good job of portraying the central, melodramatic love story of the novel. I think Cathy was perfectly cast and the characterization appropriately walked the line between annoying teenager/sympathetic spirit. I really appreciated that she looked and acted like the age of Cathy in the book. Tom Hardy grew on me this week - could be some of the meatier scenes during the Cathy death sequence.
The best parts for me were the direction, the scenery and the soundtrack. I'm so glad they didn't use the jerky hand-held camera directing that seems to be the standard mode of British adaptations recently. The ending seemed to close rather quickly, yet I felt it was a valid choice and interpretation of how the book also closes very quietly and peacefully.
I don't feel like this could be the definitive, never-to-be outdone version, but it is easily the best one that has been done so far. I'm guessing that those who love the book solely because of the Cathy/Heathcliff love story will really love this version.
Maria on the Brontë yahoo group:
I liked the score very much, and found it suitable to the story. I was happy to see them include the second generation -- and to give it so much space (Hareton was very pretty, but way too well-kempt. His scene with Heathcliff toward the end was very, very nice). the idea of eliminating Lockwood and giving a lot of his explorations and realizations to Cathy II is interesting, and worked for the purposes of this production (though I had visions of Jane Austen's poor, sweet
Catherine Morland running around Northanger Abbey). I can deal with several of the changes to the plot, including the very end of Heathcliff. The very last glimpse in the production was nice.
Actors were very good, but I had problems with the structure, the transitions, and the direction, which was awfully-tamped down. The shouting matches sometimes felt forced to me. Nelly's character is much under-used and under-developed. The writing for Heathcliff lacks cohesion, though Hardy did very nicely with what was given to him (he isn't my idea of Heathcliff, but he
was very good).
Cathy I's inner conflicts are under-exploited and under-explored -- as inaccurate as the 1939 version is, they manage to convey this kind of thing with sharp clarity: watch the scene where Heathcliff and Cathy have their first nasty confrontation, after Cathy returns from the Grange. Oberon's Cathy mentions Heathcliff's hands; Olivier's Heathcliff snarls that this is all he's
become to her, and slaps her across the face twice, then runs out. Oberon's initial reaction is wonderfully conveyed in just the widening of her eyes, and then, after Heathcliff leaves, she yanks off her stylish gown, and the next thing you know, they're both on Pennistone Crag. This kind of handling is economic, graphic and skillful, and you get the point at least as clearly as you
do when Edgar and Cathy have a shouting match in which you have to strain to make out what they're saying.
Hartford Courant:
Both pale considerably compared to the conclusion of the well done version of "Wuthering Heights. (Roger Catlin)
MOSTLY NEGATIVE:

The Little Professor:
If there's one image that sums up just how badly this adaptation went off the rails, it's the final shot of the ghosts of Cathy and Heathcliff...haunting Wuthering Heights. Given that even this adaptation has associated their passions and desires with the moors, it makes no sense to effectively entrap the two of them behind a window, cheerfully watching Hareton and Cathy holding hands as they trek off to the Grange. It doesn't help that this moment arguably harkens back to the novel: Lockwood spies on Cathy and Hareton through a window after Heathcliff's death. (I'll give the director and writer credit for incorporating the novel's frequent use of windows--looking through them, trying to get out or in through them, etc.) Lockwood, however, is alive at the time, and Bronte uses the moment for comic effect (once again, the famous Lockwood sex appeal hasn't had time to work). In effect, the adaptation doesn't just ignore the novel; it also ignores itself.
It also seems to me that the adaptation de-demonizes Heathcliff. Quite literally: when Nelly Dean finds Heathcliff dead in the novel, she desperately tries to erase "'that frightful, life-like gaze of exultation before any one else beheld it. They would not shut: they seemed to sneer at my attempts; and his parted lips and sharp white teeth sneered too!'" And Joseph joyously proclaims "'Th' devil's harried off his soul,' he cried, 'and he may hev' his carcass into t' bargain, for aught I care! Ech! what a wicked 'un he looks, girning at death!'" The novel insinuates very strongly that Heathcliff may well be a sort of demon (and not of the figurative variety), and certainly that he is en route to damnation. But in the adaptation, Heathcliff rests quite calmly on the pillow...having blown his brains out, instead of dying by thwarted obsession. The script demands that Heathcliff do to himself what Hindley failed at. Moreover, while Heathcliff remains an unpleasant human being, it's an oddly mundane sort of unpleasantness (attempting to bash Hindley's head in aside). While we see him fighting with Cathy before he marries Isabella, their mutual tortures on her deathbed have gone (or have they? I'm wondering if the editor is at fault), and they certainly seem nice and cozy out during a rainstorm on the moor. His marriage to Isabella appears to be generically unhappy--did I blink and miss the hanged dog?--and Isabella's confrontation with her brother made Edgar Linton seem as obnoxious as Heathcliff. And Cathy #2 has surprisingly little trouble standing up to Heathcliff. It's no surprise when he suddenly deflates at the end, simply because there's nothing supernatural to his evil at all.
hammyflirt on imdb board:
Yeah, I have to say the end was sort of a let down for me. After the wonderful first part I was expecting more I guess. It just seemed too rushed the closer it got to the end and I wanted to see more of the final few scenes between Cathy and Heathcliff. I thought they should have been longer, esp when he's in her room holding her as she's dying. That was the last time they were together-alive-and it should have been more memorable and given more time, imo. It's such a crucial scene. I would rather have seen more of them than another 20 minutes of the second generation. Also, it seemed so sudden that Cathy was full term with her pregnancy and you would think Heathcliff would/could have found a way to see her before that night in the storm when she's so near to dying...It's really unfortunate because most of this adaptation was stunning, except for the ending. This has happened to some other series' I've seen before, where they rush the ending and tie up loose ends way too quickly, and it makes me so frustrated! I say bravo to the actors though, esp. Tom Hardy, who was amazing as Heathcliff. Too bad the script let them down in the end.
MOSTLY COMME SI COMME ÇA

coquiero on imdb board:
My response to the second part was the same as the first. I didn't think it was substantially better or worse. It was entertaining, I'm glad I watched it, but it wasn't difinitive for me.
Good casting, great cinematography...there was just something lacking for me, and the only thing I can chalk it up to is an oversimplification of the characters. We did get a sense of a Cathy's having been driven crazy near the end, which I thought was a nice change from the previous episode where she just seemed like an innocent victim.
Hardy for me is the best Heathcliff so far--he came off as menacing and a little mad without being melodramatic. Someone mentioned snake-like, and I like the comparison.
A word on the love scenes. Now, I like my period dramas a little sexed up, I thought it was perfectly done in the 2006 version of Jane Eyre. They're lying on the bed, kissing. There's plenty of passion and whatnot.
I did not need to see all the pumping and heaving! It burned my eyes! And I have to say the love scene btw Cathrine and Heathcliff on Penistone Crags looked to me like a hulking beast crushing some poor young girl. He was too big to be on top of her like that, with his hair covering her up. I know they had to get the shot of his whip marks, but still...
So my overall review, in a word--good, not great. I'll keep waiting for great...
THE CAT LOVES IT:

MetaChat:
Tonight, however, when Heathcliff learned of Cathy's death and let out an agonized howl on our new high definition television set, that was it for Cinnamon. Her big eyes did not leave the screen for 15 minutes. If she had had popcorn, she would have been unconsciously dipping her paw into the bowl and putting it into her mouth. I could swear she knew exactly what was going on, drama-wise, the tone if not the actual subject. It was like watching someone watch the show who doesn't speak English but has a general understanding of what they're seeing. Even when the scene changed a couple of times, she was still riveted, especially by Heathcliff. She seemed to have a basic understanding of what she was looking at, taking in the different scenes but knowing that it was the same story and the same people. She only lost interest when the action and emotion quieted down.
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10:56 am by Cristina in , , ,    3 comments
Today's newsround and blogs are a true sample of what could be easily defined as a 'motley crew'.

Hadley Freeman from the Guardian has found a literary equivalent to Jill Biden:
... her back story (she's the second wife who brought love and happiness back into the widowed Biden's life - like, so Jane Eyre! Sorta!) definitely affect this column's judgment about our Jill and her style, and quite right, too.
So Jane Eyre indeed. (You can almost see us rolling our eyes here, can't you?)

Film Fodder discusses the huge quantities of merchandising things have to have these days in order to almost exist:
The hope, of course, is that there's just a licensing office that is going to do their thing, just as if they were told to make pennants of Benjamin Button, or... heck... say they were re-doing "Wuthering Heights", maybe we'd get a Heathcliff t-shirt, because that's the way the kids these days understand their media. If its not a product they can wear on their back, then what is it...? (I said I was old and cranky). (Ryan)
Well, as far as we know the latest adaptation of Wuthering Heights is merchandise-free. (Or is it?)

Now for the very varied, very interesting blogs:

Wuthering Heights is reviewed by A Good Book Solves Everything, A Twilight Kiss and in French by Le Grand Nulle Part. Disco Night, however, posts about a rather different Wuthering Heights:
"Wuthering Heights" is an excelent disco album by John Ferrara, released in 1979 by Midsong International Records. On side A is "Wuthering Heights" a classic song with great disco sound. On side B "Shake It Baby Love", "Love Eyes" and my favorite "Love Attack" #34 on Hot Dance/Disco chart and stayed in chart for 20 weeks.
Winifred Gérin's Emily Brontë - recently translated into Spanish - is reviewed in Spanish on Llegir en cas d'incendi (which is a radio programme's blog in fact).

Gypsyscarlett's Weblog writes about Anne Brontë. And Diario del Viajero - in Spanish - tries to do the same thing in passing but fails miserably when it states that Anne Brontë is buried in Whitby (!) after dying there in 1848 (!!).

Spaceyplum posts a few Jane Eyre 2006 icons.

And we have loved The Elegant Extracts Blog's post on If the Austens were related to the Brontës. Truly hilarious and really well done. Go and read it!

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