Drippy and Intoxicating

The Criterion's channel section dedicated to women filmmakers is discussed by That Shelf:

Wuthering Heights (Andrea Arnold, 2011)
Arnold brings a radical slant to her adaptation of Emily Brontë’s dark novel, emphasizing grimy visuals and spare use of the book’s dialogue. What’s actually aggravating about this film is not its departures from previous adaptations but how dispassionate and unsympathetic it is. Brontë’s novel has rarely been made into a particularly good film because it’s always converted into a drippy romance (and the second half of the story is usually left out), but Arnold still leaves Heathcliff and Cathy’s relationship as its centre and casts actors with zero chemistry for a very long two hours. (Bill Antoniou)

PM – Andrea Arnold gave period film convention the middle finger with her windswept take on Wuthering Heights. This unconventional adaptation of Emily Brontë’s novel is immediately notable as the first film to cast a black actor (James Howson) as Heathcliff, the story’s romantic lead.  The casting accentuates the class politics that underlie the novel, but Howson’s brooding performance also meshes with the grey and drizzly countryside that wallpapers Arnold’s film. While Wuthering Heights often serves as an actor’s showpiece with stars like Laurence Olivier, Ralph Fiennes, Timothy Dalton, and Juliette Binoche appearing in previous adaptations, the real star of Arnold’s film is cinematographer Robbie Ryan, whose intoxicatingly jittery cinematography envisions Brontë stripped and raw. The academy ratio of the frame defiantly rejects the billowing widescreen shots the landscapes demand and makes for a disorienting, claustrophobic experience. (Pat Mullen)

The Daily Mail recommends To Walk Invisible which is on Britbox from Thursday:

To Walk Invisible
How did three sisters living in a parsonage on the edge of the Yorkshire moors come to write some of the greatest, most enduring novels in the English language?
Writer and director Sally Wainwright’s intense two-hour drama focuses on the dynamics of a family beset by money worries, exploring Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë’s relationships with each other and with their wastrel brother Branwell.
Tremendous performances from the whole cast but Chloe Pirrie as Wuthering Heights author Emily is particularly brilliant. BritBox, from Thursday

BBC Radio 4 thinks it is time that you read

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
What better time to tackle the works of the Brontë sisters? Emile Brontë’s Wuthering Heights is a tragic tale of love, envy and revenge, set against a backdrop of dark, stormy moors. Heathcliff is a foundling from Liverpool, who is taken in by the Earnshaw family. There is a cruel rivalry between Heathcliff and the Earnshaw’s son Hindley, and a close friendship between their daughter Catherine and Heathcliff. They fall in love, but are pushed apart by their social distance and she marries Edgar Linton, with whom she has a daughter, Cathy. After Catherine’s death, Heathcliff’s wrath is felt by the next generation. Clue up on Emily Brontë and her only novel in this episode of In Our Time.

Lancashire Times features Jane Eyre:

This book has it all. As a document of social history, it depicts Victorian England and its ideals and principles, yet the eponymous protagonist is female and strong-willed, hardly the typical retiring Victorian female. The book was first published under the pen name Currer Bell, to disguise the fact it had been written by a woman, such was the power of female oppression at the time. Her cruel treatment as a child is characteristic of an austere nineteenth century social structure and establishes some sympathy for the young Jane, despite defending herself whenever possible against the bullying and brutality she endures. The book reveals the insensitive treatment of mental illness by the Victorians who did not understand the workings of the mind. The gothic nature of Thornfield Hall and the mysterious events set therein, add to the variety of the novel as do the wild Yorkshire Moors from which Jane is rescued. There are secrets to be revealed, some dark humour and alliances which offer some comfort in dark times. The interaction between characters is realistic for the historical setting and the reader is propelled through the novel by a desire to know what will happen next. (Artis-Ann)

The Sunday Times recommends North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell:

Elizabeth Gaskell is one of the more overlooked 19th-century writers. She may not have the eccentricity or intensity of the Brontës, but she was interested in both domestic life and the wider political landscape in which she was living. North and South — which briefly attracted attention, mainly for Richard Armitage’s bad-boy smoulder, when it was adapted for TV in 2004 — combines state-of-the-nation novel with love story.  (Lucy Knight)

The Canberra Times talks about essentials in times of isolation:

One thing I've been doing a little more of since I've been locked away, like some character in a Charlotte Brontë novel, is listening to podcasts. (Karen Hardy)

Invest Records mentions Charlotte Brontë in an article about palaeontology (and it's not the Brontësaurus):

Three years after the glittering Crystal Palace drew luminaries like Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, Charles Dickens, Charlotte Brontë and Lewis Carroll to a world’s fair exhibition in London, the cast-iron and plate-glass building—a technological marvel for the time—reopened miles to the south, in the town of Bromley, with a new exhibition that made almost as big a splash: dinosaurs.

An easy question on the Liverpool Echo general knowledge quiz:

40. Sisters Anne, Charlotte and Emily were members of which 19th century literary family? (Qasim Peracha & Lottie Gibbons)

The Telegraph tries to distinguish facts (few ones) from fiction (the most part) of Ryan Murphy's Hollywood series:

[Eleanor Roosevelt] turned up on the red carpet, for instance, at the 1939 premiere of William Wyler’s Wuthering Heights. (Ed Power)

20 Minutes (France) recommends Les Hauts de Hurlevent 1968:

Les Hauts de Hurlevent
Ce mélodrame se déroule dans le domaine dit Les Hauts de Hurlevent, autour d'une famille dont le père a adopté et recueilli un enfant, à l'âge de six ans, prénommé Heathcliff. Mais monsieur Earnshaw a déjà un fils Hindley et une fille, Catherine. Entre les deux frères - Hindley et Heathcliff - un conflit naît rapidement. Au décès du père, Hindley prend la tête de la famille. Entre-temps un amour profond se noue progressivement entre Catherine et Heathcliff, au fil des années. (Pyjam'Advisor)

El Cultural (in Spanish) explores windows in literature:

Y miramos. A veces esas miradas nos devuelven algo de nosotros mismos. Heatchliff, por ejemplo, deja abierta su ventana para dejar pasar al fantasma de Catherine en Cumbres Borrascosas. Puente entre el pasado y el presente, son las ventanas las que, como a Lockwood, nos atrapan en la lectura de la obra de Emily Brontë desde ese primer momento en que la rama de un árbol golpea contra ella. Los libros son nuestras repisas. Nosotros los que nos asomamos a ellas. (M. Ailouti, S. Camarzand, F.D. Quijano and J. Yuste) (Translation)

İleri Haber (Turkey) has an article on Jane Eyre:

Yoksul ve kadın olmanın taşıdığı ağır yüklerin tarih boyunca (ve hala) var olduğu gerçeği, o döneme özgü keskin bir biçimde kendini göstermektedir. Romanımızın kahramanı Jane, hem yoksul hem de kadın olarak oldukça çetin bir yaşam sürer ancak bazı “toplum değerleri”ne o dönem normalleştiği gibi bir rıza göstermez ve kendi olarak var olma savaşı verir. (Hazal Bakan) (Translation)

Explica recommends the Google Arts virtual literary tour of the Brontë sisters. The Repository (Canton County) remembers how one hundred years ago there was a local performance of Jane Eyre. A letter from a reader in Stato Quotidiano (Italy) quotes Wuthering Heights. Love London, Love Culture reviews Wasted as seen online. The Fiction Addiction reviews The Other Wife by Juliet Bell.