'Hard to look at'

Independent reviews Andrea Arnold's new film Bird:

Arnold has never before made this explicit a fairytale (even her adaptation of Wuthering Heights was stripped of its supernatural elements) but she doesn’t let the question of reality versus fantasy overwhelm her narrative. (Clarisse Loughrey)

Crooked Marquee actually features her take on Wuthering Heights.

Earlier this year, Saltburn director Emerald Fennell announced she would be the latest filmmaker to adapt Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights for the big screen. There are dozens of versions of this beloved gothic novel out there, including a Buñuel movie, an opera, a Kate Bush song, and a Cliff Richard musical, but as with all public domain works, there will always be more on the horizon. Brontë’s book inspires generations of readers because of its emotionally consuming portrayal of a torrid romance against the backdrop of a cruel class divide. Most adaptations focus on the melodrama, delving into the expected tropes of gothic literature. That means lots of screaming, lots of tempestuous passion, and plenty of running across the moors with one’s shirt undone. Andrea Arnold took a different direction with her version. [...]

In her version, Arnold only adapts the first half of the novel, choosing to largely focus on Cathy and Heathcliff’s childhoods. It’s also devoid of many of the expected elements of a British period drama. There are no frills or stuffy clipped accents here, no groaning overtures or polished production design. There’s not even a score (although we do get a Mumford and Sons song at the end, which is one of the film’s few errors). Instead, the Yorkshire moors are earthy and decidedly unpretty, presented so matter-of-factly (through Robbie Ryan’s cinematography) that it almost seems anti-gothic. It strips away any needless padding to focus entirely on Cathy and Heathcliff, the young lovers whose attraction is both primal and petulant. [...]

Stripping away the trappings of the novel – all the literary conventions, the heightened romanticism, the moments of supernatural intrusion – leaves behind a simple story about love and the vicious cycle of the class system. The brutish Hindley, Cathy’s brother and heir to the homestead, never lets Heathcliff forget his status as the Other in the household, spewing the N-word at him with glee. When their father dies, Hindley is all too eager to eject his adopted brother from the household. This is typical Arnold, strapping her film into young Heathcliff’s perspective and showing the true degradation of a system that has tried to destroy him at every turn. And it all unfolds on the backdrop of nature’s merciless and uncaring force. This does make this version of Wuthering Heights less of a tearjerker and more of a simmering pot, driven by anger as much as love. 

During a talk with Ira Sachs at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival, Arnold said that she didn’t like the film and she now finds it “hard to look at.” It’s a shame she feels this way because, frankly, more British period dramas should follow in its footsteps. The genre that still widely defines UK cinema remains stuck in the easy ruts of cravats, decorum, and safe adaptations of well-worn material. There’s an unfairly sharp divide between historical and modern, between classic and realism, and all it’s done is make for boring works that aggravate the harsh class dynamics of British culture. Arnold’s Wuthering Heights felt like a two-fingers-up response to that, a reimagining that showed the great books still had some urgency within their pages and didn’t have to be reliant on trite expectations. Here’s hoping that Arnold returns to adaptation and period dramas in the future. We could use more of her unflinching vision. (Kayleigh Donaldson)

Esquire lists '25 Extraordinary Books You Can Read in One Sitting' and one of them is

Wide Sargasso Sea, by Jean Rhys

“There is always another side, always,” writes Jean Rhys in her chilling, dreamlike prequel to Jane Eyre, where she inhabits another side to Charlotte Bronte’s madwoman in the attic. Years before Jane Eyre, we meet Antoinette Cosway, a sensual but sheltered European heiress raised at the isolating intersection of European and Jamaican culture. When Antoinette is sold into marriage to Edward Rochester, the second son of a wealthy family looking to further enrich himself through her inherited fortune, she is soon driven to despair through Rochester's restrictive cruelties. At just 176 pages of gorgeous imagery and turbulent emotions, Wide Sargasso Sea rolls over you like a hazy island fever dream, diving deep into how years of degradation can drive a woman to the brink. (Adrienne Westenfeld)