Wuthering Heights (2011)
Country: GB
Technical: col/1.33:1 128m
Director: Andrea Arnold
Cast: James Howson, Kaya Scodelario, Solomon Glave, Shannon Beer, Lee Shaw
Synopsis:
When a Yorkshire smallholder brings a foundling home to the moors from a trip to Liverpool, initial hostility gives way, on the part of the daughter, to an inseparable, mute companionship. However, the encroachments of gentility in the person of a local squire's son divide Cathy's loyalties and lead to vengefulness and tragedy.
Review:
Arnold's intimist adaptation - all close-ups of nature in shallow focus and lurching handheld camera, no non-diegetic music - substitutes a runaway negro Heathcliff for the heavy-browed Shakespearean heart-throb. The intent is clear: to get closer to the spirit of Brontë's original, where the complicity of the young lovers has as its counterweight a self-denial and almost feral vindictiveness. Still, in pointing up the brutishness, this version eroticises the attraction rather too much, and drowns out the mysticism of their union with the landscape (all mud, rain and animal slaughter); and it is still only half the book, despite its falling into two halves by spending longer on the childhood passages. One could quibble about the choice of actress to play the adult Cathy in no way presenting a credible counterpart to Beer's unrefined country girl, and so on, but it is a laudable attempt to get closer to the beating heart of the book, even if film makers should probably accept that it is unfilmable, at least in feature format.
Country: GB
Technical: col/1.33:1 128m
Director: Andrea Arnold
Cast: James Howson, Kaya Scodelario, Solomon Glave, Shannon Beer, Lee Shaw
Synopsis:
When a Yorkshire smallholder brings a foundling home to the moors from a trip to Liverpool, initial hostility gives way, on the part of the daughter, to an inseparable, mute companionship. However, the encroachments of gentility in the person of a local squire's son divide Cathy's loyalties and lead to vengefulness and tragedy.
Review:
Arnold's intimist adaptation - all close-ups of nature in shallow focus and lurching handheld camera, no non-diegetic music - substitutes a runaway negro Heathcliff for the heavy-browed Shakespearean heart-throb. The intent is clear: to get closer to the spirit of Brontë's original, where the complicity of the young lovers has as its counterweight a self-denial and almost feral vindictiveness. Still, in pointing up the brutishness, this version eroticises the attraction rather too much, and drowns out the mysticism of their union with the landscape (all mud, rain and animal slaughter); and it is still only half the book, despite its falling into two halves by spending longer on the childhood passages. One could quibble about the choice of actress to play the adult Cathy in no way presenting a credible counterpart to Beer's unrefined country girl, and so on, but it is a laudable attempt to get closer to the beating heart of the book, even if film makers should probably accept that it is unfilmable, at least in feature format.
Country: GB
Technical: col/1.33:1 128m
Director: Andrea Arnold
Cast: James Howson, Kaya Scodelario, Solomon Glave, Shannon Beer, Lee Shaw
Synopsis:
When a Yorkshire smallholder brings a foundling home to the moors from a trip to Liverpool, initial hostility gives way, on the part of the daughter, to an inseparable, mute companionship. However, the encroachments of gentility in the person of a local squire's son divide Cathy's loyalties and lead to vengefulness and tragedy.
Review:
Arnold's intimist adaptation - all close-ups of nature in shallow focus and lurching handheld camera, no non-diegetic music - substitutes a runaway negro Heathcliff for the heavy-browed Shakespearean heart-throb. The intent is clear: to get closer to the spirit of Brontë's original, where the complicity of the young lovers has as its counterweight a self-denial and almost feral vindictiveness. Still, in pointing up the brutishness, this version eroticises the attraction rather too much, and drowns out the mysticism of their union with the landscape (all mud, rain and animal slaughter); and it is still only half the book, despite its falling into two halves by spending longer on the childhood passages. One could quibble about the choice of actress to play the adult Cathy in no way presenting a credible counterpart to Beer's unrefined country girl, and so on, but it is a laudable attempt to get closer to the beating heart of the book, even if film makers should probably accept that it is unfilmable, at least in feature format.