Emily Brontë's novel has inspired countless film and TV adaptations. But most, including a new version starring Margot Robbie, lean into romance while minimizing the book's darker themes.
I have never understood why Wuthering Heights is considered a love story by popular culture. Perhaps because I read it on my own as a pre-teen, I did not embark on it with that assumption. Re-reading it as part of a Victorian novels course in college did not change my view. I was never blind to the abuse that Heathcliff inflicted on others.
Thanks for the review. It's hard to enter the mental and social worlds of the Victorians. Or imagine London with child prostitutes, going through a cholera epidemic, with sewage overflowing and the stink reaching to Buckingham Palace. Even without black (slave) ancestry in the case of Heathcliff, gypsies were despised as thieving, dark-skinned aliens speaking a strange language. It's not so far back that 500,000 or more Romany perished in the Nazi death camps in their own little publicized or remembered holocaust. The horror of the Jewish calamity overwhelmed this monstrous atrocity in Western collective memory.
As for the current film version, it has nothing to do with the novel as it really is. Jo Ellison summarizes it best in her review in the Financial Times when she describes "the madness at its centre" - "a dark, deranged story about incest, appalling violence, torture, sexual abuse and torture." We should be glad most of us can never know what such darkness really is. What it is not is a pinkish consumer product packaged for Valentine's Day of imagined erotica and romanticized copulation.
The author does not ignore but does slight the 2009 ITV mini-series adaption which, as the author notes, DOES feature a Black Heathcliffe, and does deal with the second half of the novel. That's the one I most recently watched, and apparently it is the most faithful adaptation. I have no intention of watching this new movie.
The Bronte sisters and their brother were quite a hothouse of imagination. Their worldly experience was limited to the books they read (i.e. everything - notably Walter Scott and Byron) and works of art. Branwell may well have been the idea behind Heathcliff. He and Emily were one year apart, and he died within a year of her. It wouldn't take a huge stretch of fancy to dream him into the looks and behaviour of a romantically swarthy Byron.
Thank you for this. I read the book many years ago and have never watched a "Wuthering Heights" movie because I assumed it would be like the book...and I certainly did NOT want to subject myself to a visual interpretation of that story!
Very insightful critique, thanks! Just saw the movie this afternoon and differ on two points. First, the scene in which Isabella was chained up did not work for me at all; yes, I understood H's rage but there was nothing earlier in the film that set the stage for H as a cruel man. If anyone was cruel, it was Nellie. Second, I believe this newest version IS a love story between two desperately lonely and neurotic people.
I soon as I read the title to the review it was obvious that Hollywood centered on passionate sex just as it always does. Screw, screw, screw, right? Panting and sexual satisfaction.
Novels in the public domain have one less problem for filmmakers to contend with - explaining the many remakes? Not complaining. I have only seen the Fiennes and Binoche version who are magic and magnetic together. Loved it.
The Binoche-Fiennes version is one of the only adaptations to tackle the second half of the book. And yes, you make a good point about older books being in the public domain. Although optioning books is often a relatively minor expense compared to everything else.
I have never understood why Wuthering Heights is considered a love story by popular culture. Perhaps because I read it on my own as a pre-teen, I did not embark on it with that assumption. Re-reading it as part of a Victorian novels course in college did not change my view. I was never blind to the abuse that Heathcliff inflicted on others.
Thanks for the review. It's hard to enter the mental and social worlds of the Victorians. Or imagine London with child prostitutes, going through a cholera epidemic, with sewage overflowing and the stink reaching to Buckingham Palace. Even without black (slave) ancestry in the case of Heathcliff, gypsies were despised as thieving, dark-skinned aliens speaking a strange language. It's not so far back that 500,000 or more Romany perished in the Nazi death camps in their own little publicized or remembered holocaust. The horror of the Jewish calamity overwhelmed this monstrous atrocity in Western collective memory.
As for the current film version, it has nothing to do with the novel as it really is. Jo Ellison summarizes it best in her review in the Financial Times when she describes "the madness at its centre" - "a dark, deranged story about incest, appalling violence, torture, sexual abuse and torture." We should be glad most of us can never know what such darkness really is. What it is not is a pinkish consumer product packaged for Valentine's Day of imagined erotica and romanticized copulation.
The Bronté book for SURE isn't a love story.
I couldn't believe what two deeply fucked up human beings were the so-called "lovers" in the story.
Such nasty, hateful, selfish people. Especially Cathy! A manipulative mean girl for the ages!
And Heathcliffe so neurotic that it was so alarmingly simple to manipulate him.
Saying that, my favorite film version is the TV mini-series with Tom Hardy and Charlotte Riley. He's not a gypsy, but he was very compelling.
The author does not ignore but does slight the 2009 ITV mini-series adaption which, as the author notes, DOES feature a Black Heathcliffe, and does deal with the second half of the novel. That's the one I most recently watched, and apparently it is the most faithful adaptation. I have no intention of watching this new movie.
The Bronte sisters and their brother were quite a hothouse of imagination. Their worldly experience was limited to the books they read (i.e. everything - notably Walter Scott and Byron) and works of art. Branwell may well have been the idea behind Heathcliff. He and Emily were one year apart, and he died within a year of her. It wouldn't take a huge stretch of fancy to dream him into the looks and behaviour of a romantically swarthy Byron.
Enjoyed your reviews and history of this new "Wuthering Heights" with comparisons to past ones. I always wondered about Heathcliff's ugly side.
Well done, Meredith.
Thank you for this. I read the book many years ago and have never watched a "Wuthering Heights" movie because I assumed it would be like the book...and I certainly did NOT want to subject myself to a visual interpretation of that story!
Very insightful critique, thanks! Just saw the movie this afternoon and differ on two points. First, the scene in which Isabella was chained up did not work for me at all; yes, I understood H's rage but there was nothing earlier in the film that set the stage for H as a cruel man. If anyone was cruel, it was Nellie. Second, I believe this newest version IS a love story between two desperately lonely and neurotic people.
I totally agree on the depiction of
Nellie in the film. It was a strange choice.
I soon as I read the title to the review it was obvious that Hollywood centered on passionate sex just as it always does. Screw, screw, screw, right? Panting and sexual satisfaction.
Novels in the public domain have one less problem for filmmakers to contend with - explaining the many remakes? Not complaining. I have only seen the Fiennes and Binoche version who are magic and magnetic together. Loved it.
The Binoche-Fiennes version is one of the only adaptations to tackle the second half of the book. And yes, you make a good point about older books being in the public domain. Although optioning books is often a relatively minor expense compared to everything else.