ITV's Wuthering Heights

[prendrelemick]

Did any one catch Wuthering Heights on ITV over the bank holiday?

It showed once again how good the BBC is at costume Drama. ITV should stick to soaps, game shows and the X factor.

[kiki1982]

No, missed it, but if it is as good as their Persuasion, then it is bound to be absolute sh*t.

Other than that, since BBC does not work together with A&E anymore, their quality has gone down severely. Not on the surface, but in the contents and meaning-area... Jane Eyre won a bafta, but it wasn't worth the film it was filmed on, I find. So sad... Litte Dorrit, though was great, aparently, but that was the same writer as all the great Austen-adaptations in the 90s... I dread to think what they will make of Emma.

However, I have looked on YouTube and ITB's Wuthering Heights is there. So, I'll have a look. I have already wathced the version of 1998 and I was starting on the 1992 one, but wasn't able to finish it Maybe tonight :D. Thanks for the hint.

[kiki1982]

Ok, I take back all the horrible things I have said and nuance them a bit.

I have watched it now on YouTube and have the following comments:


The timing of the clothing was severely off. Nelly is supposed to be telling the story around the year 1801. The story is supposed to play from 1770 more or less. So their regency clothing is severely off. With that, the walz Edgar Linton is performing to his sister's playing at one point, and also the book Ivanhoe that is given to young Catherine, as that was only published in 1819 are also severely off. The walz only came into fashion round about 1815 with the congress in Vienna.

What was the theme in connection with Ivanhoe, actually.? I can see the similarities between Jane Eyre and Ivanhoe, but not between WH and I. WH has more of a Monte Cristo-theme. Ivanhoe is a story about a young man who is disowned by his father because the latter is begrudged by the contempt the Normans show to the Saxons, the rightful heirs of the throne of England. Ivanhoe is well liked and starts to mix his own ways with Norman ways, and his father Cedric sees him as a traitor. Then, subplot, there is Knight Templar Bois-Guilbert, who is returning from the crusades (like Ivanhoe) and falls head-over-heels in love with a Jewess Rebecca. He has a philosophical approach to the oppression of the Jews, but not his boss. SPOILER IVANHOE! When everything comes to an end, Ivanhoe and he have a duel and Bois-Guilbert collapses from 'contending passions'. As he was compelled to fight for the honour of the order and Ivanhoe for the innocence of rebecca as a witch, BG was torn between letting Ivanhoe win and die (save Rebecca) or killing Ivanhoe and condemning Rebecca to burn to death. After this, King Richard makes himslf known and everything returns to its normal and peaceful ways.

SPOILERS OVER

I don't know what that has to do with WH. Heathcliff is in no way a Bois-Guilbert. Surely, he does love one whom he is not allowed to love, but he is not torn between two choices where he is damned whatever. Heathcliff has no choice and is angry about it. That is the point. Monte Cristo does not ask himself what it will do to him, and it is the same with Heathcliff. Oppression and reconcilition do also not really come in question as reconciliation does not really happen by seeing the error of one's ways. In WH it happens because people start to feel kindness from one another. Heathcliff is powerless against Nellie's kindness and in the end yields because the others finally get what his problem is and are not scared of him anymore. That has nothing to do with Scott's epic tale, nor wth its theme. A Mone Cristo-allusion would have been better, but that would have been even more off. Other than that, I find that Heathcliff's silhouette and pitiless manner are greatly similar to Depardieu's characterisation of Monte Cristo. Also Heathcliff's re-entry into the story has similarities with the first encounter with Monte Cristo in that Frenh version. I wonder whether the writer saw that version.

Linton was too soft and not at all like in the original. Linton should be two-faced, hypocritical, and demanding on his wife. Unreasonably so. He should be afraid of his father and be two-faced for it. But it takes time to develop a charcter like that, and show its hypocricy and selfishness. I guess the length of the film was an issue.

WH is too grand and big for its purpose. The Earnshaws were not truly poor, but I would not say truly rich either. In my mind they were gentlemen farmers with a little extra money, but in this version they were old nobility with a lot of money. That is not at all the same. Catherine aspires to become a grand lady and therefore marries Linton. That is something else than she was in this film.


Other than this, the characterisation and casting I found brilliant. Heathcliff was very very good: arrogant as a Byronic Hero, yet desirable to Isabella; pitiless, violent and creepy towards the end; dark and mysterious; but he managed to become a little sad at the end, and redeem himself a bit. Hindley was detestable as he should be, as was his wife Frances. The boy who plaid Hindley was also very good. Hareton shy and soft (as his father was withou contempt probably) and Nellie untiringly kind in an attempt to soften Heathcliff.

The black horses were very consistent. For the first time in years! The white horse that Heatcliff offers to Cathy in the beginning, is very symbolical. It is a very far cry from the BBC putting Alec of Tess (the villain) on a white horse.

The only capital mistake that really did not make sense was the literal haunting of Heathcliff with the arm through the window in the beginning, and his suicide in the end. If he had been able to see her, he had not been so obsessed with Cathy, but alas, he cannot because his soul is damned and cannot get to hers. Thus, having him touch her arm is totally wrong. As is his suicide in the end. The whole thing is about forgiving then. Heathcliff could not forgive and thus makes it his life's goal to bring misery to the people who brought him misery (including Cathy, whom he loved terrribly, so much that she broke his heart by saying that it was a degradation to marry him). He cannot truly forgive, and in that cannot be forgiven himself. She has found inner peace before dying, and he cannot find it until the end. He understands why she married Linton, but does not forgive her for breaking his heart and that is his problem. So his suicide is a total mistake because that, in religious doctrine, would ban him forever from heaven whereas Cathy is there. In teh original she comes to get him and he dies peacefully with a smile on his face, not shot through the head.

All in all, though, the most difficult character was very well put on the screen. It is a shame that they made the mistakes they made.

All in all, I found it quite satisfactory and not really rubbish, but they could have made it much better.

[prendrelemick]

I apologise, I forgot about this thread.

A very measured summing up as usual Kiki. I agree that the Heathcliffe actor was good, but the material he had to work with was frankly stupid.

Why do writers take it upon themselves to so alter classics! Do they really imagine they are improving them?

[kiki1982]

Haha! Was it Bloom who said (and that is the only time I shall quote him) that writers necessarily think that they can make something better than the work of other writers before them, because they haven't understood those works fully. If they had, they would not bother making something else.

I suppose that writing for TV is even more of that...

I do agree with you that it wasn't fantastic (seeing the original they reduced dramatically), but taking into account the limited length and the complexity of the image connected with Heatcliff, I found it quite ok. Otherwise they were in danger of making Heathcliff a clown.

It was more human/realistic and less berzerk, but not less powerful, though. I am not sure why I found it good. I suppose that it stayed consistent with its goal and that is what I value most.

That said, they did not get the message of the end, clearly. But I suppose one forgives more easily if the rest was good... ;)

At least it was a far cry of the BBC's latest farce Emma...

[prendrelemick]

Ha! don't lets go there again.

I suppose I took against WH with the opening scenes, and was unwilling to change my opinion.

Also Sarah Lancashire (Nelly,) ex soap Icon and doyen of early evening ITV, is so often on our screens it was difficult to accept her role here as anything than the usual- mature-angel-with-heart-of-gold, that she has come to specialize in. I think her part was bigged up with ratings in mind, and adapted to suit her public persona.

Now that time has mellowed my memory, I should've given it more thought before pouring forth my wrath.

[kiki1982]

haha! I found her also a bad choice. Good accent of course, but a soap actress is altogether something different... Not that they cannot do good stuff at all, but really, you wouldn't put Barbara Windsor in somthing very serious, would you?

:lol:

[prendrelemick]

I got home from work last week (I live on a farm in Bronte country) to be met by a location scout for a film company. Yes, another Wuthering heights is in the pipeline folks!
How many is that now? We get inquiries every other year.