OT -- New "Wuthering Heights" Sunday Night

[Philippe Cordier]

I think it was the very last storyline on DS that showed some inspiration from the Emily Bronte novel "Wuthering Heights", with Bramwell and Catherine. So those who like that storyline (I'm one of them) may be interested to know that an umpteenth version of "Wuthering Heights" premieres Sunday night on "Masterpiece" on PBS.

It's hard to find out much about this ITV production since it hasn't aired on British television yet.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/wutheringheights/index.html

The few comments I've been able to track down include one that the Heathcliff is too pretty (I'd agree from the publicity shot), the beginning is confusing, and that it's not romantic enough. That last may actually be a good thing, though. I don't think the novel is about romance. It's more about obsession, abuse, and revenge.

It will have to be better than the BBC's last atrocious stab at WH a few years ago.

Interestingly, this one was filmed at the same location as the less-than-successful version with Juliette Binoche and Ralph Fiennes. I thought Fiennes made a compelling Heathcliffe, and the score in that movie was haunting and memorable.

[RachelDrummand]

I saw most of the last episode this past Sunday and was sadly a bit unimpressed. Wuthering Heights is one of my favorite novels (though I'm not really a fan of the DS interpretation) and this newest adaptation lacked something for me. Why they felt the need to change the beginning, to tell it from the younger generation and then moving to the meat of the story was beyond me. They used Yorkish accents or something which is different from what I've seen in the past films but some of the dialogue was muddled for me. I didn't like how Cathy said one of her most memoriable parts to Heathcliff. Overall, I felt like it was desperately trying to do something different than other adaptations but the heart of the story wasn't there for me.

I'm probably in the minority but I really loved the Ralph Fiennes version. And even though the Lawrence Olivier adaptation left out the second half of the story, it still moved me more than the ITV production.

[Gothick]

I missed the broadcast, but would be curious to see it at some point.  Back in the Summer of '95 I finally sat down and read Wuthering Heights--the novel from what I recall is very different from ANY of the film versions I have come across--and I think would be a difficult story to film because of the harshness and the very different cultural dynamics of the setting in a remote part of ca. 1800 Yorkshire.

One of the oddest redactions (if I may use that word) of this book I have ever come across was a novel based on the popular 1960s series "That Girl!" (the show that made Miss Marlo Thomas a star)--she goes out to stay at a remote estate where reputedly a "living theatre" type production of Wuthering Heights is being mounted--and of course, Ann is supposed to be in line for the role of Cathy--and, perhaps, Cathy's fate?  You can find this oddity available on eBay, I think--I can barely remember much of it apart from dialogue in which "Cathy" informed "Heathcliff" that not only was he uncouth, but he smelled of dung!  Not the sort of thing one sees as a rule on Masterpiece Theatre.

The Brits seem to be going out into la-la land with their adaptations these days--judging from the recent series of Miss Marple films which bear, by and large, not even a nodding acquaintance with the plots and characterizations of the books supposed to be the sources for the screenplays.

And to bring the subject back to Dark Shadows--when there was a rare shot of Stella Young up here for one brief day, I wanted to start a "Who Killed Stella Young?" thread on the discussion board... but thought I might save that for an eventual re-viewing of the PT 1841 episodes, at some point.

cheers, G.

[Gothick]

The "making of" video on the pbs.org site is really worth seeing if you're a Wuthering Heights fan--that expansive Yorkshire scenery is like none other.

Just seeing Burn Gorman as Hindley would be interesting in and of itself.  The Cathy and Heathcliff both look interesting as well although Heathie is far too pale and English-looking for how he was described in the book.

G.

[Zahir]

Not that it is any big secret but...
[spoiler]The third book of the Twilight saga, titled Eclipse, is based on/suggested by Wuthering Heights.  Save the male roles can be seen as reversed, because Edward/Heathcliffe ends up engaged to Bella/Cathy.[/spoiler]
On another point, I was wondering if anyone here was as big a fan of the Kate Bush song "Wuthering Heights"?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BW3gKKiTvjs
Methinks there's a wonderful music video waiting to be made from this song and the 1841 PT story.   

[Philippe Cordier]

This new production had a more modern and natural feel than any other version. Partly it might have been the graphic sex which the Brits seem to think is necessary in every classic adaptation these days, but also the modern feeling came from the up-to-date naturalistic acting, which was a vast improvement over every other version I've seen (with the possible exception of Ralph Fiennes' performance in the 1980s version). Of course you can't really fault the classic movie version when that was the acting style at the time.

Cathy in the new version did let us down with some dialogue as Victoria Winters says, yet overall I think she was by far the best Cathy ever. The character wasn't written as spiteful as she can be in the book, although we did get a sense of that in some scenes. But all of the performances in this version were of living, breathing people - something no other version has achieved, IMO.

I didn't especially care for the edgy percussive music, but yet the score did create an unsettling mood that worked. I remember the score from the Fiennes-Binoche version as fantastic, though.

The actor playing Heathcliff I think tapped all the nuances of the character, even more so than Fiennes, which is really saying something. According to some You-Tube videos he's apparently a heartthrob though he hardly looked it in this version. In my view his performance was Emmy-worthy.

I did think this was the darkest and most disturbing version of WH.

I don't really remember how DS handled its WH-inspired storyline, though it seemed to be a pretty superficial rendition as far as I recall. It was probably Lara Parker's weakest performance - or her least interesting, anyway.

I'd still like to see a version of WH that had snow when there was supposed to be snow. Otherwise it's kind of like the snowless Collinsport winters.

[Josette]

My main complaint was that it was often hard to understand what they were saying, especially in the first part, so it was hard to follow the details of what was happening between them.  I have only vague recollections of the book and probably remember the main storyline from other adaptations, and not following the intricacies of their relationships really detracted from it.  Overall it seemed to be a good version.  I don't remember enough of any others to compare.

[Philippe Cordier]

I don't want to create an OT discussion about this, but I had to add something I hadn't noticed before and it might be important to other viewers. I wouldn't have realized this until I read it on some viewer discussion thread somewhere. In this new ITV version, [spoiler]Heathcliff kills himself at the end![/spoiler]

I had watched this version twice and hadn't seen that, and apparently I'm not the only one. That tells me that there's something wrong with the direction. I had wondered why at the end Hareton and Cathy go rushing up to Heathcliff's room. To be more effectively dramatic, they could have shown the two of them sipping tea or something and then [spoiler]hearing the gun go off,[/spoiler] and THEN getting up and rushing out of the room and up the stairs. As it was, I thought the [spoiler]gunshot[/spoiler] was simply the door banging behind them. And once in the bedroom, the camera should have shifted focus for at least a moment to show [spoiler]the gun and the blood.[/spoiler] And it would have helped if the [spoiler]blood[/spoiler] had been red rather than what looked like a rust colored stain on the pillow.

I had been confused about what looked like soot on the dead Heathcliff's face, but I had no idea.

Despite the confusing elements, I still think this version captures the characters, mood, and setting (including the house) better than any of the others.

The DS interpretation was a far cry from what was presented here, but then so have been most of the other filmed versions of WH.