The adaptation of Wuthering Heights forgoes any emphasis on the romantic in favor of a focus on the rougher elements of the story, from the setting to the characters. Things were considered too rough for some, who felt that the film might have benefited from paying closer attention to the more romantic, traditional elements of the novel.
This s adaptation of Wuthering Heights was a BBC multi-episode miniseries that aired on television and has decent ratings. Ian McShane and Angela Scoular star as Heathcliff and Cathy and it is a decent movie adaptation of the original novel that is set during the same period and attempts to follow the original text.
The movie shifts between more of a stage play and a movie so it is a bit lost at times, but overall it's a fine adaptation with some great acting. The version of Wuthering Heights , a made-for-TV movie, suffers from the low production values that one would expect from a project like this during this particular time period.
This project is a product of its time, with melodramatic performances and production values that almost feel as though you're watching a play on YouTube. However, the source material is relentlessly dramatic, so perhaps all the melodrama can be forgiven in this instance. The adaptation gets points for accuracy, taking a little more time than it's predecessor so that story beats feel less rushed. However, Heathcliff is slightly miscast, as this version makes him visually hardly distinguishable from Linton, his romantic rival for Cathy's affections.
However, due to this version's devotion to accuracy, the most important, tragic plot points from the novel remain intact. Fans of period dramas may be excited to notice Matthew Macfayden as Hareton, Hindley's illiterate son who works for Heathcliff when Lockwood arrives. In addition to this element, this adaptation is the only one to have the same actress play Cathy ad Catherine Juliet Binoche. Though fans of the novel will like that the entire story has been brought to life here, there's a sense of many plot points being rushed through or checked off.
Goldwyn, Wyler, and their screenwriters transformed a sour novel into a product casual filmgoers still consume nearly 80 years later. They did it by chopping the novel in half and sanitizing Heathcliff. From there, Wyler reshapes the material to portray Heathcliff as a flawed but sympathetic hero. Hindley has a lame horse and demands to switch horses with Heathcliff.
On the page things are much muddier. The scene ends and neither boy earns our sympathies. Heathcliff comes across as a manipulative aggressor, Hindley as a violent bully. That type of icky ambiguity has no place in the film, which literally sanitizes Heathcliff. Goldwyn also fought for an absurdly incongruous final image of the two leads reunited in heaven, walking on a cloud.
Wyler and his screenwriters solve the casting and narrative dilemmas with a simple, crude solution: Just ignore the second half of the book. To date, only two theatrical films have told the second half of the story, in which Heathcliff descends into pure villainy as he terrorizes a younger generation of lovers.
Her novel shows how one generation can poison the well for another, and how, despite all that toxicity, some still find happiness. I would film it with a good cast in England or France. Thus, no aging characters, no shifting protagonists, no family tree to memorize. His version is all brutality and irrational passion: in essence, the emotions that linger in the mind as you read the novel.
As the introductory quote indicates, if he could have made the film again, under different circumstances, he would have. Instead, Rivette opens with our leads as young adults living under Hindley, an alcoholic brute mourning his wife. He splits the difference between the and adaptations; his film covers about one-third of the novel, whereas those cover one-half and one-fourth, respectively.
The elliptical nature of the film was, in part, budgetary. Here, for example, is a typical piece of dialogue from the portion of Wuthering Heights covered in Hurlevent :. I wish I were out of doors! I wish I were a girl again, half savage and hardy, and free; and laughing at injuries, not maddening under them! Why am I so changed? Why does my blood rush into a hell of tumult at a few words?
His film emphasizes the icy gamesmanship between Catherine and Heathcliff, a key element of the novel ignored by Wyler. What he loses is the hysterical passion that possesses these characters to love and loathe one another with equal force. Aside from a few indelible dream sequences, Hurlevent offers a muted take on very loud material.
All three films ignore the second half of the novel, and all three suffered production woes that left them maimed by producers and tight budgets.
Despite—or maybe because of—this history of partial, imperfect tellings, the adaptations have continued. The definitive take on Wuthering Heights remains up for grabs, and filmmakers up to the challenge. Wuthering Heights envelops us. We obsess over this saga like it was our own failed relationship.
Where did it go wrong, we wonder? We reread the novel and seek out the films, in part, to find answers to those questions, both for Heathcliff and Catherine and in our own lives.
Yoshishige Yoshida was the first filmmaker to tackle the totality of Wuthering Heights in a feature. He sets the story in medieval Japan on the slopes of a volcano. Yoshida covers the two key generations of this story without the casting nightmares mentioned up top. He does it with an elegant expansion and contraction of the text. We see our leads as children for just four minutes of screen time.
He does the same in the second act. We see our new leads as children, but their key scenes all occur as teenagers played by the same pair of actors. The characters age and emerge organically, without absurd aging makeup or a perpetually rotating cast. Arashi ga oka is an outlier among feature-length versions of Wuthering Heights. Surely this is the only version of Wuthering Heights with violent sword battles.
In short, Yoshida borrows the plot points of Wuthering Heights for a thematically rich interrogation of Japanese culture. It was the biggest mistake of my life, and I repented at great leisure.
The miscasting of way too old actors in the leads destroyed this production for me. They changed the book too much! BobbyMotwani 8 July I completely agree with the comments posted by the reviewer with the cryptic name of hpbfan : this adaptation doesn't come close to the spirit of the book. I live in Spain, and these things are not easily available here, but as I happened to be in Gibraltar this past weekend I scoured the video stores in search of an adaptation of this timeless classic.
Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be very popular, though at last I found this version. I sat through the first half hour and could just not bear it any more! I don't expect an adaptation for the screen to be as detailed as the novel on which it is based - that would be impossible - but I have seen a few adaptations of classics that do manage to capture the essence of the book, and at least do not contradict it see the excellent LWT '86 adaptation of A Little Princess - for further information please contact me but in this version so many things were happening that were just not true!
Eg, Mrs Earnshaw was alive when the Master brought the boy from Liverpool. And it was so, so rushed. And, dear me, the ages!
Cathy and Heathcliff at least twenty-two and playing like children on the moors! They were supposed to be children in the book, that first time they intruded the Grange and Cathy was bitten by the hound! The setting though was nice, but that's about all. I realize it's a difficult novel to bring to the screen, but someone PLEASE do recommend a more faithful and lengthy version.
I haven't seen every Wutherign Heigths adaption, but I have seen a lot of them and this one is at the bottom of my list for now.
What do you get when you strip a gothic novel of all of all of its mystery and ethereal romanticism? Turns out that the result is a rather tame and uninspiring drama. Ironically this one just comes across as more melodramatic without the proper framework to soften the heightened emotionality and the flowery language, especially as they're acted out by out by actors in their forties. The result was downright hilarious at times when it wasn't plain distracting. There was nothing about this adaption that said Wuthering Heights to me, it could have been any old movie.
It has none of the complexity or atmosphere of the book, and on top of that they saw fit to rewrite the characters to a point where they have little in common with their original counterparts. Adaptions seem to have a hard time finding a good balance between Cathy and Heathcliff to make them feel like two halves of the same soul rather than allowing one to overpower the other; whether that's reducing Cathy to the innocent victim of Heathcliff's abuse mini-series or making Heathcliff childish and downright pathetic this movie.
I haven't been able to find a perfect film adaption yet, but I wouldn't recommend this one. If you love the book or if you're looking for an adaption that captures it's spirit, I'd recommend the version with Timothy Dalton for the first generation, or the version with Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche. Even the mini-series with Tom Hardy did a better job with the supporting characters.
I also wanted Joseph a bit less clean-cut than he was in the film. I thought Heathcliff should've been played by a non-Caucasian instead of a Cavanah with heavy bronzer. However he looks wild enough, just not attractive enough for me Haerton WAS hot, which was what I wanted, and his troll-deep voice was suiting and funny at times as it was so fitting whether intentional or not.
This was tolerable for Hindley, Nelly, Edgar and Isabella, because Nelly's in her later years and their looks usually don't change, Hindley disappears for college to return older, and Flora and Crispin look young enough to pass off as teens. The adult actors for Heathcliff and Catherine were just a little too old to come in the bird nest scene. Now the pace: This film starts a little boring..
But if you have read the book, you will find the movie is slow-moving in some places but flies past some parts a bit too fast. I wish they had just kept the same pace. If setting is important to you, you won't be disappointed. The relationships between the characters were pretty well portrayed, for example Catherine-Heathcliff was quite sweet.
The rating 6. Cathy was just a bit too quick to get into it. GenevieveBowie 21 May As a big fan of wuthering heights, i was ready to give this film a chance. But i have to say, i hated it. Robert cavanah is not right for heathcliff. More importantly, this film does not follow the book. Cathy and hieroglyphs loveis more sexual in the film than in the book, and shows lust rather thanlove. The wuthering heights with Ralph fiennes however is an amazing film.
Ralph fiennes plays heathcliff exactly as i imagined him. Juliette binoche pulls Cathy and Cathy's daughter off very well. Horton is portrayed perfectly too.
Being an avid Bronte fan, especially Emily, I have seen every single adaptation of their novels. While most screen adaptations prove to be rather disgraceful, there are some "gems" which, though not equaling the original source, turn out to be masterpieces in their own right.
Such is the case with this wonderful TV adaptation of Wuthering Heights. It follows as closely to the book as possible, and takes great pains to bring the characters and their world to life, and succeeds with flying colours. Robert Cavannah and Orla Brady are near perfect in their portrayal of the two star-crossed lovers Cathy and Heathcliff, and David Skynner, the director, does his best to emulate the chaotic atmosphere in which their love blossoms in the novel.
But the most enjoyable part of the movie - and indeed of the novel - is the allusion to the post-Heathcliff Wuthering Heights epitomised by the union of Hareton and Catherine Linton. This is a dark, dreary, passionate and compelling adaptation - probably the most stirring, and definitely the most faithful to the original - for it shows why we love and continue to love Emily Jane Bronte's masterpiece!
I most strenuously recommend it to every Bronte fan - Victorian world doesn't get bleaker than this! LittleSwallow 19 August I find that this Masterpiece theater TV version follows the novel of the same name pretty faithfully. One who has never read the novel may find the action moving too quickly, so that the flow of the movie may seem slightly abrupt or choppy.
However, the movie is only 2 hours long, which is probably why they had to cut out parts of the book and take some liberties with ages and certain details. That does not detract too much from the enjoyment of this movie, which despite its choppiness, has excellent acting, beautiful cinematography the landscapes are breathtaking , and a wonderfully wrought out, bitter plot which focuses on three generations of two families who are intimately interlocked with each other.
Heathcliff definitely comes off as the cruel, embittered man he is in the book, and it's great to see a TV movie capture the personalities of all the characters so well. Highly recommended movie. Sarah Smart is just about the best Cathy ever, and played the same part in a modernised version of the story entitled "Sparkhouse" on BBC1 Sept 8th She looks right, sounds right, and has the right temperament for the part - wilful, wayward and fiery.
She has the look of Sarah Miles - and could be her daughter! As someone who has created a website on Wuthering Heights so had to read and re-read it many times, paragraph by paragraph, I was very impressed by this version ITV has not a great reputation for historical drama in the UK.
The house itself looked like a farmhouse rather than a mansion, the minor details such as hair colour were generally accurate, the acting was excellent. Somehow Orla Brady didn't feel right to me as Catherine although she's a fine actress but Sarah Smart was perfect as the younger Cathy. Being two hours rather than a movie's 90 minutes allowed more of the novel to be used and I was constantly thinking "Yes, I remember that from the book".
Until Andrew Davies produces the definitive 'Wuthering Heights' as he did for 'Pride and Prejudice', this is probably the best around. I've read the book "Wuthering Heights" many times and it's my favorite love story, so passionate and real.
So I wanted to see an appropriate film version to this wonderful book. And I must admit, that this film completely catches the spirit and atmosphere of the book. I think it's very difficult to play the leading roles, especially the complicated Heathcliff's character. It's very hard not to make Heathcliff too human and otherwise not too savage. He is not a romantic hero and it's hard to show his vulnerability and passionate love for Catherine and his dark, cruel and vengeful nature at the same time.
But I was pleasingly surprised. Robert Cavanah unbelievably well plays this role and the other actors are really good too. This film is really for those who love "Wuthering Heights". I'm sorry, but I'm absolutely perplexed at all those people who claim that this is the most accurate film adaptation of Wuthering Heights.
As a devout reader of Emily Bronte and beloved fan of the novel I've managed to read it three times in less than a month I can safely say that this adaptation doesn't even come close to capturing the spirit of Emily Bronte or the structure of the novel. To begin with, Nelly and Joseph's parts are drastically reduced. I mean, I was atleast expecting Nelly to narrate the damn movie. But she doesn't, in fact, she hardly appears in the movie at all. She is supposed to be Hindley's age but instead looks 50 throughout the entire film.
Robert Cavanagh delivers a decent performance as the conflicted and tormented Heathcliff. Orla Brady, however, just falls short from portraying the fiery and vivacious spirit of Catherine Earnshaw. Her defiant, mercurial, and headstrong nature that is evident in the book is not carried through in the movie. Aside from this, they also didn't put much consideration into the age continuity.
In the novel, Cathy and Heathcliffe are both around 12 when they meet the Lintons. In this film, they skip 10 years altogether and introduce them as adults from the start.
Other characters that were reduced included Hareton, Cathy Linton, and Linton himself.
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