Which Wuthering Heights should I watch?

[waltzingparrot]

Never read the book or seen it on screen. So many TV and film adaptations 🤔

Which adaptation do you think is the best?
Is it close to the book?

Definitely Laurence Olivier

I've never watched any of the films because I hated the book so much when I had to study it for A level but there's so much love for the book on this thread that I'm wondering whether I should give it another go. Maybe I would find something to appreciate now that I'm older.

I read the novels of Charlotte and Anne Bronte as a teenager (and have reread Jane Eyre several times since) so it's not that I struggle with Victorian literature.

My memory is that all the characters were very unpleasant and that that it was all a bit histrionic and overwritten. But A levels were a very long time ago so maybe it's not as bad as I remember.

For those who do love the book, what's so good about it?

Jason Riddington as Hareton was very easy on the eye too 😉 and I recall the music score was beautiful. Ages since I've seen it now

Read the chapter where the death of Hindley is reported and there is certainly enough evidence to support the interpretation that he was killed unlawfully.

I've read the book multiple times ,I agree the Ralph Fiennes version is the best one.
I saw the Laurence Olivier one as a child and was hooked ,as an adult I think Olivier is really wooden.
I will definitely see the new film but I think it will very likely be disappointing, over the top and probably unnecessary sexual, not sure about the casting either.
Its an amazing book well worth reading but its not a love story.

Forgot to say Tom Hardy who I think is a good actor was totally awful as heath cliff wig included!

Yes the music is spectacular.

The new one will probably show them having sex on the moors which is completely wrong. Their relationship wasn't sexual. That's what annoyed me about the Tom Hardy adaptation, although I liked Andrew Lincoln as Edgar. He was handsome and kind, as Edgar was. They have a habit of making him into a wimpy lower but he was supposed to be more handsome and nicer than Heathcliff.

Hareton and young Cathy coming together and loving one another and healing the mess of the earlier generation - that's one of the things that's so good about it.

See, I actually quite liked how he played Heathcliff. Ah well.

I read this in a book. Hareton was the child of a love match - older Cathy's brother and his wife. Young Cathy was the child of a loving relationship - Edgar and Cathy. So it was right for them to come together and heal the awful things that had happened with various members of the earlier generation. I didn't make this theory up, out of my own head. I read it in a book in the library.

@upinaballoon I like that healing idea. Not sure if it's enough to persuade me to plough through the older Cathy and Heathcliff stuff.

I'm sorry if I've written a spoiler for OP.

I confess that I read WH when I was a teenager and have seen some adaptations, but I have never actually read 'Jane Eyre'. I've never known how to describe 'Wuthering Heights' except that it's a 'force'.

This is such a nice thread. In the book, when Cathy has been ill, she improves and a day comes when she's well enough for the window to be open and for the air to come in, from the moor. Well, that's how my head remembers it. I love the last few sentences of the book as well.

OP, first read the book! Then watch all the adaptations you can and come back and tell us which you like best.

I don’t think you need a spoiler alert after 177 years 😀

Well, that's made me laugh.

Let me boast. Went to Haworth. Stayed a little while. Walked up above the parsonage, on the moor above. I had been there before for limited times and seen the parsonage, but had always wanted to have time to walk up on to the moors beyond, and eventually did.

Years after I'd seen a BBC 1960s (possibly) adaptation with Claire Bloom and Keith Michell, but it didn't tell the whole story, either.

It’s a special place if you can get there when it’s quiet, that’s for sure.

I plan on visiting here (it’s not that far), after rewatching the 1992 WH /swoon

https://www.screenyorkshire.co.uk/filming-in-yorkshire/locations-production/rural/malham-cove/

Anyone else have Kate Bush’s WH stuck in their head off and on since reading this thread?!

It's worthwhile going round Haworth Parsonage. It's such a great museum, but it did move me. I loved seeing the table where the sisters wrote.
Plus the shop is lovely!
There are good walks around there as well.

I love this version too. However I wish they would carry the story on after Cathy’s death, the dynamic between young Cathy and Hareton.

If anyone is interested in dramatisations of the Brontës’ own lives, by far the best I’ve seen is a 2016 BBC film written and directed by Sally Wainright, To Walk Invisible. Very well cast, and only covers from Branwell’s dismissal from his tutoring job to his death.

Second that

I thought that was excellent.

Not the one with Cathy's blood-curdling screams of agony while dying slowly in a lengthy unmedicated childbirth. I'm still haunted by this, years later. So no, not that one.

Just looked for the Ralph Fiennes or Tom Hardy ones on Netflix or iPlayer. No joy. Has anyone found them anywhere else?

I had to rent it on Prime for £3.49.