Wuthering Heights

[GCAcademic]

Anyone planning to see this? From the trailer I was expecting it to be marmite and not in any way a straight adaptation of the novel, but the reviews I've seen so far are universally uncomplimentary. I'd already booked to see it, so will go in with an open mind!

I'd like to see an adaptation that focuses on the children as they grow up, both families. At least 60% on that. I know it's not in the novel but given Fennell has made it up as she's gone along, it's feasible. That was one of the things that was done reasonably well in this film but I think it's worth exploring to better explain the later mutual obsession. Most adaptations treat it perfunctorily.

There's quite a lot about Heathcliff and Cathy's upbringing in the novel, particularly the way in which old Mr Earnshaw favoured Heathcliff over his own son Hindley, and that sowed discord between them (though he also prefers Heathcliff to wayward Cathy, but that doesn't seem to affect her fondness for H), and how when Mr Earnshaw dies and Hindley inherits, he relegates Heathcliff to servant status, and how Cathy is naughty and rebellious, and how their favourite thing to do is run around on the moors together.

The Lintons of course we only encounter the first time H and C spy in the window of Thrushcross Grange at them fighting over a lapdog.

Doesn't Nelly Dean tell Linton that Wuthering Heights, the house, is the second best house in the county?

I know that people often refer to Top Withins but maybe it's more likely to have been Ponden Hall?

Doesn't Nelly Dean tell Linton that Wuthering Heights, the house, is the second best house in the county?

Apologies...someone else has already said this!!

I know, but it feels glossed over in films.

I made the mistake of watching it on a plane…

Speaking of Saltburn, I watched it a couple of nights ago. Now that's really messed up!

Ewan Mitchell is a very versatile actor. I didn't recognise him immediately in Saltburn until I checked the credits.

Is it gory?

Without spoiling it, there is blood and there is death but I wouldn't describe it as gory. Just weird sexual stuff is what I meant by messed up.

Thank you

I very much disliked the book. Loathed it, in fact

I went to see this last week but, apart from the S and M bit with the horse’s bridle, I don’t remember any other “messed up” sex scenes?? Can someone remind me..

Other than it being strongly implied that Heathcliff and Isabella have a BDSM relationship in which she seems enthusiastically consenting (which sweetens the novel considerably, as there he beats her and almost certainly rapes her after their marriage), the rest of it seemed standard sex to me.

I think all my copies of the book are missing the pages where Cathy goes down on Heathcliff, where she masturbates by Peniston Crag and where Heathcliff stuffs his face up her frock. Someone in the cinema said loudly "he's sniffing her knickers!!"

I'm surprised Fennell didn't make a play on words with Peniston Crag. She deliberately turned Zillah and Joseph into younger characters to stuff in the BDSM scene. Imagine if she'd kept them the same age?! Joseph was also a religious zealot.

Well yes, we all know sex wasn’t invented until the 1960s.

Well, there's no sex in the novel whatsoever. We know it happened, obviously, because children are born to make the second generation. Cathy dies shortly after childbirth, as does Frances Earnshaw, Hindley's wife, and Isabella gives birth to Linton after her brief marriage to Heathcliff. But then 19thc novels aren't in general given to graphic depictions, or even restrained ones, of any kind of sex.

I mean, if we're being objective, there's no evidence in the novel at all that Heathcliff and Cathy have in any way a romantic or sexual relationship. Adaptations since the 1939 one have always extrapolated that from a single kiss on her deathbed to make the novel on screen a much 'tidier' affair than it is on the page, where Heathcliff is chiefly concerned with revenge and Cathy with regretting her girlhood, starving herself, throwing elaborate out-of-body tantrums etc.

@BendoftheBeginning My mum and dad must have been delivered by the stork in the 1960s then. You know exactly what I meant.

I read an article on the accuracy of the sex depictions (of the time, not specific to the novel) and it seemed to think it was in keeping with the time - apart from Heathcliff's excellent access to Cathy's bedroom - and also that the clothing was quite cumbersome for such encounters (which may explain lack of nudity).

I discovered that I am more prudish than I thought as I found the masturbation scene uncomfortable (the Heathcliff part) and the broke eggs in the bed ....

I think most people who have read the book have strong feelings about it

I’ve never read the book nor seen any previous adaptations but watched the film last night & thought it was fantastic! Cinematography was amazing & thought the children, Margot Robbie & Martin Clunes were brilliant. Less keen on Heathcliff!

As a newbie to it, I loved it & definitely worth seeing on the big screen!

The novel is set mostly during the 1770s and 1780s, with the Lockwood frame in 1801-2. It’s not clear when this adaptation is set, other than Edgar and Nelly’s costumes suggesting it’s around the time of the novel’s publication in the late 1840s. Cathy’s costumes are more ‘fever dream after going to a costume museum’.

Which period was the article talking about?

Personally I hated the scene with Isabella & Heathcliffe when she was tethered like a dog.
Yes, I know she was apparently complicit in it but I still found it uncomfortable and misjudged particularly as we watch the Epstein case play out across the media.

People in the cinema laughed at it and seemed to enjoy that scene but I hated it.
I know I am going to be slated for that opinion and I know it's not the same because she was part of it, enjoying it etc but I still just found it unpleasant.

I wasn't keen on how Isabella was portrayed, either. I think making her a willing participant in Heathcliff's abuse was a lazy way of sort of keeping to the book while making him seem like a sex God who could hold two women in his thrall.

Yes, I agree with this.

I am just not comfortable with how the story of the film is really just a man getting his own back on a woman who he supposedly loves, by marrying and abusing her sister in law and having an affair with her at the same time.

I hated it as well, Heathcliffe was a hideous man and abused Isobel in every way it’s possible to abuse someone.