Emily Brontë's Wuthering HeightsPassion is like a flame: it can keep you warm when kept in check; when uncontained, it can engulf all who dare to stand in its way. And love can be a force so primal that it forever bonds two souls, their destinies intertwined forever. Should that root grow in unworthy soil, it would be stifled and starve without the nourishment. And vengeance--it is etched upon the heart, a scar which can never heal over, no matter the time that passes or attempts to remedy the poison it carries with it. All of these are Wuthering Heights.
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Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights is no weepy romance, although it is a sorrowful tale about love. It is no dalliance into the 18th century countryside of England, which touches on social manners and frivolities; it is a tale of lust and revenge, of diabolical schemes, hearts run rampant, and hateful cruelty. The engine of this chaos which rolls through Wuthering Heights is Heathcliff (Ralph Fiennes), the quintessential anti-hero, a dark and brooding figure, whose passions drive him to the extremes of obsessive love and horrifying vindictiveness. He was plucked from the streets of the port city of Liverpool, brought home by the father of the household at Wuthering Heights, Thomas Earnshaw (John Woodvine) to be a brother to his own two children. Heathcliff is called a "gypsy" due to his swarthy appearance and grim demeanor; the implication that he was found in Liverpool is that he may very well be from far abroad, a mystery and a comment on the encroachment of the alien into the lives of the reclusive English countryside. He comes to convey that he has some kind of belief in the supernatural--that black magic is in his blood--and his affinity with nature is one which he exploits to charm and entertain his heart's desire, Catherine "Cathy" Earnshaw (Juliette Binoche). But as Heathcliff's world darkens, his impressions of the spirit world also motivate him to invoke ghosts in his grief to haunt him when his heart has been shattered, with no regard to his soul--for by this point he is convinced he can expect no peace ever again. Alongside Heathcliff's wild soul is Cathy, who is no demure kitten; she is a tigress, with a disposition like the wind--full of fancy and impossible to grab a hold of. Her fancies and her selfishness are her vices, but are also the same free qualities which allow her soul to flourish among Heathcliff--what he loves about her. Their romance is elemental; she is the air which stokes his flame, and one cannot thrive without the other. And their love is like those forces of nature, caring not what it destroys, leveling all in its path. Their love is a young one, but there is no question that the ferocity with which they commit themselves to one another is one which cannot every be truly revoked. It is as Cathy describes her love of Heathcliff to the maid to the estate, Ellen "Nelly" Dean (Janet McTeer), like the stones on the moors--providing little physical comfort, but necessary. And that binding to each other is uprooted when Cathy is taken in for a spell by the Lintons at the neighboring Grange, and she is wooed by the kind--if comparably tepid--Edgar Linton (Simon Shepherd). Cathy does not love Edgar, but finds amusement in his company, entertainment, and the promise of being spoiled. Her unfortunate choice of words to Nelly--meant to be in confidence, but overheard by Heathcliff--about how marrying Heathcliff would "degrade her" is the final push for him, which causes the obsessed and dejected rebel to flee from the Heights...only to return with a literal vengeance, his descent into darkness unfurled like the black cloak around him.
While there have been several adaptations of Emily Brontë's singular novel to film, I've always felt that this rendition gets a bit of a bad rap--hated by some--for infamously casting a French actress in the role of Catherine Earnshaw--as well as her daughter to follow in the story, a criticism which I believe is largely unjust. Aside from Juliette Binoche's extraordinary talent as an actress, she embodies Cathy Earnshaw's uncontainable spirit with such emotion that she seems to shake to keep it in at times. Furthermore, she plays so well off of Ralph Fiennes' raw fury as the wretched Heathcliff that we can believe that these two are the doomed lovers they portray. Heathcliff's return to the Heights is a cunning mission of malice, his soul all gone out of him now. It is a mission of revenge against the spiteful brother, Hindley (Jeremy Northham), who made him into a slave upon his father's death, and the Lintons, for sneering at his low birth and jealous exclusion of him from Cathy's life. His love for Cathy is now a raging fire, burning him all away inside and the sole focus of his grand schemes to destroy the world which has confined her, the luxury which has stifled her soul and smothered her spirit, an affront to her true nature. In Heathcliff's eyes, he is vindicated in his rage, but goes to overwhelming extremes to bring suffering unto those who have harmed him, or hurt those to achieve the same end. We may sympathize with Heathcliff's pain from the start, but it would be monstrous to condone his abuse toward Isabella Linton (Sophie Ward), the sister of Edgar whom Heathcliff seduces and marries solely to find a way to steal away the Linton estate from Edgar. Among this lost generation, practically all of the major players are dominated by their vices, which ultimately destroy them, the sole exception being Nelly, who remains neutral, but not ambivalent; she would like to see the suffering end, which will not come until this generation is in the ground. It is when the children have grown, when Catherine Linton (Binoche) is reunited with her cousins, that the world begins to right itself again. Her cousins are both wards to Heathcliff now, one his natural son, Linton Heathcliff (Jonathan Firth) and Hareton Earnshaw (Jason Riddington), the son of Hindley, whom Heathcliff turns into a stable boy, as Hareton's father had done to him. Cathy, Linton, and Hareton are the reflections of their parents, with similar mannerisms and temperaments, but none are possessed by the spirit of hate and malice, or reckless whimsy which seemed to plague their predecessors. They are a second chance to break free of the curse of their dark legacy. The final message of Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights is that hate cannot endure. It may be borne by the figures of enduring rage like Heathcliff--or others stricken by it in Wuthering Heights--but in the end, it is a fire...and all fires die out when the fuel has gone.
Recommended for: Fans of a powerful and emotional adaptation of one of the most compelling tragic romances in literature. It is carried by the bravura performances of Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche, and tells a story of a love that will not leave this world quietly.
While there have been several adaptations of Emily Brontë's singular novel to film, I've always felt that this rendition gets a bit of a bad rap--hated by some--for infamously casting a French actress in the role of Catherine Earnshaw--as well as her daughter to follow in the story, a criticism which I believe is largely unjust. Aside from Juliette Binoche's extraordinary talent as an actress, she embodies Cathy Earnshaw's uncontainable spirit with such emotion that she seems to shake to keep it in at times. Furthermore, she plays so well off of Ralph Fiennes' raw fury as the wretched Heathcliff that we can believe that these two are the doomed lovers they portray. Heathcliff's return to the Heights is a cunning mission of malice, his soul all gone out of him now. It is a mission of revenge against the spiteful brother, Hindley (Jeremy Northham), who made him into a slave upon his father's death, and the Lintons, for sneering at his low birth and jealous exclusion of him from Cathy's life. His love for Cathy is now a raging fire, burning him all away inside and the sole focus of his grand schemes to destroy the world which has confined her, the luxury which has stifled her soul and smothered her spirit, an affront to her true nature. In Heathcliff's eyes, he is vindicated in his rage, but goes to overwhelming extremes to bring suffering unto those who have harmed him, or hurt those to achieve the same end. We may sympathize with Heathcliff's pain from the start, but it would be monstrous to condone his abuse toward Isabella Linton (Sophie Ward), the sister of Edgar whom Heathcliff seduces and marries solely to find a way to steal away the Linton estate from Edgar. Among this lost generation, practically all of the major players are dominated by their vices, which ultimately destroy them, the sole exception being Nelly, who remains neutral, but not ambivalent; she would like to see the suffering end, which will not come until this generation is in the ground. It is when the children have grown, when Catherine Linton (Binoche) is reunited with her cousins, that the world begins to right itself again. Her cousins are both wards to Heathcliff now, one his natural son, Linton Heathcliff (Jonathan Firth) and Hareton Earnshaw (Jason Riddington), the son of Hindley, whom Heathcliff turns into a stable boy, as Hareton's father had done to him. Cathy, Linton, and Hareton are the reflections of their parents, with similar mannerisms and temperaments, but none are possessed by the spirit of hate and malice, or reckless whimsy which seemed to plague their predecessors. They are a second chance to break free of the curse of their dark legacy. The final message of Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights is that hate cannot endure. It may be borne by the figures of enduring rage like Heathcliff--or others stricken by it in Wuthering Heights--but in the end, it is a fire...and all fires die out when the fuel has gone.
Recommended for: Fans of a powerful and emotional adaptation of one of the most compelling tragic romances in literature. It is carried by the bravura performances of Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche, and tells a story of a love that will not leave this world quietly.