Wuthering Heights, 1970—The One With Timothy Dalton and Anna Calder-Marshall (★★)
This movie was incredibly creepy, with a disturbing performance from the ever-reliable Timothy Dalton as Heathcliff. In the text, a great deal is said about how evil and disreputable Heathcliff looks, like a “devil.” And truly, Timothy Dalton looks like some sort of dark and evil elf. He would be sexy were he not so unpredictably and viciously violent. Almost all his interactions with Cathy involve him hitting her, slamming her against walls and onto the dirt, and just generally being a psychotic, violent asshole. He especially likes to either hit her and then move to kiss her, or move in to kiss her tenderly and then hit her.
Like a lot of movie versions, this one ignores the latter half of the book. Instead Catherine dies on cue and Hindley shoots Heathcliff to death (hurrah!). There are loads of smaller changes to the story. For instance, Nelly has a crush on Hindley, which apparently Cathy is hoping Hindley will return. This causes the whole class issue to seem rather less important—if both Cathy and Nelly think it’s plausible that Hindley would marry a servant, why can’t Cathy marry Heathcliff? I mean, other than the fact that he keeps hitting her in the face, which I’d regard as a crucial point of objection?
The movie is pretty blunt about Heathcliff being Cathy’s illegitimate half brother—at least, Cathy’s mother believes that it can’t possibly be a coincidence that Mr. Earnshaw makes all these business trips alone to the city and just happened to bring this one kid home. I must say that she builds a compelling case. Many critics have argued that Heathcliff is probably Cathy’s half brother but none so convincingly as the doomed Mrs. Earnshaw in this production.
I liked Anna Calder-Marshall as Cathy—she had a great strong-willed presence about her. She did a good job of showing a woman who has a great spirit and longs to escape the confines of her life. But I cannot help but feel that this is Timothy Dalton’s movie, and its moral is “do not become involved with a psychopath.” The supporting actors are all horrible—Edgar is even more foppish than usual, and Nelly is quite young and almost alarmingly stupid. This series is beautifully shot and disturbingly acted by Dalton (which I intend as a compliment) but in leaving out half of the book, it leaves out most of the points the book is trying to make.
The Modern Movie Adaptations
Wuthering Heights, 1992—The One With Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche (★★)
This is a pretty movie, starring pretty people, and five minutes after I saw it, I forgot the whole thing. I’m a fan of Ralph Fiennes, but he gives a flat, one-note performance as Heathcliff in this movie. Juliette Binoche is wonderful, but much of her bad behavior in the book is omitted (as seems to almost always be the case). She’s in a double role as Cathy and Cathy 2.0. As Cathy 2.0, she’s very good and quite kick-ass as she shows Cathy 2.0’s emotional journey of first coping with this psycho who has trapped her, then regarding her trapped situation with a sullen rage, then befriending Hareton, using him for protection, and finally backing away from trying to use Hareton against Heathcliff when she sees how much it hurts Hareton to do so. This adaptation does a nice job of showing that Hareton and Cathy 2.0 think of each other, and how their actions affect each other, a theme that is dear to my heart.
The movie tries to pack the full story into about two hours, and consequently there are all sorts of strange narrative leaps. For instance, Heathcliff marries Isabella, and then Isabella disappears and is never spoken of again. Did she run away, as she did in the book? Did she die? Is she locked in a closet? We don’t know and we’re not given any particular reason to care.
This was the second adaption that I saw, and while it was reasonably sound, it was not particularly illuminating and it was startlingly bland for such a violent, turbulent story. Ralph Fiennes has played many parts well in the course of his lengthy career, but this is not his finest hour. He seems to be hampered by his terrible wig of shaggy long tangled hair that looks like it might still be attached to a living creature (not Ralph himself, alas). Poor Juliette can’t carry the entire production all by herself. Never has so much carnage been so boring.
Wuthering Heights, 1998—The One With Robert Cavanah and Orla Brady (★★★★)
The most important thing you need to know about this adaptation is that Lockwood is played by Peter Davison—that’s right, The Doctor himself. Back in the Davison Doctor Who days, a friend of mine used to say that Peter Davison always looked like he was about to throw up. Never is that more true than in his portrayal of Lockwood, who is such a bumbling schmuck.
Of course, The Doctor has only a small amount of screen time. Most of the story involves Heathcliff and Cathy, played by Robert Cavanah and Orla Brady. What they bring is a powerful sense of humanity and suffering. Orla Brady has this incredible, earthy beauty—she seems like someone who actually lives, and has experienced life, not like a Hollywood star. Her Cathy is trapped between her desires for a better life and the emotional manipulations and sexual predations of Heathcliff. Enter my eternal whine about Wuthering Heights: I would far rather watch Orla Brady’s Cathy than the book’s Cathy, but I can’t help but feel that leaving out Cathy’s own manipulations of those around her is cheating. That being said, it’s a powerful performance, especially in the scene in which she confronts both Edgar and Heathcliff for their “ingratitude” to her.
Meanwhile Robert Cavanaugh is not as powerfully charismatic as Heathcliff should be, but he is very good at conveying barely repressed tortured suffering. And he’s convincingly psychotic—we know things are going to go very, very wrong when he subjects a nest of birds to starvation when Cathy stays at the Grange. This was a version that stayed in my mind for a long time, not because it had any one specifically strong component, but because it conveyed a powerful overall sense of frustration and longing.
There is one piece of this adaption that is truly amazing, and that is the tale of Cathy 2.0 and Hareton. Sarah Smart plays Cathy 2.0, and, without overacting, she invests the part with so much energy and will that I expected her to fly out of the screen and into my living room. She takes us through the whole arc of Cathy 2.0’s emotional journey from denial to bitter anger to despair to hope. Matthew Macfadyen plays Hareton. He went on to play Darcy in the 2005 film version of Pride and Prejudice. His performance as Hareton is quiet but has depth. Also he is adorable. The often-ignored Cathy 2.0/Hareton story is my favorite part of Wuthering Heights, and I believe it to be the most important part. Never is it addressed with more loving care than here.
Wuthering Heights, 2003—The One with Mike Vogel and Erika Christensen (★½)
God knows, I never expected this movie to be good—but I was hoping for some campy fun. Alas, it’s not so bad it’s good—it’s just horribly, horribly bad. The best thing I can say about it is that, as an increasingly harried reviewer, it’s nice that this entire adaptation is only one hour long if you fast-forward through the musical montages. And yes, you can safely fast-forward through them—all you’ll miss is terrible music and young people frolicking on the beach and/or moping.
This is a modernized version of Wuthering Heights made for MTV. Cate and her brother Hendrix live in a lighthouse with their father, who finds a kid by the side of the road and brings him home. Does he call social services? No, he does not—he just takes the kid home and names him Heath. By the way, I know Heathcliff and Hindley are weird names, but why did the scriptwriters feel they had to rename “Cathy?” Is “Cathy” an un-hip name now? Am I old?
Cate turns into a restless young woman who wants to leave the lighthouse. Hendrix turns into a punk singer and a drunk. You can tell that the scriptwriters felt strongly that “punk” and “drunk” are synonymous, and that all folk/grunge singers are sensitive. Heath turns into a moody (and sensitive!) folk-rock singer with Kurt Cobain hair. Cate and Heath share many musical montages during which they experience the joys of young love (piggyback rides, riding the motorcycle, frolicking on the beach—you know the type). But they have two ongoing c
onflicts that cause them to fight, make up, and then fight again. These conflicts are actually pretty realistic—Heath doesn’t remember much about his past, but he remembers that it was bad, and he never wants to leave this safe place, while Cate is desperate to see the world. Also, Cate loves Heath but wants to have her own identity and sense of self, and Heath insists on owning her, body and soul.
So, when rich Edgar moves in next door, things fall apart for Heath and Cate. The next thing you know, Cate is married to Edgar, Heath is a rock star, Hendrix is drunk off his ass, and everything gets weirder and weirder until (spoiler) Cate gives birth on the beach (in a cave, as one does), and Heath carries her back to the lighthouse, but does not call 9-1-1, because he is too busy looking sensitive, and she dies. Heath raises their daughter, which apparently is determined at some point to be his and not Edgar’s, and the ghost of Cathy watches Heath and the kid putter around on the motorcycle. The end.
It’s painful to watch poor Erika Christensen in this movie, because she’s quite a good actress, and she is really giving it her all. I felt so sorry for her, and I admired her obvious determination to wring some kind of genuine emotion from this wretched mess. Mike Vogel pouts and looks vaguely sexy if you are into pouting guys. Only Katherine Heigl seems to understand what kind of movie she’s in, and she chews the scenery with glee as Isabel (who fills both the Nelly and the Isabella role). Regardless of how you feel about Katherine Heigl, it’s awfully fun to watch her preen and manipulate and scrub Erika’s back in the bathtub while they talk about boys. Her ultimate nervous breakdown is a sight to see. There’s running mascara and weeping in bed and the whole thing—she out-crazies both Heath and Cate. I’m not saying it’s a good performance—I’m just saying that it’s the crazed, hammy performance that this movie clearly deserves.
If you watch this movie, you will not have fun (with the possible exception of watching Katherine Heigl’s mascara run), you not learn anything about Wuthering Heights, and you will be neither moved nor entertained. You will see lovely scenery and young actors in revealing clothing, but there are better films in which to see such edifying sights. The music is uniformly, hideously terrible. This is the version of Wuthering Heights that they make you watch in hell.
Wuthering Heights, 2011—The One With James Howson and Kaya Scodelario (★★★½)
This wasn’t Wuthering Heights by a long shot because it left out the second half of the book. But it was a very good movie. This is a violent, sensual production that strives for historical accuracy. It’s visually arresting, and because it is shot on location you get a good feel for the bleakness of the moors and for why the moors appeal to Cathy and Heathcliff, who regard them as their own personal playground.
This movie attracted some controversy by casting Heathcliff as black. I thought it was a brilliant move, although James Howson, who plays Heathcliff as an adult, is too flat and uncharismatic for the part (later the actor revealed that his voice was dubbed by an unknown actor). In the book, Heathcliff is described as “dark” and as being a “gipsy” and a “lascar.” Heathcliff might be a Romani child, or he could be Irish, a child from India, or from African descent, but the majority of insults thrown his way suggest he might be Romani.
For modern American audiences, this element of ethnic bigotry doesn’t resonate because we have much less cultural history with the Romani. By making Heathcliff very dark-skinned, the element of bigotry is much more visceral for American viewers, especially when he is subjected to vicious physical abuse, including whippings, at the hands of white men. It also accentuates the class issues in a roundabout way. In the text, Heathcliff cannot escape his class. No matter how rich he becomes or how well he dresses, no one will let him forget that he was a servant and a foundling. With a black actor, he is trapped not only by his class but also by his color, and just by looking at him we are reminded that Heathcliff cannot achieve respect—only revenge. I think this is especially helpful to modern audiences, who are apt to forget about how very little class mobility used to exist and who may underestimate Heathcliff’s constrained social position.
This version of Wuthering Heights is very little about dialogue or acting and very much about the physical world. There is explicit, brutal sex and violence and scenes of great beauty. The cups and plates on the set were borrowed from a museum—everything is as historically accurate as possible. Heathcliff, who lives a life of physical pain and deprivation, is seen again and again finding some pleasure and consolation in things that are soft and beautiful—the feel of a horse, the color of Cathy’s dress, the feel and smell of her hair when they ride a horse together. Although all the press about this movie involved the adult actors, the movie very much belongs to Solomon Glave and Shannon Beer, as young Heathcliff and Cathy. They not only have the most screen time, but also have the most work to do, showing a complex and confused childhood and adolescent relationship in a world without guidance or boundaries.
Like most of the Wuthering Heights movies, this movie kills off Cathy and, in short order, Heathcliff, so they can get on with haunting the moors and not have to deal with little details like most of the themes of the book. What this movie does do well is give a detailed and visceral description of Heathcliff and Cathy’s younger years.
The Miniseries
Wuthering Heights, 1967—The One With Ian McShane and Angela Scoular (BBC) (★★)
This adaptation is very close to the book, not just in terms of the book’s events, but also in terms of the unrelentingly hysterical, melodramatic gothic tone, and good Lord, is it an ordeal to watch. I kept thinking that surely the people in the book weren’t this vile—but I reread it, and yes, they are. I give this adaptation points for being so unflinching and being the only one to actually tackle all the themes of the book without sugarcoating anything. I can also see why every other production dials down at least some of the main characters’ more odious behavior. This was the first adaptation I watched, and I was filled with dread at the thought of having to watch hour after hour of more versions of terrible, insane people doing terrible, insane things. But, I also had a deeper appreciation of the many layers of issues and injustices in Wuthering Heights, and I have a new appreciation of it as a horror story about what happens to people who are abused and trapped.
In keeping with the overall melodrama of the production, all the actors are as hammy as possible. Ian McShane is rivetingly insane as Heathcliff. His eyes roll around, and he looks like at any moment he might go into some sort of full on demonic-possession dance. It would not have surprised me at all if his head had just spun around like that kid in The Exorcist. At first I thought maybe Angela Scoular, who plays Cathy and Cathy 2.0, wasn’t overacting but was just playing a really crazy person. Alas, once she had to play Cathy 2.0, a person who is supposed to be somewhat sane at least some of the time, it became obvious that the actress was actually completely dreadful. She does get one great moment as Cathy 2.0, where she tells Heathcliff that she hopes she learns to love Linton because that will make Heathcliff miserable. Atta girl. Hareton is a complete caricature of a bumpkin.
I found it odd that, in a mostly faithful production, they cut everything that established Heathcliff and Cathy as having a close relationship together as kids and as teens. Without that, their relationship had no weight. It was a strange and disappointing omission, but I guess they had to make room for Cathy to throw herself on the floor screaming whenever she didn’t get her way.
This is the most gothic adaptation of the lot. It’s filmed in black and white and the “wuthering” wind is wuthering away at full pitch during the entire production, which just about drove me insane and gave me a certain sympathy for the Heights’s inhabitants. The only thing this drafty house needed to be more gothic was some bats fluttering around the kitchen table. The production is dark and melodramatic and miserable—so, just like the book, then! Okeydokey!
Wuthering Heights, 2009—The One With Tom Hardy and Charlotte Riley (ITV, Masterpiece Classic) (★★★½)
Who would have guessed that Heathcliff could be funny? Tom Hardy invests Heathcliff with menace and sensuality and a very dry, sarcastic wit. There are a lot of flaws in this adaptation, but Tom Hardy is a joy to watch.
I usually don’t get emotionally invested in adaptations of Wuthering Heights, but this one sure got my attention. Tom Hardy is one of those villains who, when they are very angry, grow quiet. There’s a scene where Cathy is sitting in a chair, and Heathcliff is standing up. He doesn’t move his body or raise his voice, or even say anything threatening, and yet suddenly I was terrified for Cathy. It was amazing acting on both their parts, as she refuses to break eye contact with him even as he exudes barely repressed violence simply by standing still. I actually cared about the characters—fiery Cathy, exasperated Edgar, and poor, heartbroken Isabella, and for the first and only time I understood why people are so fascinated by Heathcliff. All the actors (with the exception of the rather bland Hareton and Cathy 2.0) bring a ferocious level of commitment to their parts and invest the parts with layers of meaning and emotion.
Pride, Prejudice and Popcorn Page 9