The centerpiece of the film is the Olympus Ball, one of Wyler's most memorable accomplishments. The sequence begins with a view of the dais and the king and queen of the ball. The camera then cranes back to take in the dancers on the floor, the scene dominated by a chandelier. The camera movements and the editing emphasize the formality of the event, an elegant reminder of the rule-bound society Buck chastised Julie about moments earlier. Wyler's camera movements are smooth, expressive, and graceful, providing a prelude to the arrival of Pres and Julie, whose audacious appearance immediately upsets the harmony of the scene. Wyler signals this disruption by utilizing more editing as the couple appears to pass through a gauntlet of disapproving expressions while others either look away or turn to avoid them. Davis acts with her eyes, which dart back and forth and flutter up and down as she is shunned by her social group. No longer indulged as the brilliant sensation she was at her own party, she is now treated as a spectacle, an outcast from the society she has offended. Humiliated and embarrassed, she asks Pres to take her home, but he refuses, insisting that they stay and dance.
Wyler then turns their dance into a study in the use of space. Julie's individualism is tested against the expanse of the ballroom, and her confidence breaks down, all the other dancers having retreated to the edges of the frame. Julie's hauteur is dwarfed by the empty space of the ballroom floor; her red dress—which fills the screen twice, as Wyler cuts to it in close-up—emphasizes the enormity of her arrogance and her lack of judgment. A series of close-ups further reflect Julie's embarrassment and her inner struggle as she pleads with Pres to leave.
As the scene shifts to Julie's home, where Pres is saying good-bye, Wyler partially veils Julie's face in shadow; the lighting that accentuated her earlier close-ups is now dimmed. Julie slaps Pres, who pauses, says good-bye again, and walks to his carriage. Wyler then cuts to Julie, whose face and eyes, again in close-up, follow him as he leaves. We hear the carriage departing but see only Julie, whose eyes become a substitute for the camera. Davis's expression registers the completion of Julie's humiliation. As she turns to go into the house, Wyler's camera looks down on her as it did earlier on Buck. Inside, Julie climbs the stairs with the camera, but her ascent is slowed by her inability to convince herself that Pres will return to her. The first half of the film thus ends with Julie symbolically falling as she rises, and Wyler diminishes her space even as she attempts, through an act of will, to dominate it.
The second part of the film takes place one year later. Pres has broken off his engagement to Julie and is working in the North. The yellow fever epidemic is ravaging the city, and Julie and her family are advised by Dr. Livingston to move to their countryside plantation, Halcyon, to escape the disease. The doctor also commiserates with Aunt Belle over Julie's melancholy and her secluded lifestyle since Pres's departure. Julie's mood is lifted, however, when she is told that Pres is returning to New Orleans on account of the yellow fever outbreak. Certain that they will be reconciled, she plans a homecoming party for him at Halcyon, where she envisions asking his forgiveness.
When Pres appears, he introduces his northern wife, Amy (Margaret Lindsay), to a stunned but gracious Aunt Belle, who excuses herself and anxiously goes to look for Julie. The film's second great set piece opens as Julie appears behind Pres in a stunning white dress. In what is arguably the most superbly acted scene of Davis's career, she seems determined but subdued while apologizing to Pres, who simply exclaims, “You're lovely.” Wyler shoots Julie over Pres's shoulder but not from his point of view, as if only the camera can frame and contain the overwhelming effect of her beauty. As Julie kneels in surrender at Pres's feet, the dress puddles around her, both accentuating her beauty and leaving her rooted to the floor, as she was earlier in the dressmaker's fitting room. Her image fills the frame as she begs his forgiveness and asks him to love her as she loves him. At that moment, Amy appears, and Pres walks away to introduce her to Julie as his wife. Wyler's close-ups of Julie as she attempts to regain her composure and absorb the news display a delicacy previously unrealized in Davis's acting.
The film's most important political scene follows, depicting the first formal dinner at Halcyon. The sequence is visually elegant and beautifully realized, reflecting the money and care that went into the production, including the magnificent clothing worn by the guests, the dinnerware on the table, the silver decanters, the crystal goblets, and the candelabras. The publicity for the film proudly proclaimed that the furniture and other properties were all antiques and that the four coal-oil lamps used in one scene were worth $1,000. Bette Davis offered some candlesticks and other heirlooms from her own family to decorate the set.
The scene opens with a high-angle shot, the camera hovering over the table to take in all the guests and the servants. The conversation begins with the claim that “William Lloyd Garrison is a fanatic!” and as this assertion is being discussed, Wyler's camera maintains its distance while showing the slaves who are fanning the diners and serving them. Wyler then cuts among the various guests while keeping his attention on Julie, Buck, and Pres. Julie is openly flirting with Buck, hoping to arouse Pres and incite an argument about politics, but Pres is not cooperating. Buck declares, “Cotton is king. Folks are bound to ship cotton downriver. So how can New Orleans keep from being the greatest city in America?” Pres counters, “In a war of commerce the North must win.” He goes on to shock the other guests by predicting, “It'll be a victory of machines over unskilled slave labor.” During Pres's remarks, Wyler pointedly includes Uncle Cato in the frame, either showing him pouring drinks or allowing his hand to enter the shot.
Pres resists Buck's attempts to challenge him, concluding their argument by saying, “I think you know I'm no abolitionist. I believe the tide has turned against us. But I'll swim against the tide just as far as you will, Cantrell…. Naturally, we claim the right to the customs we were born to, even some of us who question the value of those customs.” It doesn't take long for Buck to come around to Pres's point of view. Shortly after being challenged to a duel by Pres's brother Ted (who has been provoked by Julie), Buck echoes the suggestion that the customs that impel him to fight may be outdated. Even Julie, while trying to talk Buck out of the duel, calls his code “stupid”—a thing for “fools.” Wyler's principals all understand or come to understand that they are caught in history's vise.
The film winds down quickly after the altercation at dinner. Summoned to the city to help with the yellow fever epidemic, which is now taking a heavy toll, Pres will soon become a victim himself. After Buck's death in the duel, Julie is chastened to learn that Buck knew what she had done and said so before he died. General Bogardus admonishes Julie and refuses to continue as her guardian, while Aunt Belle calls her “a Jezebel.” Determined to change, Julie vows to return to Pres's side in the now quarantined city. Accompanied by her servant Gros Bat (Eddie Anderson), she travels in a rowboat through misty swamps, under cover of night, to reach New Orleans.
The film's climax pits Julie against Amy, who has also arrived to attend to her husband. As men come to evacuate Pres to Lazarette Island, where the sick are quarantined, Julie begs Amy for a chance to prove herself worthy of Pres and make herself “clean again” by accompanying him to the island, where they both will surely die. Amy at first refuses, insisting that she must go with her husband, but Julie convincingly pleads her case, declaring that she is stronger and better suited for the arduous task ahead. Humbled, Julie finally comes to terms with her own faults and is made stronger by the chance to redeem herself, to throw off the stigma of being a “Jezebel” and prove her love for Pres.
Wyler films this scene by moving Davis among various planes of action. Julie first confronts Amy at the foot of the stairs, but much of their conversation takes place on the staircase itself, with Amy above Julie as the latter debases herself. Wyler's shots of Davis are anything but starlike; her hair is pinned back, and she is plain looking. The exchange between the two women is conveyed primarily in two shots,
but when Amy ultimately yields, Wyler again focuses his camera on Julie, who now appears even plainer yet beatific, even heroic. It is not a glamorous close-up, but the intense expression on her face makes it one of the most moving shots of the film.
The film closes with Julie riding alongside Pres on a wagon that is carting the sick to their certain death on Lazarette Island. In stark contrast to the stylish carriage that opened the film, moving through the vibrant streets of the crowded marketplace, this rough wagon rumbles down a dark street lit with flames, and a final profile shot focuses on Julie, whose look, in Affron's words, “matches the blaze of the bonfire.”29
8
Home on the Moors and the Range
Wuthering Heights (1939), The Westerner (1940), The Letter (1940)
Wyler's next important film about America was The Westerner, which was completed in 1939 but, due to a variety of postproduction problems, not released until September 1940. Before taking on that project, however, he made another film for Goldwyn—Wuthering Heights—that turned out to be one of his most honored and well-known works. Indeed, the New York Film Critics named it the best film of 1939 over Gone with the Wind, and it received eight Oscar nominations, including one for Wyler's direction. Stylistically and thematically, Wuthering Heights is an important film, as it reflects Wyler's deepening exploration of expressionist filmmaking techniques and represents his fullest treatment of the theme of idealized love. The portrayal of the character Catherine Earnshaw is dramatically related to that of Jezebel's Julie Marsden, and it anticipates Wyler's treatment of Catherine Sloper in The Heiress (1949).
Goldwyn and Wyler's route to Wuthering Heights was a circuitous one. Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur had decided to adapt Emily Brontë's classic novel on speculation in 1936. In refashioning the novel's complex plot for the screen, they eliminated its second half to focus on the romance between Cathy, the daughter of Mr. Earnshaw, and Heathcliff, an orphan that Earnshaw had brought home from Liverpool. Eliminating many of the secondary characters and telescoping the time frame of the book, the screenwriters concentrated exclusively on the twisted, passionate love of the two principals. The script made the studio rounds before independent producer Walter Wanger bought it for two of his stars, Sylvia Sidney and Charles Boyer. But before making that picture, Wanger wanted the pair to appear in Algiers, with Sidney supporting newcomer Hedy Lamarr. Already studying a Yorkshire accent for her role in Wuthering Heights, Sidney refused, which made Wanger so angry that he decided not to reward her with the part of Cathy. However, his second choice for the role, Katharine Hepburn, was considered box-office poison at the time, so he lost interest in the project.
Hecht and MacArthur then offered the script to Goldwyn, but the producer had his doubts. The flashback structure of the screenplay confused him, and he thought the lovers were too unattractive—the heroine irresponsible, the hero too filled with hate—to appeal to audiences. Goldwyn sent the script to Wyler for his opinion. Wyler loved it and recommended that Goldwyn buy it, but to ensure that he did so, Wyler showed the script to Bette Davis, who had just won the Oscar for Jezebel and was anxious to work with Wyler again. Davis then showed the script to Jack Warner and asked him to buy it for her. When Goldwyn heard about this possibility, he immediately purchased the script. However, knowing that Warner would not loan him his biggest star, he asked Wyler if he thought Merle Oberon could play the part. Wyler said she could, and the deal was set.
Wuthering Heights has been examined by critics primarily as an example of a film adaptation of a classic novel,1 but it can be regarded, alternatively, as another of the director's meditations on how the forces of society conspire to destroy the individual. One can fight back, as do Karen, Martha, and Joe in These Three; Sam Dodsworth; Drina and, ultimately, Dave in Dead End; and Julie Marsden. Or one can give in, as do Mrs. Tilford, Fran Dodsworth, and Buck Cantrell. This film's Catherine Earnshaw, unlike her fictional counterpart (who marries Linton in order to help Heathcliff), suppresses her individualistic emotional attachment to the orphan and yields to the more comfortable and orderly ways of genteel society. Belatedly, she realizes her mistake, but she is ruined anyway. In fact, she wills her own destruction. What excited Wyler about the script for Wuthering Heights was the opportunity to explore his themes of idealized love and the individual's struggle with society in a bold new way. This was why he urged Goldwyn to buy it. When Michael Anderegg writes that the film is more an expression “of Goldwyn's showmanship” than of “the director's developing dramatic and stylistic interests,”2 he fails to recognize the political and social dimensions of Wyler's artistic vision.
Stylistically, Wuthering Heights is quite different from Wyler's other films made inside or outside the Goldwyn studios during the 1930s. Less emphasis is placed on realism, more on the symbolic and pictorial qualities of the image. Wuthering Heights actually works best as an imaginative rendition of an ideal, for within its insular perspective, the outside world—the larger society that Catherine is drawn to and then abruptly rejects—finally ceases to exist. A handful of supporting players have tangential roles, but all the film's energy is concentrated in its obsessive focus on the two lovers’ tempestuous and destructive passions.
This is also Wyler's most self-conscious film, making the viewer very much aware of the camera and the artifice of the cinema. Wyler always worked closely with cinematographer Gregg Toland in planning the visual design of a project. Of this film, Douglas Slocombe writes, “Toland recognized the essential romanticism of the Brontë novel and decided to go all out for romantic pictorial effect, with heavy diffusion, soft candle-light, long warm shadows and chilly swirling mists.”3 Anticipating Citizen Kane in the use of low ceilings to create confined spatial effects, Toland and Wyler also use candlelight to create atmospheric, expressionist compositions, and Wyler has his camera move and probe more than ever before. In a sense, the camera announces itself so often that it becomes another presence in the film.
Richard Griffith, in his monograph on Goldwyn, offers the most insightful comment on the symbolic artistry of Wuthering Heights:
The setting of the film was not the moors of Yorkshire but a wilderness of the imagination. To have reproduced on the screen any large expanse of landscape would have been to chain the story and its characters to the actual. Instead, Toland and Wyler devised a close-in camerawork which, in every shot, seemed to show only a small part of the whole scene, in which roads, crags, housetops, and human figures were revealed in outlines against dense grays and blacks. Thus was created a chiaroscuro country of the mind in which the passionate Brontë figures can come credibly alive.4
The film opens in a snowstorm that looks fake, as Wyler takes no pains to hide the artifice. The man traipsing through the storm (Lockwood, played by Miles Mander) moves like a stage actor, and the camera adopts his point of view as he happens upon a house that is backlit to make it appear haunted. (Both Anderegg and Harrington point out that the opening has the feel of a horror film.5) This contrived effect is reinforced by a written prologue that describes the house as “bleak and desolate” and warns that only a lost stranger would “have dared to knock on the door.” When Lockwood enters this forbidding place, he is attacked by dogs, but they are soon called off, leaving him to take in the house, which is in disrepair. From Lockwood's point of view, the camera then locates a series of strange faces—the two servants, Joseph and Ellen Dean (Leo G. Carroll and Flora Robson), to the right; Heathcliff (Laurence Olivier), standing by the fire in the center; and his wife, whose face peers from around a chair to his left. Heathcliff's face is in shadow, while Lockwood's is brightly lit. Since the camera has adopted Lockwood's point of view—and thus conditioned ours—we fear for him. This dramatically gothic opening sequence sets the tone for what follows.
Lockwood is granted permission to spend the night at the house, and Joseph shows him to a bedroom, the bridal chamber, which has not been used in years. Again, the room appears stark, filthy, and depressing, as both the low ceil
ing and the light from Joseph's candle increase its haunted effect. Once Lockwood falls asleep, Wyler cuts to a banging shutter, and the camera seems to shift its point of view to Cathy's spirit as her theme music is heard and the camera dollies from the window around to Lockwood lying on the bed, framed by the bedpost. It settles on him until he awakes and goes toward the window, where he stares out. Wyler cuts to a close-up of his face in the windowpane as he hears Cathy's voice calling out, “Let me in! Let me in! I'm lost on the moor.” Wyler makes sure that the audience shares Lockwood's experience: we hear what he hears, and his vision is not presented as a hallucination. Heathcliff accepts Lockwood's story as well, rushing out into the storm to find Cathy.
Lockwood is understandably curious about this midnight intrigue, so Ellen Dean, with her face backlit by the firelight, begins to tell the story in flashback. The camera pulls away from her as the story moves into the past. With this narrative turn comes a change in lighting: the dark, forbidding house is now bathed in light both inside and out. I many of the following flashback sequences, Wyler communicates effectively with the camera, while the dialogue, which is often clunky and stilted, feels obtrusive.
The most noteworthy childhood images of Cathy and Heathcliff are the outdoor scenes when they escape to Pennistone Crag, which they imagine is a castle where they are king and queen. In contrast to the almost exclusively indoor settings of Wyler's other Goldwyn films, these scenes have a vitality and freedom that is exhilarating, such as when the two children are shown racing their horses through the moors toward their “castle” in long shots. The camera participates in these moments by emphasizing the liberating spaciousness of nature and its opposition to the constraints of the social world, later exemplified by Heathcliff's demotion to the status of a stable boy and by the genteel lifestyle of the Earnshaws’ neighbors the Lintons.
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