Wuthering Heights (Andrea Arnold, 2011)

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JakeB
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Re: Trailers for Upcoming Films

#1 Post by JakeB » Tue Sep 20, 2011 2:33 pm

Trailer for the new Wuthering Heights adaptation

Sounds like the post-Toronto Film Festival feedback about this Wuthering Heights has been really positive. Bit of an oblique trailer, but I guess those of us who haven't seen it can get a good idea of the general aesthetic. Not familiar with the director's other films, I may keep it that way until I see this one at the film festival in Leeds this November.

p.s. turns out this is the first UK trailer rather than first international trailer, so sorry if one has been posted for this film already.

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Mr Sausage
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Re: Trailers for Upcoming Films

#2 Post by Mr Sausage » Tue Sep 20, 2011 2:42 pm

I see they went the route of making Heathcliffe literally foreign. His 'darkness' was always more effective as metaphysical than literal. Still, the movie looks cold and bleak and that gives me hope for it. Haven't seen any of Arnold's other films, either, but this one could be very interesting.

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knives
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Re: Trailers for Upcoming Films

#3 Post by knives » Tue Sep 20, 2011 3:36 pm

Wasn't he suppose to be half black anyways? I'll admit that I haven't read the book in a good five or so years, but I remember some sly nods to his mother being foreign and him being Cathy's half brother or something like that.

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Mr Sausage
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Re: Trailers for Upcoming Films

#4 Post by Mr Sausage » Tue Sep 20, 2011 5:50 pm

knives wrote:Wasn't he suppose to be half black anyways? I'll admit that I haven't read the book in a good five or so years, but I remember some sly nods to his mother being foreign and him being Cathy's half brother or something like that.
There are oblique references to his countenance being "dark," but nothing explicit. It's a nice ambiguity since you don't know if that means that he's foreign, or a gypsy; if he perpetually wears a scowl, or if it's an externalization of his raging passions in the way that gothic villains usually have some external signifier of their moral otherness.

Taking that darkness literally, as an indication of foreign birth, is a pretty boring interpretation of that ambiguity, but it fits perfectly into modern preoccupations (just like Mansfield Park often gets hijacked by colonial issues that aren't even part of the book). The reason I'm annoyed by this literalness is that it suggests the visionary, metaphysical quality of the book is going to suffer a similar reduction to the literal, with Heathcliffe becoming simply a victim of racism instead of what Anne Carson memorably calls a pain-demon, a man whose rage and passion breaks all worldly bounds.

These are only vague suspicions, tho', and for all I know this movie is going to be fantastic. It certainly seems to capture the right mood, to judge from the trailer.

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knives
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Re: Trailers for Upcoming Films

#5 Post by knives » Tue Sep 20, 2011 8:04 pm

Oh, well with casting the part you're going to run into problems no matter what since he's so ethereal and all the rest you said. I'd rather have some sort of consciousness than just working with what the previous movies have done. Still good food for thought.

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Re: Trailers for Upcoming Films

#6 Post by JakeB » Wed Sep 21, 2011 3:03 am

Mr Sausage wrote:There are oblique references to his countenance being "dark," but nothing explicit. It's a nice ambiguity since you don't know if that means that he's foreign, or a gypsy...
According to the Wikipedia page (not a very reliable source, I know) Heathcliff IS a gypsy adopted by the family. However, the lad playing Heathcliff is a non-actor from Leeds, so I presume any superficial indications that he is 'exotic' suggested by his skin colour will be cancelled out by his accent.

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Mr Sausage
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Re: Trailers for Upcoming Films

#7 Post by Mr Sausage » Wed Sep 21, 2011 11:29 am

JakeB wrote:
Mr Sausage wrote:There are oblique references to his countenance being "dark," but nothing explicit. It's a nice ambiguity since you don't know if that means that he's foreign, or a gypsy...
According to the Wikipedia page (not a very reliable source, I know) Heathcliff IS a gypsy adopted by the family.
If I remember, he was found with gypsies, but his actual parentage is unknown, so it's impossible to tell if he's a gypsy child or an orphan (perhaps of foreign birth) who happened to be picked up by gypsies.
JakeB wrote:However, the lad playing Heathcliff is a non-actor from Leeds, so I presume any superficial indications that he is 'exotic' suggested by his skin colour will be cancelled out by his accent.
Well, considering Heathcliffe has been in England since he was a small child, and no one in the novel mentions anything about his accent being different, I assume he's supposed to have a British accent.

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knives
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Re: Trailers for Upcoming Films

#8 Post by knives » Wed Sep 21, 2011 2:02 pm

Mr Sausage wrote:
JakeB wrote:
Mr Sausage wrote:There are oblique references to his countenance being "dark," but nothing explicit. It's a nice ambiguity since you don't know if that means that he's foreign, or a gypsy...
According to the Wikipedia page (not a very reliable source, I know) Heathcliff IS a gypsy adopted by the family.
If I remember, he was found with gypsies, but his actual parentage is unknown, so it's impossible to tell if he's a gypsy child or an orphan (perhaps of foreign birth) who happened to be picked up by gypsies.
Also, and this may be faulty memory too, but isn't it also hinted at to be a lie by the father. Sort of so that we can imagine the possibilities of his past, but that it will ultimately remain a mystery.

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domino harvey
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Wuthering Heights (Andrea Arnold, 2011)

#9 Post by domino harvey » Mon Apr 02, 2012 10:04 pm

Oh boy, when Andrea Arnold's Wuthering Heights finally comes out in the states in a couple months, get ready for the board to flip-- this one's the real deal. It's available on a gorgeous Blu-ray from Artificial Eye for those who can't wait, but I'll still be supplementing my home viewing by seeking out a theatre with a bombastic sound system when this finally rolls out.

To say that this is the best adaptation of the Bronte novel yet is too small praise. But it is. This is a film that operates on the four quadrants you'd want for such a picture: Its visual aesthetics are sumptuous, its narrative muted but clear, its actors restrained and naturalistic, and yes, it fills the Bazinian needs of adaptation. This is, to borrow Godard's famous statement on literal film criticism, the best criticism to tired, weak, self-serious BBC-styled literary adaptations I've ever seen. Arnold takes the same bent of visceral visual assault that Malick led untethered last year, yet ties it to a clear narrative, material that functions with or without prior exposure. This isn't (Heath)Cliff Notes, it isn't a hep reimagining, it is a valid and intriguing representational interpretation of a well-known literary property void of the imagined superiority of most Medicine Cinema ("Watch it, it's good for you").

While no one gives a bad performance, and this is I believe the first above the marquee role for the talented and beautiful Kaya Scodelario (the brilliant Effy Stonem from the first four seasons of Skins), I was quite taken by the child actor portraying the young Heathcliff, Solomon Glave, who has maybe a dozen lines (two-thirds of them unprintable in newspapers) but maintains the intense screen presence of an established name. If the Oscars had any balls at all, they'd nominate Glave for Best Supporting Actor.

Also, I must really not understand the UK's animal laws, unless all of the very convincing scenes of animal cruelty/slaughter within this film were staged.

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Re: Wuthering Heights (Andrea Arnold, 2011)

#10 Post by warren oates » Mon Apr 02, 2012 11:40 pm

So how does this film compare to her other two features? I was intrigued by Red Road and ultimately underwhelmed by it. And Fish Tank had some nice acting but didn't strike me as substantial enough to justify its feature length.

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domino harvey
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Re: Wuthering Heights (Andrea Arnold, 2011)

#11 Post by domino harvey » Mon Apr 02, 2012 11:50 pm

I've only seen Fish Tank, which I thought was pretty good with a nice visual flair, but it was nowhere in the same league as this. Wuthering Heights has a very specific aesthetic approach and employs it consistently, which helps (the only misstep being the ill-advised miniature flashbacks in the second half) -- though if you're easily motion-sick you might want to skip this one!

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knives
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Re: Wuthering Heights (Andrea Arnold, 2011)

#12 Post by knives » Tue Apr 03, 2012 12:08 am

Oh dear. I'm actually really interested in this one because everything I've heard sounds as if it is identical to my interpretation of the book, but I vomit on carousels let alone with shaky cam.

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Brian C
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Re: Wuthering Heights (Andrea Arnold, 2011)

#13 Post by Brian C » Tue Apr 03, 2012 12:24 am

The shaky cam is pretty extreme, to be frank. I don't think it suits the film particularly well for reasons that are hard to explain, but it seems like a very modern device imposed on what is otherwise a very naturalistic period atmosphere. I don't know how much sense that makes (probably not much), but I thought it drew a lot of attention to itself.

But at any rate, the first 15 minutes had me feeling a little queasy until I got used to it, and I have a fairly high tolerance. I saw it theatrically, though, home viewing mileage may vary.

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Re: Wuthering Heights (Andrea Arnold, 2011)

#14 Post by MichaelB » Tue Apr 03, 2012 7:34 am

domino harvey wrote:Also, I must really not understand the UK's animal laws, unless all of the very convincing scenes of animal cruelty/slaughter within this film were staged.
The law's actually very straightforward. Of these four situations:

1. Genuine cruelty to animals carried out specifically for the purposes of making a film;
2. Simulated cruelty to animals (with supporting evidence);
3. Animal cruelty that would have happened regardless of the cameras' presence (with supporting evidence);
4. An obviously clean kill.

...only the first is specifically banned. So the footage in Wuthering Heights will have fallen firmly within the bounds of (2) to (4), whichever best applies.

There's no question the BBFC will have checked - they're pretty thorough about this kind of thing, as I know from personal experience.

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colinr0380
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Re: Wuthering Heights (Andrea Arnold, 2011)

#15 Post by colinr0380 » Tue Apr 03, 2012 11:56 am

For example in Michael Haneke's Time of the Wolf a horse is killed on camera (as is a pig in the opening of Benny's Video), but presumably both of these examples fall into the 'clean kill' or something which would have happened anyway for meat purposes categories.

Simulated cruelty to animals would be something like the dog fighting scenes in Amores Perros, about which the BBFC apparently had concerns until the filmmakers proved that no actual violence occurred during the filming...

...which leads to Monte Hellman's Cockfighter, which didn't have that argument and would hence fall under that first category (I also guess that the scene in Andrei Rublev (at least in the extended cut on the Criterion edition) with the horse being tripped backward off of a high ledge and then while struggling to right itself getting speared to death would likely also cause some concern).
Last edited by colinr0380 on Tue Apr 03, 2012 4:54 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: Wuthering Heights (Andrea Arnold, 2011)

#16 Post by mfunk9786 » Tue Apr 03, 2012 12:00 pm

Those seem like pretty fair rules to me, but the 'clean kill' thing makes me wonder about another Haneke film, Cache

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MichaelB
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Re: Wuthering Heights (Andrea Arnold, 2011)

#17 Post by MichaelB » Tue Apr 03, 2012 12:06 pm

colinr0380 wrote:Simulated cruelty to animals would be something like the dog fighting scenes in Amores Perros, about which the BBFC apparently had concerns until the filmmaker's proved that no actual violence occurred during the filming...
Yes, with that film the BBFC went through the contentious scenes frame by frame with one of the producers and a representative of the RSPCA before deciding that the dogfights were indeed simulated.
...which leads to Monte Hellman's Cockfighter, which didn't have that argument and would hence fall under that first category.
From what I hear, most of Cockfighter was simulated - but the scene in the hotel room wasn't, and would almost certainly have to be cut. Which is presumably why no-one's bothered submitting it for classification in Britain.

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Re: Wuthering Heights (Andrea Arnold, 2011)

#18 Post by j99 » Fri Apr 06, 2012 10:26 am

domino harvey wrote: Arnold takes the same bent of visceral visual assault that Malick led untethered last year, yet ties it to a clear narrative, material that functions with or without prior exposure.
It's a good comparison, although this is even more visceral. One thing which really stood out was the lack of music (in fact Mumford & Sons spoil the whole atmosphere at the end: it's the only negative), and the reliance on the "natural" sounds of the moors. What a refreshing change not to have your emotions manipulated by a music score. And your citing of Skins is apt, this felt like a "Skins" version of Bronte.

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Re: Wuthering Heights (Andrea Arnold, 2011)

#19 Post by LQ » Wed Jan 02, 2013 11:13 am

Domino is dead-on about this adaptation...in fact, it is one of the best literary adaptations I've ever seen. Although I haven't read Wuthering Heights since high school (and am definitely planning a re-read now) the impressions that remain with me are intimately aligned with the emotional elements of this film. As much as I admired Joe Wright's attempt to do something bold with his reimagining of Anna Karenina earlier this year, I found his highly stylized approach to be to the detriment of any emotional resonance in the story - it is the exact opposite here in the wiley, windy moors of Arnold's Heights, where her jagged, sparse, stripped aesthetic makes the emotions all the more raw, cutting, uncomfortable. It is sometimes downright brutal to watch (those extra-sensitive towards animal treatment beware, if you haven't already sussed that from this thread).

As someone who was largely indifferent to Arnold's two previous films, I firmly state that she's finally found the perfect material to marry with her style, to both her benefit, and the book's. I'm looking forward to seeing what she does next.

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Re: Wuthering Heights (Andrea Arnold, 2011)

#20 Post by Matt » Tue Mar 19, 2013 11:41 am

Gorgeous film, which I was finally able to see thanks to an iTunes rental (so much for living in a top-20 media market). The Malick influence is obvious, but it many ways this is an anti-Malick film. Arnold films in a constrained 1.37 aspect ratio and mostly in close-up, penning in her actors. Everything in the film is wet, gray, muddy, dying and decaying; the film will do nothing for Yorkshire tourism.

Like domino and LQ, I thought this was an excellent adaptation, easily the best Brontë adaptation, fully capturing the spirit of the book while not being beholden to every tiny detail and line of dialogue. And of course it only covers the first part of the book like almost every other film of WH.

I can't say that I'll buy the Blu-ray, though. As much as I admired it, it's not a film I'm going to rewatch often.

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Re: Wuthering Heights (Andrea Arnold, 2011)

#21 Post by vsski » Tue Mar 19, 2013 12:12 pm

Have to admit that this is a film I really struggled with. I had high hopes and really wanted to like it, but in the end came away disappointed. I saw it at Sundance over a year ago with Arnold present for the Q&A (although it was a late showing and I was so tired that I don't remember much about the Q&A anymore).
While I agree with everything Domino said, great visuals - well after I got used to the shaky camera -, wonderful adaptation, superb acting and clearly a realistic feel, I never connected with the protagonists and their trials and tribulations left me unfazed. I missed the romance I was used to from other adaptations and came away feeling covered in the same grime the protagonists were.
Maybe it was too different for me, given that the Olivier / Oberon version is the one I grew up on, and that one to this day remains one of the movies I got most emotionally invested in.
Is the Arnold version worth seeing, absolutely, and I would argue even more so if you know the book and some of the other adaptations, but is it a movie I will revisit often, clearly not.

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Re: Wuthering Heights (Andrea Arnold, 2011)

#22 Post by HinkyDinkyTruesmith » Fri May 29, 2020 1:54 am

I must say I'm greatly disappointed by this as well––I dislike the Wyler adaptation as well, and think it bumpy at best, but I'm simply shocked at how terrible this is as an adaptation of the book, and how mediocre it is as a film in general. I went into this with good faith, and was actually enjoying it quite a bit for the first half hour––and while it manages to actually maintain its own rhythm, unlike Wyler's film which falters in its inability to reproduce the novel but also can't seem to divorce it entirely, the only thing Arnold manages to bring is repeated for the entirety of the run time, and it fails to stay interesting. Wuthering Heights, as a novel, is not a quiet, muted period piece: it's a Shakespearean/Elizabethean/Jacobean revenge melodrama transported to the moors of 19th century England invested in the family-chronicle novel. It is by turns comic, grotesque, melodramatic, ridiculous, camp, metaphysical, spiritual, horrifying, and beautiful. Catherine and Heathcliff are dynamic individuals. Arnold sucks all texture out of the human beings, making them monotonously cruel and bland. The first part has its highlights, especially the scene where Heathcliff and Catherine roll in the mud and ride on the horse, both of which I thought were incredible, but it's only matched by the dreadful interactions between them in the last quarter, where I feel bad for the actors because nothing about the scenes––if they can be called that––provides them any sort of substance to grasp onto. The gruesome violence, towards humans and animals, is indeed affecting, but I had a hard time feeling anything more than discomfort, seeing as the characters lacked any dynamism. A strained serious tone poem, which falls completely into failure when the Mumford & Sons song starts playing, which at once shows more authentic emotion than the last hour of the film, yet feels completely inappropriate, and also makes it seem almost like the singer has said more words than any characters in the film! I understand that Arnold was deliberately reacting against the book by shearing away all the words she possibly could, but all her other choices failed to bring to the film the same feelings of energy or emotion.

If I can sum up the problem, it's this: Catherine and Heathcliff's romance is centralized, but their demonstrations of affections are sublimated to nature, the camerawork, and violence. However, naturalism and cruelty are upped: so at once, Arnold shoots herself in the foot, making the lack of affection between them but the narrative hinging on their famous love seem incongruent, since any sublimation into the other elements is undercut by the fact its supposed to simply be naturalistic, compared to the Wyler version at least where when the winds blow we know its some Romantic demonstration of their passions.

God, how I dislike this film the more I think about it––and I generally like Arnold's work!

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Re: Wuthering Heights (Andrea Arnold, 2011)

#23 Post by therewillbeblus » Sat Sep 05, 2020 9:12 pm

I absolutely loved this film, and agree with LQ's valid hyperbole that it's a perfect literary adaptation, at least in following the path to my own soul. Arnold's strengths in braiding her films with ubiquitous intimacy, including the smothering discomforts of versatile corporeal experience, help mediate a rhythm of affinity that is not warm but speaks true. domino's Malick comparison is dead-on as well, not so much stylistically but for the how the techniques accomplish the elicitation of layered, raw emotion. The opening scene of two humans connecting gives us a distinctly positioned image of being blinded by the cosmic sun before being blindsided by a jarring terrestrial interruption on horseback that breaks this moment with another. The simultaneous beauty and penetrative assaults of life flooding our perceptions marks a transient serenity that is as meaningful as the opportunities that might threaten this and make way for more invaluable, and painful, experiences to come.

Films like this enhance my appreciation for life through the power of art, for finding unique lenses to inspect and elicit familiar and foreign connotations into forming exhilarating special relationships, and further developing my schema of the world. Arnold conveys narratives that are as distantly and curiously observable as they are involving and universally relatable, and the methods by which she grants us a dual role of empathetic voyeur and grateful participant affirms existence without artificially romanticizing or overstating its power. I felt a spiritual authenticity to the film language that is rarely executed so honestly, and am deeply grateful for Arnold who has accomplished this feat elsewhere, most notably in American Honey, which feels like a sister film in applying the same principles to modern youth attempting to segregate from society to find themselves while desperately clinging for connection to the earth. The attentive eyes and ears of Arnold humanistically dignify all of humanity's various perspectives, and feel almost perversely inclusive for an adaptation of a different era.

As 'loss' and 'discovery' abstractly define polar ends of the spectrum, the rest is filled in by the graphically tangible population of people, material spaces, and nature, and invisible energy of emotion, sound design, and piercing camerawork, seeking to provide a channel for all latter vulnerable sentiment to merge into the physical. This is a bold portrait of cinema's capacity to come alive with a mix of force and gentle invitation, anchored by brilliantly sincere performances, to tell a single story that knows (and reminds us) that our most intensely personal experiences are both profoundly significant and a sliver of what life has to offer in the peripheries, drenched with unrestrained ferocity and grounded humility. Final images of a dog hanging juxtaposed with a bird flying freely and a feather, a tangible offering of the enigmatic absolutism far out of reach, fluttering toward the ground, says more to the heart than words ever could.

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