Wuthering Heights Insanity

Yes, I know the title of this post is a bit redundant.

Dude, I LOVE Wuthering Heights. It's, like, my favorite book. One of my favorite books. It's so beautiful and horrible and twisted and tragic and...! And! And!
So this being the day after Valentine's, I'm going to devote this entire post to Emiy Bronte's Wuthering Heights.


What's it about?
Heathcliff is a wretched little foundling boy brought up by the rich-but-crazy Earnshaw family at Wuthering Heights. He and Cathy Earnshaw are soul-mates almost right off the bat, but stuff happens and they proceed to drive each other and everybody around them crazy.

Honestly I have no idea why I like this book. The protagonists are mostly horrible people. Heathcliff might very well be pure evil, and Cathy is just nuts. The only sane person in the story is Nellie, the housemaid and narrator of the book. Even the unfortunate "normal" neighbors of the Earnshaws, the Lintons, do dumb crap, like marry into the Wuthering Heights crowd.

Maybe that's why I like it. Like Interview With the Vampire, you get an unapologetic but sympathetic account of some nasty, pathetic people trying to figure out how to live their lives. Sure, it's romantic and fun, but it's also dark and twisted and it mirrors reality just enough to feel connection to the characters. There is lots of intrigue, everyone manipulating everyone else, and lots of sadistic mind-games going on here.

There's also a doozy of a love-triangle. Edgar Linton, classic Nice Guy, loves Cathy for some unearthly reason. Heathcliff is definitely NOT a nice guy, but he loves Cathy, too, and to be fair, he saw her first. Cathy loves Heathcliff with a burning passion of burningness, but she loves Edgar's money and affable temperament. The story consists mainly of Heathcliffe and Edgar duking it out over Cathy, Cathy being a nutjob, Heathcliff wreaking revenge upon everyone who ever got on his bad side (almost the whole cast of the story), and the children of the main characters having to suffer for their insane parents' wrongdoings.

The setting is most intriguing. Two big houses on the wild moors! Two screwed-up families! Passion and bodice-ripping abound! Ghosts and corpses! Tragic love! A Byronic hero! Oh my gosh, it's gothic fiction at its most gothic!


My favorite film adaption?

The happy couple

Actually, the only movie version I've seen so far is the 2009 Masterpiece Theater TV production with Tom Hardy, but it's most excellent. It may not follow the book exactly, but it completely and utterly captures the spirit of the original story, has some great acting and scenery, and it also goes into the second generation of characters, which really completes the saga. It has time to explore more than most film versions because it's a two-part show and runs a little bit under three hours.

Tom Hardy, though a lot paler than Heathcliff is described in the book, is fantastic in the role. Nasty but sympathetic, beautiful but vicious, he's just about perfect. He's a brooding, skulking manipulator. And he is very pretty. Oh yes.

Charlotte Riley is hotblooded and suitably neurotic as Cathy. She's got great chemistry with everyone, especially Hardy, and has a wonderfully kooky spark in her eye that is both charming and alarming.

Andrew Lincoln as Edgar is sweet and pathetic, and you can't help but feel for the guy. He wanders into a total mess of a family and gets himself tangled up in its sordid affairs. The actor has just enough backbone but is also just enough of a wimp to be an interesting rival. You're pretty sure Heath could eat him alive, but you have to give him credit for standing up to him.

My biggest problem with the Masterpiece version is the makeup. A lot of the characters age about 20 years in the story, but not much was done with makeup to make them look older. Heathcliff got some gray in his hair, but that was about it. Nellie especially should've had more wrinkles, white hair, or something, since she's around the longest.

But overall, it's a great example of how to adapt a book to the screen, and a good movie. The ending is highly satisfying, and there are several moments that make me cry buckets.

*BROODBROODBROOD*

My movie-snob rating: ****
My personal rating: *****

I'd like to see the black and white verson with Laurence Olivier. The 1992 movie with Ralph Fiennes looks silly, though. Too bad, because I'm rather fond of Fiennes. Eh, I'll give it a shot sometime.

Heathcliff?

Then there's that...SONG...
Wuthering Heights by Kate Bush. I know a lot of people really love Kate Bush, and I know a lot of people love this song...Heck, I like the song...But...
Admit it, folks. Kate Bush sings like she's on helium. And that video of her in the red dress is just...Odd. Kate Bush herself is...Odd. A talented songwriter for sure, but weirder than Lady Gaga could ever dream of being. And she sounds like she's on helium. Tell me that voice didn't throw you off the first time you heard it. Go ahead and tell me!

Nevertheless, her Wuthering Heights song grew on me because I just love the story so much, and it's a catchy tune. I would wish for something a little more tragic and plaintive-sounding, but for what it is, it's a good song.

Kate Bush still sounds like she's on helium.

Wait, there's more!
Apparently, there is a Wuthering Heights opera that was written by the composer of classic creepy filmscores himself, Bernard Herrmann! If you don't know who he is, he did the music for a lot of Alfred Hitchcock's movies, like Vertigo, Psycho, and others. He also did the music for the original Day the Earth Stood Still (do not bother with the remake, it sucks toast) and another gothic classic, the Ghost and Mrs. Muir. I'll have to do reviews on those, sometime, because they are movies that any spooky movie buff (or any movie buff at all) should not live without!

I don't know much about this opera other than that I need to look into it, but now you know. And knowing is half the battle.
Thanks for reading, lovelies and gents!