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wutheringheightsfilm · 1 month

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alright everybody.... the ranked lists are out...

wuthering heights adaptations ranked by successfulness:

and wuthering heights ranked by my personal preference:

conclusions:

if you are looking for a version that tells the complete story and is 1 to 1 scene for scene the book because you have to pass some sort of exam, watch the 1978 version (#1 on the successful list). be aware this version is boring as shit hence why it barely makes it in the top 5 of my personal rankings

if you are looking for a version that tells the complete story but is not as boring (but still has its myriad issues), watch the 1998 version (#2 on the successful list).

if you are a looking for a version that 1) finally doesn't whitewash heathcliff and 2) very accurately captures the atmosphere of what reading the book is like, but can sacrifice missing half the story (as the entire second gen of children are not truly present), watch the 2011 version (#1 on my personal list). i will say, though, it is the most complete telling of the 1st generation story, and the one i believe portrays heathcliff and catherine's dynamic the most accurately. (though do look up warnings on doesthedogdie for this one as there are multiple scenes of animal cruelty, and be aware that there will be a myriad of racial slurs that do not appear in the book directed at heathcliff)

if you're looking to watch a version where you get the complete story but it's not quite right (sacrifices were made here, and the romance is way too overdone for my liking) but the chemistry between heathcliff and catherine is incredible (and the soundtrack is excellent), and you like to notice small details with costume design and storytelling, watch the 2009 version (#2 on my personal list)

you're welcome. i'm still going to be making the video essay though

#vero.txt #t #sorry you all won't ever be free of my wutheringheights posting.#vero's wuthering heights meta #the reason why 2011 doesn't rank higher in the successful list is literally because half the story is missing btw

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wutheringheightsfilm · 2 months

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wuthering heights posting #122938: on the abuse being taken seriously

so in an earlier post i said that most of (aka nearly all) the wuthering heights adaptations fail because not a single filmmaker* nor screenwriter takes the abuse that heathcliff and catherine face (at the hands of both their father and hindley, because yes, hitting your children with the rod, neglecting them, and saying you can't possibly love them and, for example, saying to your daughter's face that she's the worst of your children [mr earnshaw's doing] and forcing your adoptive brother into servitude (and there are many articles about this especially in relation to heathcliff's race---i really recommend Maja-Lisa von Sneidern's article Wuthering Heights and the Liverpool Slave Trade for more on this, specifically their posit that "In the novel the Heights, corrupted by the introduction of the racially other [Heathcliff], is the place where the figures of a system of bondage work out their relationships." (Sneidern, 174)) , flogging him, and withholding food from your younger sister as punishment [hindley's doing] are both repeated instances abuse, in different degrees of intensity, but nonetheless have the same impact: it drives heathcliff and catherine's codependency. but this isn't what i solely want to talk about: what i want to actually talk about is heathcliff and catherine's (ultimately) world-shattering decision to visit thrushcross grange. *note: when i say film/filmmakers/screenwriters this includes both cinema film as in movies that both got a mainstream release in theatres and made-for-tv movies and tv miniseries. i'm too lazy to type out "film and tv" every time.

So, in the book, since this is being told from Nelly's (the housekeeper's) point of view, we don't actually know why exactly in the moment Heathcliff and Catherine choose to go to Thrushcross Grange (the manor home of the substantially wealthier Linton family), but it's said later:

""Where is Miss Catherine?" [Nelly] cried hurriedly. "No accident, I hope?" "At Thrushcross Grange," [Heathcliff] answered; "and I would have been there too, but that had not the manners to ask me to stay."... "...What in the world led you to wandering to Thrushcross Grange?" .... [Heathcliff] continued: "Cathy and I escaped from the wash-house to have a ramble at liberty, and getting a glimpse of the Grange lights, we thought we would just go and see whether the Lintons passed their Sunday evenings shivering in corners, while their father and mother sat eating and drinking, and singing and laughing, and burning their eyes out before the fire. Do you think they do? Or reading sermons, and being catechized by their manservant, and set to learn a column of Scripture names, if they don't answer properly?"" (WH, 50-51) (of the complete and unabridged longmeadow press 1983 edition)

Usually, this paragraph is framed in film in one of two ways:

either we actually see this exchange between nelly and heathcliff

heathcliff's reason for why they go to thrushcross grange is shown in either heathcliff or catherine (usually catherine) stating whilst they're out on the moors that she would like to go visit thrushcross grange

In both instances, in most of the film adaptations I have seen, their visit to Thrushcross Grange is played off as a joke---or at least, Heathcliff's reasoning as to why they went is played off as a joke.

Partially, this may be because Nelly doesn't take the abuse that Heathcliff and Catherine face seriously, either: in the very next sentence, she says, ""Probably not," I responded. "They are good children, no doubt, and don't deserve the treatment you receive, for your bad conduct."" (WH, 51) Nelly, an unreliable narrator in case you couldn't tell, vocally does not like Heathcliff nor Catherine, even from when they're children. Because she as a character believes that Heathcliff and Catherine deserve the abuse they face, I feel like many have assumed that Emily Bronte as an author was either implying that the abuse was 1) not that serious or not that big of a deal or was 2) definitely deserved because clearly, even as children and young teens, Heathcliff and Catherine were just that evil. Thus, a lot of filmmakers either consciously or subconsciously utilize that thinking as well. And of course, the other part of it is that the filmmakers themselves have decided that the abuse is either no big deal or is something they don't want to spend a lot of time analyzing.

However, I think that this moment, the decision for Heathcliff and Catherine to visit Thrushcross Grange... I think it's honestly really huge, and honestly really underrated as far as potential scenes to have between them. If this situation was treated with the gravitas it deserves, as in: two very abused and traumatized children see the manor house of the very rich family in the distance, and say to each other, "I wonder how they live. Do they have to suffer like we do?"

And to make matters even deeper (and worse for them), the result of this is that Catherine gets her leg mangled by a dog, and her and Heathcliff's relationship is irrevocably changed by her experiences at the Grange. For five weeks, Catherine is free from her abusive brother, the stress of essentially fending for herself because of his neglect of her, and she gets access to all of the upper class amenities and things she's never had access to before in her life, with people doting on her who genuinely care about her recovery and health. It's no wonder she comes back changed: now she's acutely aware of the life she could lead--if she abandons Wuthering Heights (by marrying into the Lintons) and leaves Heathcliff to fend for himself. Even so, though...she still doesn't want to leave Heathcliff in the dust. Even when presented with the prospect of escaping her abusive household, she only thinks of ways she can use the Lintons' money to help Heathcliff escape with her. AND OF COURSE, we have to talk about how Catherine (white woman) gets the opportunity to escape essentially handed to her and Heathcliff (brown man) has to carve out his own path and do all of the hard work himself and make his own fortune....

IDK!!! I'm RAMBLING!!! but there's a LOT HERE!!!

#vero.txt #t #vero's wuthering heights meta #abuse cw

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wutheringheightsfilm · 2 months

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also, to continue my wuthering heights codependent thread: when you live in a society that very strongly dictates that women and men can't just be friends, especially when you're both single/unmarried, obviously if you are as codependent as heathcliff and catherine are, of course you would think that marriage is your only avenue to stay together and by each others' side because the minute either of them, especially catherine [because the minute she gets married she becomes her husband's property], gets married, effectively their intense relationship is over and they wouldn't be allowed to interact with each other in any meaningful way anymore. they would forever be trapped in a limbo of social niceties and saying how do you do and would you like to stay for tea as they stiffly sit on opposite sides of a room. heathcliff and catherine are both on the margins of this society (heathcliff being a moc and catherine being poor) and they're surrounded by people telling them both that eventually they will have to get married and find someone and the only alternative to that is that they have to marry each other first. so obviously they don't know how to be just friends or just brother and sister because they're so intensely codependent with each other and the only time you ever get to see anyone be as close as these two are, understanding each other down to the most visceral level--the "he's more myself than i am" level--the only valid example of that in the patriarchal society they live in is marriage. their relationship with each other---as codependent and as ridden with unresolved trauma as it is---does not fit into the neat boxes of georgian english society

#vero.txt #t #vero's wuthering heights meta

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wutheringheightsfilm · 1 month

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now if anyone was actually committed to the whole double casting thing in wuthering heights (because the long shadow of the 1967 tv series is still felt to this day in the double casting of the catherines) what would actually happen is that the children are double cast, not the adults/children. as in young catherine plays cathy II, young heathcliff plays hareton, young edgar (if he's there) plays linton. but what do i know

#vero.txt #t #vero's wuthering heights meta

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wutheringheightsfilm · 1 month

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since this video essay (and it is an essay, i have cited sources! i have academic articles! get on my level youtubers!) is going to take a long time to make (i'm hoping to get it done in two weeks but we'll see...) and probably not enough of you will give a fuck about or have the time to fully watch what will most likely be upwards of an hour of content, here is a list of some things from the book wuthering heights i wish more adaptations would include:

since a lot of these adaptations ignore the Lockwood-Nelly storytelling framing device, we miss out on seeing a lot of Heathcliff's character as he is in the present, namely, what fascinates me is that while Lockwood is ill, Heathcliff not only sends him the last grouse of the season, but also visited Thrushcross Grange to sit at his bedside and talk to him

Catherine and Heathcliff actually trying to reckon with the abuse they face (it's a rare sight to see the abuse they face taken seriously on screen, see my prev meta post about their visit to Thrushcross Grange)

actual age appropriate castings. when you remember that a good third of this book, where a lot of the most famous stuff happens (the, he's more myself than i am, the i curse you to never rest while i still live, etc) is when these characters are all in their late teens and early 20s...yeah that makes a lot more sense now doesn't it?

on that note, stop casting Nelly as a woman in her late 50s/early 60s, she's literally the same age as Hindley and at her oldest is no older than like 42.

the fact that Nelly's storytelling is extremely biased--she does not like Catherine and thinks her a bad person, and she doesn't like Heathcliff either. how much of this is real? literally the things i would give to see a version of wuthering heights that explores what might be real and what isn't...

to compound on that, i want a version that actually shows the small little interludes where Nelly stops telling Lockwood the story and says something about the present day!!! GIVE ME THE NELLY FRAMING DEVICE!!! WHY WOULD THE 1992 MOVIE CREATE A FAKE EMILY BRONTE FRAMING DEVICE WHEN THERE'S ALR-

When Heathcliff is visiting the grange on the day that Catherine is mean to Isabella and making fun of her for having a crush on Heathcliff, after Catherine tells Heathcliff Isabella is the heir to the Grange, whenever Catherine leaves the room, according to Nelly Heathcliff is just sitting there plotting and smiling to himself

When Edgar hears Catherine and Heathcliff fighting in the kitchen (ugh god the kitchen fight), while Catherine is still ranting at Heathcliff, she doesn't notice Edgar come into the room but Heathcliff does, to which he does an immediate "shut the fuck up" sort of motion and she immediately does shut the fuck up

WITH THAT, something that gets lost in the sauce all the time (due to too many screenwriters and directors playing up the "romance" between these two) is Heathcliff and Catherine teaming up constantly, even in the later years of their relationship. The more "casual" elements of their relationship get lost. For example, while in that same fight in the kitchen, Catherine and Heathcliff both make fun of Edgar for being a pussy and that's hilarious! Because despite the strife that's going on between Heathcliff and Catherine, they are still on the same page and still feel united against that stupid rich pompous idiot they've been making fun of since they were teens.

The fact that these characters are products of their environment is something that no filmmaker (except maybe Andrea Arnold in the 2011 version) really grapples with to any extent

Most of the movies either miss or downplay or rush the scene where Hindley is planning to shoot Heathcliff one night, and Isabella goes to the window to warn him, literally saying "You better seek shelter somewhere else tonight! Mr. Earnshaw has a mind to shoot you!" (after saying that Heathcliff "ought to stretch [himself] over [Catherine's] grave and die like a dog") and Heathcliff is like "open the door you stupid bitch!" (not a direct quote but might as well be) and Isabella is like "oh! okay! come in and get shot then if you please, I've done my duty!" and leaves him out there to break the door down on his own. Wuthering Heights is a comedy and they don't tell you this. It's one of Isabella's best moments and we rarely see it, along with her second best moment, her throwing her wedding ring from Heathcliff in the fire

More adaptations need to have Heathcliff pulling out the actual physical almanac page he's kept with days marking when Catherine hangs out with the Lintons vs hanging out with him

#vero.txt #t #vero's wuthering heights meta

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