Wuthering Heights

Rarely do adaptations of Emily Brontë's classic novel do justice to the original's dark, gloomy tone. The 1939 Hollywood version for instance, widely regarded as the definitive version, is certainly a very well-made and enjoyable film, but has the standard classical Hollywood tone that feels at odds with the bitter, cynical subject matter. This latest adaptation of Wuthering Heights could hardly be more different, portraying a constant feeling of foreboding misery, featuring no music and a relatively unknown cast who mostly hardly speak a word.

The absence of music is noticeable from the very beginning. We, like Heathcliff (played for the first time by a black actor, James Howson), are inserted into the isolated world of the Yorkshire moors where everything is silent but for the sounds of the animals and the wind. The lovers themselves hardly talk, both in the first half of the film as young teenagers and the second half as adults, instead communicating through physical gestures and through their unspoken understanding of one another.

The film pays special attention to the such physicality of things. The camera is constantly zooming in on objects; animals, items inside of the house, the scars Heathcliff suffers from beatings. And it usually does so with close-ups and extreme close-ups, ensuring an attentive though claustrophobic view of events on screen. Director Andrea Arnold, whose previous films include Fish Tank and Red Road, is clearly going for an intimate, 'as-if-I'm-really-there' feel to the film, using a camera that twitches and shakes with the movement of the characters it's depicting. We've seen several uses of this shaky-camera in recent times, such as this year's The Tree of Life and Melancholia, and it is certainly debatable whether its restless movement is in fact distracting rather than authentic.

The opening sequence sets the tone for the rest of the film. In it, we witness Heathcliff repeatedly running at and banging his head against a wall baring his and Cathy's names inscribed when they were young. Nothing is said, and all we can hear is the thud of his collision and the accompanying cries of pain. And the close-up is so extreme that nearly the entire frame is taken up by Heathcliff as he relentlessly beats himself against the wall. In fact, in the first few scenes virtually every shot is a close-up, until finally we are shown in stark contrast a long shot of the moors, which by comparison look even more remote than they usually would.

This new Wuthering Heights film may be a hard film to love, with its unlikable characters, grim, uncomfortable imagery (particularly of animals) and its difficult camera-work, but it certainly deserves praise and admiration for its innovation, whilst offering a faithful yet genuinely unique take on the infamous love story.

See Wuthering Heights at York City Screen. For more information visit http://www.picturehouses.co.uk/cinema/York_Picturehouse/

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