Wuthering Heights

Rating:
Summary: Bravo gave it two stars...
Review: Wuthering Heights was one of my favorite books -- when I was a mopey teenager. I loved Heathcliff, beaten like a dog, emotionally crippled, and dirt poor yet overcoming his enemies in the end. I was like the protagonist in Jane Austen's "Northanger Abbey" a young women with a fertile (overactive) imagination caught up in romantic and gothic tales. What the writer didn't put in the book I made up in my head. My movie idols were James Mason and Lawrence Olivier -- broody and dark.

The film appears to incorporate every chapter in Ms. Bronte's book, but her book is overly long and overwrought. In the 19th century, the book appealed to middle class women who could read, had servents to do much of their work, knew little of the world outside their own homes, and wanted a cheap gothic thrill, no matter how badly written, to lift their everyday constrained and boring lives. Many of these stories were serialized in women's magazines so there was a lot of redundancy for those who missed previous installments.

The older "Wuthering Heights" film with Olivier although an extraction from the book is an integrated whole that sustains your attention and omits no salient point. The newer film includes most of the text and is therefore unweildy. The world of the old film is true to the gothic ideal (teasingly mysterious yet portentous of evil things to come). The new film is "in your face" realism. Brooding, melancholy Heathcliff becomes an unlikeable abuser of women. "It was a dark and stormy night..." becomes "I knew I should have never taken that ride on the moor and gotten lost because now I have to spend the night with my clearly insane landlord..." When the newer film attmpts a gothic touch it becomes silly. The story is much better when Heathcliff, in payment for his sins, throws himself screaming, mad and in agony, on Kathy's grave, than when he is found lying on his back on a day bed following what can only be described as a commercial for rose-scented fabric softener.

I've seen most of Ralph Fiennes films, and his acting has definitely improved. He was over the top in this film. Ms Binoche was very good in some scenes, but she should not have been cast as both Kathy and her daughter. It proved distracting. It's worth the price of the film to see Janet MeTeer and compare her performance to the protagonist in the new film "Tumbleweeds."

Although some would place Ms Bronte in the same category as Jane Austen because they are both women, she did not write nearly as well. Jane Austen is the best "English" writer who has ever lived--bar none. Ms. Bronte's writing is closer to that of Charles Dickens or her Gothic peer Edgar Allen Poe.

Rating:
Summary: soundtrack album
Review: Where can I find the soundtrack to this movie. Was it ever even released. Please e-mail me at [e-mail]. I've searched the web and cannot find it, however I am a novice on the web. thank you.

Rating:
Summary: Wuthering Heights
Review: At school for our final year we had to do Wuthering Heights. Most of the class seemed to hate the style of language and had no interest in getting through the book. At the time my personal life was exactly like Cathy & Heathcliff's, so the book of course appealled to me so much that I read it four times! I LOVED IT! The romanticism in it is wild and free. It is a book which shaped my idea of love. And when I finally came across the third and final movie of Wuthering Heights with two of my absolute favourite actors...Ralph Fiennes (whom I think is so tender and beautiful) and Juliette Binoche (who is so sultry and beautiful with so much depth), I watched it at least five times. The reason I loved it was the fact that the director had obviously captured the mood so well that I felt as if I was in the book again. The part that really stands out for me is when they are standing at Pennistone Crag and Heathcliff is explaining his love for Cathy referring to the skies. On the one side the sky was beautiful and bright and Cathy was so happy because that would be their future, but when Heathcliff's face changes as he sees the sky on the other side, it is grey and stormy and they both realise that their fate is sealed. Cathy becomes a little "Miss Priss" and is wooed by money and splendour as she cannot pull Heathcliff out of his rut which Hindley had put him into. Another part that sticks out is when he is sitting in the kitchen with a calendar and telling Cathy how many times she has spent with Linton and not with him. I felt so sorry for him..he was trying to tell Cathy that he misses her and needs her. She is too "shallow" on the surface of things and just treats it as nothing. Although I believe that in her heart she is fighting the fact that she adores Heathcliff, but cannot have him because of his position. The absolute best part would have to be when she is in the kitchen speaking to Ellen about her love for Heathcliff vs her love for Linton. The most eloquent words about Linton being the foliage in the woods while Heathcliff is the rocks thereunder. "I am Heathcliff" is the epitomy of how I felt about the book, the movie and the whole spirit of the story! I became so involved in their lives that I felt one with them. I miss that feeling and wish I could read it all over again anew.

Rating:
Summary: Fiennes buoys the film
Review: Truly, I'm one of those people who believe that a movie CANNOT be absolutely faithful to the novel it is based on. It simply doesn't work that way. A novel and a movie are two totally different things that can hardly be depthly compared. It's all perspective here, and art is for you to see others' perspectives, as well as yours. Ralph Fiennes gave an extremely intense and exhilarating display of passion-as-a-man, and to me, that was the big thing (with exception to the awesome soundtrack and scenery) that buoyed the film. Binoche is fine as Cathy and Catherine, though fundamentally, I couldn't tell the difference between her two performances. I liked the way the lovers' relationship matured (and eventually crept into turmoil) over the course of the movie: at the beginning, they don't seem to care about anything. They were abrupt, impatient kids whose love was green in a way. Fiennes is dark and cold from the beginning, and he gets more and more sumptuously so as he is driven by blind passion. Overall, this is a rather bleak movie, dark but not quite sad, intriguing but not quite graceful. A fine movie for anyone to see, though. Its fearless emotionalism will probably win you over, and truth be told, it is a generally good movie.

Rating:
Summary: Extravagant
Review: The setting was perfect, the gloomy Yorkshire moors. The actors well chosen. A powerful story of love and betrayal to your heart and revenge.It truly captured utter humanity.

Rating:
Summary: A good adaptation, but could be done better
Review: This is probably my favorite book of all time, so I'm very critical of the content of the film. I think that this version comes closest to the book in terms of characters and content. Visually, it's very haunting, and I really love the music they use throughout the tale. While I do have some problems with the casting (I didn't like Juliette Binoche), I really think that this version did do the book justice. Really, though, I think that 'Wuthering Heights' was not meant to be placed within a 90 minute format. Too much goes on for that. I think I'd rather see someone turn it into a mini-series, so that viewers can get the full effect of the book.

Rating:
Summary: This movie is unjust to Emily Brontë
Review: This movie adaptation is extremely unjust to what Emily Brontëprotrayed in her novel. For one thing, the protagonist (Heathcliff) is portrayed as a person that one should have pity for. In the novel, Heathcliff is supposed to incite a negative and bitter reaction from the reader. He is supposed to be one of the more evil characters in the novel, and we're supposed to hate him from the beginning. Another bad point is that the movie only shows 1/2 of the plot of the book, when really, the second half is much more important and crucial.

Admittedly, the movie is good in itself (which earned it that one star), but it's atrocious to see what is done to Brontë and her hard work.

Rating:
Summary: As impressive as the novel itself!
Review: I have read the novel by Emily Bronte in high school and it is greatest book I've ever read. And the movie itself...no movie based on a novel has matched its original-self so perfectly. Ralph fieness is the man I imagine Heathcliff would exactly look like.Juliet Binoche was perfect as Cathy-Catherine. The places, the players, the music, everything is great. It is the most unforgettable movie I have and will ever see..I strongly recommend it to everyone.

Rating:
Summary: One of the best ones I have ever watched
Review: When I started wathcing I thought that I would fall asleep after 10 minutes, but I was extremely delighted by the story, and both actors (Juliette and Ralph). Juliette's performance is really good, but Fiennes is amazing, he is so convincing. After watching him in this movie you realize that he is an excellent actor, maybe one of the best. He really uderstood what Heathcliff (his character) really feals, Heathcliff is passion made man, there is nothing "more or less for him", everything is a lot. Besides, this movie really shows the whole book, not just the best part.

Rating:
Summary: Heart-wrenching and true to the novel!
Review: Unlike other Wuthering Heights movies, this one tells the whole story. Excellent performances by Fiennes and Binoche. Beautiful scenery and absolutely LOVELY music. A must see for those who truely understand the relationship between Heathcliff and Cathy!