Indiewire Browse the indiewire network

First Black Heathcliff Gives "Wuthering Heights" Adaptation A New Twist, 1st Reviews From Venice

by Vanessa Martinez | September 6, 2011 9:20 AM
7 Comments

Andrea Arnold's Wuthering Heights premiered at the Venice Film Festival yesterday and was received with critical acclaim. The Emily Brontë classic torrid novel's newest adaptation stars its first black Heathcliff, portrayed by newcomer James Howson.

In the story, Heathcliff is found as a boy on the street by a Liverpool farmer who takes him in as part of his family on the isolated Yorkshire moors where the boy forges an obsessive relationship with the farmer’s daughter. Kaya Scodelario plays the farmer's daughter Catherine.

It's interesting to note from the reviews below, that the script took some liberties not found in the original novel. Heathcliff is called a nigger and in this adaptation, he struggles to be accepted more because of his black race rather than his working class status, as in the original novel and previous screen adaptations.

Here are some excerpts of the latest festival reviews:

Oliver Lyttelton of The Playlist:


"It’s not quite a tearjerker, Arnold playing up the anger of the novel, and we sort of feel that’s the way that it should be. It is, however, incredibly powerful, extremely sexy (there’s one scene that takes place between Cathy and Heathcliff after the latter has been caned that’s more erotic than anything we’ve seen in a while), and a truly remarkable reinvention of a text that beforehand, we weren’t sure we ever needed to see on screen again."

Xan Brooks of The Guardian gave the film 3/5 stars:

"Arnold shoots much of the action on hand-held camera, with sun-spots on the lens and the wind booming off the microphone. She tosses her protagonists out into the wilds, leaving them to wander at length among the rustling gorse while keeping the dialogue on a subsistence ration... He's not my brother, he's a nigger," Hindley (Lee Shaw) barks at his father. Elsewhere, Heathcliff dismisses the lady of the manor as a "stupid whore" and says "fuck you all, you cunts" to the assembled guests. None of these lines, so far as I recall, can be found in Brontë's version... But while purists may blanch at such liberties, Arnold's approach does Brontë no disservice, and even if the casting of a black actor as Heathcliff makes the tale more about race than class, the seething rage that drives him might just as easily have been sparked by one form of oppression as the other."

Neil Young of The Hollywood Reporter thought this screen version was radical and more refreshing than past versions.

"Performances are blunt and unmannered. Top-billed Kaya Scodelario plays the adult Cathy with only the occasional linguistic anachronism jarring on the ear. These minor flubs are outweighed by the impact of the plausibly unadorned, sometimes vicious language used by what are essentially uneducated working-class farmers... This includes several four-letter outbursts and a smattering of uses (by Hindley) of the N-word towards Heathcliff – Glave and Howson are both black, a pioneering bit of casting from Arnold. Heathcliff is described in the book as “dark”, “gipsy” and looking like a “Lascar” from southern Asia, but has always been previously played by Caucasians."

This film's newest version remains one of my most anticipated films to see. I wasn't aware of the peculiar changes made to the story, which makes me even more intrigued to see this adaptation.

Wuthering Heights is still without U.S. distribution and a trailer hasn't yet been released.

See the clips below:

Thoughts?


get email updates

More: Watch Now, Film Festival

7 Comments

  • Bea | October 29, 2011 5:36 AMReply

    Emily Bronte's vision, as I see it, was that everyone is equal in death. White, black, half-breed, rich, poor, middle or working class. Death is incorruptible, we cannot escape, and we cannot bribe our way out of the inevitable end. This is Lockwood's tale, and we overlook his feelings and opinions at our peril. There are no 'unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth.' End of story. The book, published in 1848 but set in 1801 and 25+ years previous to the opening date, encapsulates the abolition of the slave trade in England, so the topic would have, in the mid-1840's have still been the cause of much speculation and discussion in the parsonage on the Yorkshire moors, where discussion and debate was both engendered and encouraged by the Rev. Patrick Bronte, father of that astonishingly gifted family of poets and writers. Charlotte Bronte created the crazed half-breed Creole in Bertha Mason, imprisoned wife of Edward Rochester, in 'Jane Eyre', whilst Emily, writing her masterpiece at the same time, left clear indications within the text that Heathcliff, although not 'a regular black' was not far off being one. Whilst a non-white Heathcliff is long overdue, and a director's dream for our time and age, using him as a stick to beat us with is not perhaps the best way forward. But this is just a beginning. One day, presumably, a director will get it historically right without making the effect quite so obvious. Not only is the novel itself psychologically complex, but so was it's creator. Ignore that, and you are going nowhere. I look forward to seeing this overdue but nevertheless revolutionary filmed version of the book, but I do not hold out a great deal of hope that it will be something Emily Bronte would either recognise or appreciate. But if it leads more people to actually read and understand this difficult novel, it will, like the many versions of the past, have played it's small part.

  • Liza | September 20, 2011 3:38 AMReply

    Heathcliff was not black...( technically he was a gypsy) he is supposed to appear ethnic...dark.. mysterious.. but he was not black. i think a black healthcliff completely changes the heart of the story...it's a story about selfish decisions.. about jealously.. about loving things that arent good for you.. the human capacity for violence and cruelty but also for compassion and redemption.. its not about a bi-racial couple that couldn't make it work. sorry. looks like a beautiful film.. its just not wuthering heights..

  • urbanauteur | September 8, 2011 12:42 PMReply

    This adaptation is a great injection of some mush needed melanin in these dusty-colonial novels.

  • Orville | September 7, 2011 10:20 AMReply

    In Bronte's novel Heathcliff wasn't white to begin with he was described as either South Asian and some scholars say he was black. It is interesting the press that a black Heathcliff is getting even though in the novel Heathcliff was never white. However, the casting in the past for Wuthering Heights refused to look at the race issue of Heathcliff. Liverpool was a slave port in the UK. I think Arnold is simply trying to be close to the novel material as possible. I will definitely watch this movie this seems refreshing to me and interesting.

  • Rita | September 6, 2011 11:07 AMReply

    I'm intrigued. It all looks great to me.

  • Kendra | September 6, 2011 10:26 AMReply

    These clips do not make the movie look good to me at all. Does not pique my interest. Although reading the article has me interested in it.

  • reg | September 6, 2011 10:22 AMReply

    looks like a beautiful and interesting adaption. but i can't help but be mindful of the fact that, at least as i remember the movie version i saw (w/ olivier and oberon), heathcliff and cathy are together at the end but they're also dead.

Follow Shadow and Act

BLACK SUNDAY: Three Reasons for Criterion Consideration

Monthly Archives

Most "Liked"

Around The Network

the network

indiewire

categories