I’ve dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas; they’ve gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the colour of my mind. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë (1818-48).
I wasn't sure what to expect when I was planning my visit to Haworth, in the Worth Valley, home of the Brontë sisters. I kept my expectations low, dreaming only of the moors that surrounded this place. My traveling companion was another Zoë!
The village of Haworth itself, capitalises on the legacy of the sisters, the last of whom, Charlotte (1816-55), died in 1855. There are Brontë B&Bs, tea rooms, holiday homes, taxi cabs... and so on. There was an excess of gift shops (and old-fashioned sweet shops) selling bunting, hand made jewellery and crafts and Cath Kidston, and those shabby-chic-vintage-oh-remember-the-war! type trinkets that glorify the era of that tired old slogan "Keep Calm and Carry On". These are typically aimed towards the American and Japanese tourists, who make up the majority of visitors ever year. (The village attracts around 75,000 tourists a year, this peaked in the 1970s when it was 250,000 per year!)
The old apothecary where Branwell Brontë (1817-48) purchased the fatal laudanum that he was to die from an overdose of is now run by Rose & Co., a successful British traditional skin-care company based in Haworth. We did spend the best part of an hour oogling the indulgent beauty treats and admiring the shop's collection of vintage beauty packaging, on display below the original glass fronted counter. Many of the shops in the village maintain a "cultivated quaintness", but for me, that's a by-product, I'm not so bothered by it as the locals are entitled to make money to pay their bills.
The famous iron sign that hangs outside the Parsonage, was designed in the 1940s by Mr Mitchell, one of the first curators of the Brontë Parsonage Museum.
"Everything fits into, and is in harmony with, the idea of a country paronage, possessed by people of very moderate means." (Elizabeth Gaskell, novelist and biographer of Charlotte, commenting on the parsonage in a letter to a friend)
The Parsonage is situated by the church and graveyard. In the Brontë's time, the average life expectancy in the village was 25. This influx of bodies into the overcrowded graveyard in turn poisoned the village's water system. It was their father, Patrick Brontë who planted the trees which now surround the house, to accelerate the decomposition of the bodies laid there. Its a sobering thought, the Brontë's truly were surrounded by the apparition of death throughout their lives.
This bronze statue of the Brontë sisters by Jocelyn Horner is in the Heather Garden of the Parsonage, you see it as you pass through to the gift shop (which is particularly well stocked by the way)
We had dinner on the first night in the Old White Lion, founded in the 18th century. Our meal was in the Gimmerton Room which gave me a twinge of excitement! The interior is delightly welcoming and modern, without being contemporary.
The next day before a failed trip to the moors, after seeing the Parsonage, we ate in the quirky café Cobbles and Clay. The menu was extensive, the soups and cakes delicious, and everything is marked as being gluten free, or whether or not its suitable for vegetarians and vegans.
On the morning of our departure we had a baked potato (some honest Northen grub!) in the unpretencious Villette tearooms, having spent the best part of the morning strolling up and down the main street of Haworth, we took ourselves and the books we purchased in Venables and Bainbridge Books, to the 10 The Coffee House, where I had the most divine hot chocolate and homemade biscotti. The hot chocolate I was told was a secret recipe, alas, so I must try and experiment myself. 10 also functions as a B&B, with its refreshing elegant period interior its certainly something I would consider on my next inevitable visit.
The shop owners of Haworth village owe a pun or two to the village's famous daughters.
This charming bookshop had an especially inviting window display, but alas it was closed. Haworth experiences a tourist decline in the winter so some of the shops only open on certain days. I really fancied getting that mug!
Village politics
The unique nature of the village means there are a lot of twee homewares, curiosity shops selling "Yorkshire relics" and posters for "wartime balls".
You weren't allowed to take pictures inside the house, and I wouldn't have done it justice anyway, but you can view some images in this flickr set here, or get a virtual tour on the offical website.
Token photo of me in front of the Parsonage entrance
It was chilling to stand in the doorway of the sitting room, where the three sisters sat around the table and penned their novels. To look upon the sofa where Emily drew her last breath, in denial of her illness until the end. To think of Charlotte pacing this room, alone, for eight years after her siblings deaths. When you're in the upstairs rooms, looking at Charlotte's pint sized dress and wedding bonnet, you might hear the chime of the clock on the stairs, which Rev. Patrick Brontë would set every night before ascending the stairs to his bedroom, after calling upon his daughters to tell them to get along to bed!
A little and a lone green lane
That opened on a common wide;
A distant, dreamy, dim blue chain
Of mountains circling every side. (Emily Brontë)
The museum is independently run, changes its exhibitions frequently and the Parsonage guidebook was wonderfully informative, as well as being great value. £7.50 for the guide and a guide to the Brontëana exhibit, which is at the end of the house tour. There's all manner of memorabili relating to the family. Scraps of their dresses, handwritten letters, a mourning locket containing Charlottes hair, the famous family juvenilia: those mininature books created about the fictional Gondal when they were children, and on a more sombre note, funerary cards and a sketch by Branwell depicting the spectre of death by his bed, waiting to steal him away, the last known work of his, death did catch up with him only months later.
Portrait of Anne, Emily and Charlotte by Branwell, now on display in the National Gallery
A reproduction of the famous portrait by Branwell of his sisters looks upon you as you make your way up the stairs. I was lucky enough to see the original in the National Portrait Gallery before my trip up North. It was found by the second wife of Charlotte's husband, folded on top of a wardrobe.
After my visit I feel invigorated. Clichéd as it may be, having walked the well trodden cobbles that the sisters once walked, I feel a deeper connection with their writing. Somethings changed. I felt the same wind in my hair, the same rain on my skin, the same biting cold. Charlotte spoke of her sadness in walking the moors after her sisters deaths. Emily was in the landscape all around her. Everything was changed utterly. Over 150 years have passed, the world is changed, I had to look harder, and undeniably I was seeing it through rose tinted glasses, but when I closed my eyes I could feel the other worldly mood that hung over that village. My visit shook me up and brought me to the realisation that I don't know half as much as I want to! The sisters were talented artists, writers, craftswomen and knew about maintaining domestic comforts, as was expected of women of their rank.
The headstone from the 1992 film adaption of Wuthering Heights. A toungue in cheek piece of memorabilia also on display in the museum. My favourite adaption!
No coward soul is mine,
No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere:
I see Heaven's glories shine,
And faith shines equal, arming me from fear...
There is not room for Death,
Nor atom that his might could render void:
Thou--THOU art Being and Breath,
And what THOU art may never be destroyed.
(read entirety)
(c. 1848. Believed to be Emily's final poem, it is said that Emily Dickinson chose this poem to be read at her own funeral.)
After the portrait by Branwell Brontë, c. 1833, in the National Portrait Gallery
Today marks 194 years since the birth of the indomitable Emily Brontë (July 30 1818 - December 19 1848). Wuthering Heights, her only published novel still continues to draw new generations of readers under its spell.
A creative genius, a girl of the Yorkshire moors who created some of the most detestable and compelling lovers in literature. The unique power of her works, is that it remains contemporary, and continues to inspire reinterpretations.
Wuthering Heights was written under the pseudonym Ellis Bell between October 1845 and June 1846, two years before her death and published in July 1847. It was not printed until December 1847, after the success of her sister Charlotte Brontë's novel Jane Eyre. A posthumous second edition of WH was edited by Charlotte in 1850.
A mid-19th century portrait purporting to be of Emily Bronte (more info)
'Why, she's a liar to the end! Where is she? Not there — not in heaven — not perished—where? Oh! you said you cared nothing for my sufferings! And I pray one prayer—I repeat it till my tongue stiffens—Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living; you said I killed you — haunt me, then! The murdered do haunt their murderers, I believe. I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always — take any form—drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! it is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!' (Chapter 16)
Elizabeth Gaskell, Charlotte's biographer says of this portrait: "The picture was divided, almost in the middle, by a great pillar. On the side of the column which was lighted by the sun, stood Charlotte, in the womanly dress of that day of jigot sleeves and large collars. On the deeply shadowed side, was Emily, and Anne's gentle face resting on her shoulder. Emily's countenance struck me as full of power; Charlotte's of solicitude; Anne's of tenderness. The two younger seemed hardly to have attained their full growth, though Emily was taller than Charlotte; they had cropped hair, and a more girlish dress. I remember looking on those two sad, earnest, shadowed faces, and wondering whether I could trace the mysterious expression which is said to foretell an early death. I had some fond superstitious hope that the column divided their fates from hers, who stood apart in the canvas, as in life she survived. . . . They were good likenesses, however badly executed." (Gaskell, 'The Life of Charlotte Brontë', Ch.7)
Emily was also a poet, Poems by Currer, Ellis and Action Bell was published in 1846, containing twenty-one poems by Emily and by Anne and nineteen by Charlotte. Charlotte later revised and published some unseen poems of Emily's in 1850.
My first battered and mass produced Wordsworth Editions copy of 'Wuthering Heights'. I first read this when I was 10, but it only moved me inevitably when I was 16.
I lingered round them, under that benign sky: watched the moths fluttering among the heath and harebells, listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass, and wondered how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth. (Wuthering Heights, Chapter 34, closing lines.)
The promotional photos for this are just too sublime not to share.
I love how each individual actor is accorded his/her own shot.
(Click on images for larger versions)
Solomon Glave as the young Heathcliff
Shannon Beer as the young Cathy
Young Heathcliff and Cathy
Kaya Scodelario as Catherine Earnshaw (Struggling to find a HQ version of this, if someone could point me in the right direction I'd be most grateful!)
My love for Wuthering Heights may not be apparent on this blog, but in the weeks leading up to Andrea Arnold's highly anticipated adaption of Wuthering Heights I will prove otherwise.
Wuthering Heights is my favourite novel and naturally, I am excited when a new adaption is released, as I enjoy seeing a creative director's vision of the characters and their complex relationships. Whether or not I particularly appreciate their vision, I don't deny that I get a thrill when I see flesh and blood versions of Catherine and Heathcliff on the screen.
In this post I am going to look at the various adaptions of Wuthering Heights, the more well known ones (those that merited a trailer), through the medium of their trailers (so the more popular adaptions then). Beginning with Andrea Arnold's 'teaser trailer' for the upcoming release of Wuthering Heights on November 11th.
The 2011 trailer stars Kaya Scodelario as Cathy and the unknown actor James Howson as Heathcliff. As suggested by this trailer and confirmed by director Andrea Arnold, the focus of this adaption is the first half of the novel. Shannon Beer is the young Cathy, and Solomon Glave is the young Heathcliff, both making their film debut.
This is the best Wuthering Heights trailer of them all. It suggests something dark and uncomfortable, the infamous story is appropriately weighed down with a heavy, drooping atmosphere. It reminds one of 'psychic landscapes'. The camera work is tempestuous, at the mercy of the unforgiving weather conditions of the moors, it lends a tangible thrill to the proceedings.
The overall mood conveyed alludes to themes of despair, loneliness and childhood bonds, with allusions to death and the transitoriness of life. This is a world of contrasts, the interior versus the exterior. While nature is cleansing, it responds, expresses extreme emotion (Heathcliff lying on the ground with the rain on his face) - it offers little comfort, it is just like "the eternal rocks beneath, a source of little visible delight, but necessary."
The sense of foreboding is always omni-present, the wind wails relentlessly in the background. The shot of two birds circling across the moors, a reminder that two similar souls are locked together for life, or in this case, beyond death. Nature grounds all living creatures, we are all at its mercy, the moors are their dangerous playground.
I don't know what this predicts for the film, perhaps Arnold focuses too much on mood rather than the relationships.
Since there is (blessedly) little dialogue in this trailer three quotes particularly come to my mind whilst watching: "What were the use of my creation, if I were entirely contained here? My great miseries in this world have been Heathcliff's miseries, and I watched and felt each from the beginning: my great thought in living is himself." (Cathy)
"My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I'm well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary." (Cathy)
"You said I killed you—haunt me, then! The murdered do haunt their murderers, I believe. I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always—take any form—drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! it is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!" (Heathcliff)
The 2009Wuthering Heights adaption was made for ITV television and divided into two parts. Therefore the "trailers" were more teasers than anything else. Made for a television audience.
This trailer takes for granted that we are already familiar with the story. It opens with the scene from the first chapter where Heathcliff awaits Cathy's ghost. The story is immediately associated with a violent aspect as the ghoulish fist comes smashing through the window pane and grasped blindly by Heathcliff.
The voiceover is of Cathy quoting one of the most famous passages from the book, her "I am Heathcliff" speech, spoken in confidence with Nelly. It is apparent that this adaption focuses on their teenage years together. We are acquainted with a shot of Nelly, which is significant, as she acts as the novels primary narrator, the story of Catherine and Heathcliff is told through her voice.
This adaption is embroidered with a definite sexual element - the kissing scene is not in the book, as far as the book portrays there is no sexual contact between Cathy and Heathcliff, to Nelly's knowledge anyhow. This is sexing it up for a new audience since this is the first adaption in over a decade, audiences tastes in costume dramas have evolved.
There is a ghoulish, otherworldy element - the grave digging scene suggests a grim finality and an eternal reunion can only be found in death - "We will not talk of our seperation again" - "[I] wondered how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth." The trailer ends with Heathcliff breaking into Cathy's grave and embracing her corpse.
The music is an interesting touch, it has an element of folklore and the oriental about it, which seems appropriate considering the book alludes to Heathcliff's Gypsy-like appearance and elusive ethnic background. It also reminds me of the vagabond lifestyle of the gypsy traveling communities, who have no fixed place of origin nor do they have a fixed abode, which also parallels the uncertain origins of Heathcliff's background. Heathcliff leaves the Heights for a period and travels abroad, upon his return he is fixed with a certain degree of wealth, again of which we have no clue as to how he obtained, whether it was through employment in the wars, or by dishonesty. What we know of Heathcliff's character and temperament, it could easily be one as much as the other.
This is probably the most famous adaption of Wuthering Heights. The 1994 adaption with Ralph Fiennes as Heathcliff and Juliet Binoche as Cathy. The soundtrack is one of the most remarkable things about this film and trailer, composed by Ryuichi Sakamoto and notoriously hard to come by (out of print), it supplies a powerful and eerie backdrop.
Heathcliff's voice domineers the opening, in a scene conceived particularly for this film adaption, which sets the theme for the direction their relationship will take. The moors are presented as uninhabitable and barren, where Cathy and Heathcliff only find comfort in each other in the crevices and most isolated parts of the countryside.
Even though this is one of my favourite adaptions of the story, I'm not a fan of this trailer at all, I don't like the melodramatic voice over. I think it caters for an American audience. It unnecessarily poses it as a Romeo/Juliet story, "but she was sworn to another" (untrue, one of the complexities of the story is that she accepts Linton's proposal and sacrifices Heathcliff) "It was Cathy's own choice.. and Heathcliff's own curse". The dramatic use of words "passion", "obsession" are overly dramatic and theatrical, dumbing down the unique pull of the story. It doesn't require these overblown descriptions. Voiceovers in general tend to date very quickly.
The selling point of this film is that it is the first adaption up until that point to adapt the whole book.
The 1939 version starred Laurence Olivier as Heathcliff and Merle Oberon as Cathy. Ironically, the lead actress, Oberon, whose own parentage and ethnicity is as hotly debated as Heathcliff's. This adaption is stamped with the authority of the studio from the outset, which means the story will unfold under a dictated auteurship - "Samuel Goldwyn".
This is definitely posed as a romance story. With Laurence Olivier in the role as Heathcliff, his character is posed as the archetypical cinematic, handsome hero, as much as Heathcliff is the Byronic hero. The film industry in these days was dictated by the studio system and was notorious for "colouring up" actors as opposed to using genuine ethnic or mixed race actors, even if the role required it. Heathcliff is displayed as being brave and strong, with women swooning over him. He is a "gypsy", the lure of the exotic surrounds him.
The movie's selling point is certainly its star cast - typical of the studio system of the time. It is directed by William Wyler, who had directed Jezebel the year before, a story about a Southern belle shunned by her community for her vain and shocking behaviour.
This was not filmed on location, most of the scenes are filmed within interiors, which instantly takes away from the beauty of the book. So much of Cathy and Heathcliff's time is spend outdoors, the moors are central to their story. This adaption was filmed in California, heather was shipped over especially from England to 'recreate' the Yorkshire background, but not very convincingly.
The trailer makes it apparent that Heathcliff is an outcast, but he is curiously desired by women and despised by men. It is very much in the tone of the movies of the time, where the exotic vagabond who doesn't answer to societies' rules is posed as the hero (Errol Flynn's Captain Blood for example). understandably it is catering to the tastes of cinema-goers of the time. But such an unconventional story doesn't quite merit such a conventional treatment, which is what frustrates me.
There is some powerful dialogue and racial slander used throughout "You're not as black and horrible as they all think", "Gypsy beggar", "I'll be your slave" which are problematic in themselves. However, none of the script captures the powerful nuances of Emily's narrative, disappointingly.
Related posts: Here is a previous post I wrote about Emily Brontë and Wuthering Heights.
Please share your opinions of the 2011 trailer or the other adaptions!
As the seasons change, sometimes our life does too, as we reach the end of one path, we warily venture onto another.
So whats new?
I came across interesting things in Edinburgh's charity shops. including a WHOLE CABINET of Royal Wedding mugs.
A friend came to stay.
I began altering a lovely dress.
Gifts, books picked up in charity shops and a 1970s Sadler tea pot are making me smile recently.
Postcards from friends.
New view, new hallway.
New diet. I'm vegan now!
And my younger brother passed his exams! (Us circa 2001 when pastel capris, sketchers and embellished tops were the things girls who went to the cinema to see Bring it On! for their thirteenth birthday wore.)
Anyone who knows me can vouch for my passion for costume dramas. The gloomier and more gothic the better. In preparation for the lead up to Jane Eyre (9/9/11) and Wuthering Heights (11/11/11) I've been re-watching some of my favourites. I do bemoan the fact that the same book adaptions are being made, leaving the lesser known, but equally intense novels in the dark. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is one of the latter. Fortunately, it was translated by the BBC in 1996 into a fantastic adaption, (the BBC made an adaptation in 1968 as well).
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is an 1848 novel by Anne Brontë (the third and obscurest Brontë sister) under the pseudonym Acton Bell. It was her second and final novel, after Agnes Grey. It is generally considered the most shocking of the Brontë's novels, it deals with immoral themes of adultery and vice, as well as domestic abuse. The book outsold that of Wuthering Heights, penned by her sister Emily. The book, set in rural Yorkshire, is narrated by Gilbert Markam, neighbour to the mysterious young widow, Helen Graham, who moves into a nearby mansion, Wildfell Hall.
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is considered to be one of the first feminist novels. it challenged the morals of the Victorian era in Helen's upright refusal to tolerate her husbands abuses, therefore subverting the prescribed gender roles of the time. Helen grasps her own freedom by retreating to Wildfell Hall with her young son, and providing her own meagre income through her art. The neighbourhood gossips and defames her reputation, but Graham refuses to believe these rumours and finds himself falling in love with the cryptic young mother.
The scope of 1996 adaption is grandiose, sweeping across the foggy moors to inhabiting the darker and moody corners of Helen Graham's home. Rather than being dull the greyness of the composition is crisp and refreshing. We see the characters in sharp contrast and can read their characters well. The setting veers between the crooks and corners of Wildfell and its surroundings to the gaily lit ballrooms described by Helen in correspondence with Gilbert. Most of Gilbert and Helen's encounters happen outdoors, alluding to the freedom Helen craves as opposed to the violence, entrapment and uncomfortable secrecy imposed by the domestic sphere. However Helen can not be wholly free and soon her past catches up with her necessitating her to leave Wildfell, not before communicating the truth of her situation to Gilbert with whom she has formed a romantic attachment.
Toby Stephens plays Gilbert Markham, the earnest neighbour. Tara Fitzgerald is in the title role of Helen Graham. Rupert Graves plays the cruel Huntingdon.
I love this adaption because of the feminist subtext, but particularly on an aesthetic level due to lingering shots emphasizing the sparse, craggy quality of the moors, but also the violent camera angles and jolts, adding to the savage atmosphere at times. The tangible quality of the costumes perfectly fit the characters, particularly when comparing the flashbacks of Helen's optimistic youth to the direness of her situation at Wildlfell. We can see the transition of Helen's youthful frivolity of dress and hair to the more conservative, somewhat stern sensibility of her dress as secretive widower Helen. She holds an impressive crucifix collection it must be said!
If you can't get your hands on the dvd, you can watch it online here! Don't ever say I don't have your back!
Also, I'm not sure what country of origin this is from, but I don't know if this dvd cover is an accurate representation of the series, lovely shot as it is.
