REVIEW: Wuthering Heights

The cold winter nights are always perfect accompaniments to a Bronte novel and as the evenings draw in and the windspeed rises, Andrea Arnold's adaptation of Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights is the latest to hit the big screen.

For those who don't know the story, Wuthering Heights follows the stormy relationship between Cathy Earnshaw and Heathcliff, a 'gypsy' boy adopted by her father, following it from their childhood friendship, through their doomed love affair and the consequences it has for those around them. Running wild across the moors together from children to adults, a deep bond forms between the two characters. However, after an accident at Thrushcross Grange, the Linton family residence, Cathy is raised in a more civilised atmosphere and chooses to marry Edgar rather than attempt any sort of romantic attachment with Heathcliff. Overhearing her intentions, Heathcliff leaves, only to return years later as a wealthier man, intent on wreaking revenge on Hindley Earnshaw, his main tormentor and on Cathy herself, for choosing Edgar instead.

First of all, the film looks beautiful and the Yorkshire Moors setting of the novel is well realised through Arnold's direction, especially in the wide shots that show the vastness of the landscape in relation to the characters wandering through it. It is perhaps through the cinematography that the film is most faithful to the book, with the violence and changeability of the weather, both visually and aurally emphasising these themes of Cathy/Heathcliff relationship. In terms of sound, rather than relying on incidental music to create the mood, Arnold uses the wind across the moors or the sound of rainfall to punctuate scenes. Whilst this is very atmospheric, it does have a rather negative effect on the dialogue, meaning that when characters speak, which in itself is sparse to begin with, it can be a little jarring. For me this can also be attributed to the screenplay itself. It felt too modern for an adaptation of a Victorian novel, using profanities and modern phrases that works against the rest of the film, pulling you out of the situation rather than drawing you in. The conflicts between Hindley and Heathcliff are the best examples of this; often, the language used sounds more like a confrontation in a street or a bar fight than the meeting of two lifelong enemies. Similarly, the dialogue between Heathcliff and Cathy never really evokes a sense of the extreme emotions that this relationship creates. They are supposed to both love and hate each other to the point where violence between them is inescapable, be it emotional or physical. Without this, it all falls a bit flat.

My main criticism of the film though is the rejection of the supernatural aspect of the book in favour of the raw, gritty presentation that we are given. Although the story does lend itself to this sense of the primitive, by stripping back the ghostly elements, Arnold's more realistic interpretation loses some of the dramatic atmosphere that makes Wuthering Heights the popular novel it is. Heathcliff is so conflicted because he is literally haunted by Cathy; their relationship is so strong and so essential that they cannot be parted even by death. We get a hint of this towards the end of the film with the token reference to necrophilia. The embodiment of this problem is the building that is used for the Heights itself. It is white and clinical, sparsely decorated and lacking the darkness and shadows that the novel emphasises. It also leaves out one of my favourite moments of the novel. It is Cathy's appearance at the window, clamouring to be let back in to the Heights and into Heathcliff's life. This appears in a form of translation in the film, with Arnold using the repeated image of a branch tapping at a bedroom window but, had you not read the book, the moment does not carry the same significance. The tumultuous relationship of Cathy and Heathcliff is one of the most passionate, most famous in all of English Literature, but this presentation of it is curiously lacking in emotion.

This is partly due to the depiction of Heathcliff himself. By focusing primarily on the development of the Cathy/Heathcliff relationship, the film presents a watered down version of him. Although he's often seen as the brooding Byronic hero, he is incredibly cruel, violent and manipulative and the film only really hints at this, using quick scenes of him hanging a dog or hitting someone to briefly demonstrate his character. This serves only to suggest the lengths to which Heathcliff would go to satisfy his need for retribution, but never really goes far enough to demonstrate just how awful he is. Both James Howson and Soloman Glave (Young Heathcliff) give fairly good performances in their debut film roles, capturing the alienation of the character very well whilst, again, only hinting at the violence and torment within. But therein lies the problem. There seems to be a reliance on the audience to have read the book so that whilst you are watching the film, you have prior knowledge of Heathcliff's machinations. Had I not been aware of this, however, I'm not sure if the subtle performances would have carried the same meaning.

Also, the casting of Howson, a black actor, caused a bit of a furore when it was first announced with fans divided between thinking that it was actually quite faithful to the book and those who thought it was a bit too much for them. I was personally in the 'faithful' camp as the details of Heathcliff's origins in the novel are sketchy at best; he's found by Cathy's father in Liverpool and is described at various points as having a "dark complexion" and as a "gypsy". Therefore, Arnold's casting makes a lot of sense and is one of the more positive aspects of the film, emphasising Heathcliff's isolation from those around him. In terms of the other performances, Kaya Scodelario of Skins fame, puts in a decent performance for the older Cathy, depicting the capricious nature of her character well and providing a decent foil for Howson's Heathcliff. Sadly though, the other performances fall a bit flat, especially Hindley Earnshaw who isn't so much the other main villain, but more of a chav in Victorian dress. Similarly, Nelly, a central character in the book, is relegated to the sidelines, appearing every now again to support or insult Heathcliff, depending on which is required.

If considered as a film within its own right and separated from its inspiration, Arnold's Wuthering Heights would be a brilliant exploration of alienation. However, as an adaptation of Emily Bronte's novel, the emphasis on presenting a raw, more realistic version of the story serves to lose a lot of what is central to Wuthering Heights. The relationship between Cathy and Heathcliff is not one that solely affects them, but serves to destroy the lives of those they come into contact with. Arnold's focus on the development of the relationship, rather than the consequences of it means that the film never really feels complete. It is a snapshot of the novel, a collection of scenes that look very beautiful but never quite string together to make a love/hate story that captures the imagination.

All I Want For Christmas Is...

People to stop celebrating Christmas too early.

Now, I never intend for this blog to get ranty and I would much rather talk about things I love than things that irritate me. However, there is one thing that, at this time of year, really grinds my gears. I am writing this entry on the 4th of December. That' s only 21 days until Christmas as my employer keeps reminding me, which means that it is now acceptable to start winding up to the present-giving event of the year. Before then, it's just a little tacky.

One aspect of my job is to speak to the majority of the customers I serve and as I am not particularly inventive when it comes to small talk, I usually ask them what they'll be doing with the rest of their day (that way, if they don't want to talk to me, a blunt 'no' will shut me up). I was working on Sunday the 6th of November, which for those keeping count, was 48 days until Santa throws himself down chimneys and reverse-burgles everyone. I asked a gentleman that very question. His response was: "Nothing much, just going to put the Christmas tree up and get the decorations sorted".

I'll leave you to ponder that for a second and check back to the date on which this event occurred.

Yes, it had only just been Bonfire Night and this man was already looking ahead to tinsel and baubles. I'm all for festive spirit and the holiday season, but for me, this is just a tad early. Oh who am I kidding? It is far too early. Too the point of being ever so slightly obscene in its earliness. What ever happened to keeping Christmas magical? You start looking forward to it this early, the event itself becomes an anti-climax. Sad to say though, this is a symptom of how commercialised Christmas has now become and I know this is said every year but it is starting to suck the magic out a little for me. In the supermarket I work in, Christmas stock comes in on the 1st of September (116 days still to go). I heard "A Spaceman Came Travelling" on the in-store radio in the middle of November and decorations have been going up from around the same time. If every high street shop and supermarket are going "LOOK IT'S CHRISTMAS! BUY THINGS!" then everyone is going to start looking ahead a bit too soon.

Now, I'm all for belting out 'All I Want For Christmas Is You' at inappropriate volumes in public, but does no one else think this is much more fun and exciting when Christmas is in fact only, for the sake of argument, around 6 sleeps away? Or putting the tree up on Christmas Eve when all your family are back together so that Christmas can finally begin? Or there's that thrill you get from doing your Christmas shopping at the very last minute because you hadn't any ideas until now (don't kid yourself, I know it's not just me).

Wizzard may have wished for Christmas every day but it would become boring and lose any magic it still has left. I'm not the most festive person in the world, but I'm also not a Scrooge. I like Christmas and, contrary to popular belief, I enjoy spending it with friends and family. But let's save Christmas and all its quirks for the proper time, during advent, when you can sing Christmas songs to your heart's content, tinsel everything with gay abandon and drink and eat heartily because hey, it's that time of year.

It might just be worth it to keep that magic wrapped up for a little while longer.

Blog 2: Rise of the Sequel

As you have probably guessed from the previous subject of this blog, one of my chief delights in life is watching things be it TV or film. There really is nothing like the buzz of excitement when you sit down to a film that you have been eagerly awaiting for months. One of my favourite moments of a cinema trip is the pre-film trailer sequence, in which anticipation for future blockbusters is ramped up with the rising, inspirational music and the teasing 30 seconds of footage that just doesn't reveal enough. Maybe this doesn't happen for you but I have to say, the viewing of a new trailer is one of many little film-related delights in my life. Yet I cannot help noticing that this sense of excitement hasn't appeared for a while in my sadly infrequent cinema trips and I am curious as to why this is.

The feeling I get when I see most film trailers at the moment is indifference, the sense that I will probably watch the film in question at some point in the future but I will not actively pay the price to see it on the big screen. I think this can be partially attributed to the types of films coming out this year. A quick glance over the summer schedule for 2011 reveals that this is a season packed with sequels and prequels with Harry Potter's final installment, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Final Destination 5 and Rise of the Planet of the Apes on their way and also, the previous releases of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and The Hangover 2. With all the biggest blockbusters of the summer being either a sequel or a prequel to further films [one could argue that both Thor and Captain America slot into this category as both films will be fed into the upcoming Avengers movie], it would seem to any non-Earth resident that moviegoers are obsessed with watching the seemingly endless goings-on of robots in disguise, drunken pirates or boy wizards. However is this really the case?

In terms of Harry Potter, the sequels were pretty much inevitable and rightly so - it is a story that must be viewed as whole, even though most people I know refuse to acknowledge the existence of the first two films. In the case of Pirates of the Caribbean, the initial, seemingly general consensus, including my own opinion, was that another film was simply not needed. Now don't get me wrong, I am a huge fan of the first three and have not yet seen the fourth so comment will not be made upon its quality. Indeed, the first film was a complete, joyful surprise; an original take on the pirate genre, which was languishing in the Hollywood doldrums after the woeful Cutthroat Island. Johnny Depp's performance was fantastic, Geoffrey Rush had the best pirate accent since Tim Curry and Orlando Bloom cut quite the dashing Errol Flynn-type figure. A surprise hit all over the world, it was a blast of fresh air in a year that also included a multitude of sequels including the dire Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. Then the Pirates sequels came along. I for one did enjoy both on a surface level; visually they were both beautiful, the jokes were amusing and Johnny Depp swayed drunkenly all over the screen. But scratch beneath the surface and you discover plot holes, repetitions and scripts so hastily put together it is no wonder that they made no sense, not to mention bloated running times that led to cinemas scheduling an interval for At World's End. I cannot help considering that, had they left it with just the first film, it would have been a permanent symbol of originality and a classic example of the summer blockbuster. Now it joins the ranks of films like The Matrix, where a smart, well crafted and importantly, an original film was ruined by unnecessary sequels.

Now you're probably thinking that it is common knowledge that sequels are never as good as the original film and for the most part, I think this is correct. Most sequels either attempt an unsuccessful replication of the formula that worked in the first film or attempt to do something entirely new that doesn't quite work. Iron Man 2, when considered alone, was a fairly good film but it did not expand much on the first other than to cement the relationship between Tony Stark and Pepper Pots. Then there's the inevitable 'it's a lot darker than the first' trope that is mainly associated with the Harry Potter series but is also employed elsewhere. For example, after the wholesome family, Nazi-bashing fun of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was significantly darker and more gruesome [and is technically a prequel]. The banquet scene in particular sticks vividly in the memory. And in terms of Indiana Jones, one only has to look at the fourth film in the series to see what happens when the writers decide to drain almost everything good from a formula that worked. Yes I am still bitter about this. Returning to the idea of sequels getting darker, this is something that has actually worked on several occasions. One such example is of course, The Empire Strikes Back, one of the finest film sequels ever produced. It took the idealistic story of the first film and expanded it to become a grim depiction of what happens when our heroes don't succeed.

The Empire Strikes Back is a classic case of the sequel exceeding the original. And, in order to maintain a level of optimism in this post, it is also necessary to look at sequels that did work. The Bourne Trilogy and Christopher Nolan's Batman films are two such recent triumphs of successful sequel film-making. Paul Greengrass did a fantastic job of continuing the story of Jason Bourne after Doug Liman's Identity established Bourne's struggle to find himself as it were. In this case, it is a good exhibition of 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' with each film sticking fairly well to a similar formula; Jason Bourne doesn't know who he is, is chased around various cities, outwits everyone concerned and eventually learns a little more about his past. But the important thing here is that Greengrass didn't produce a carbon copy of the original film, he added in more threat, different, often better set pieces and produced two sequels that increased in quality from their predecessors. In contrast, The Dark Knight didn't have a formula to stick to because Batman Begins was very much an origin story of Gotham City's decay and how Bruce Wayne became the Bat. Therefore, when Nolan came to creating a sequel, he was able to just go headlong into the world of Gotham's favourite vigilante with one of the scariest adversaries created in recent times and in doing so, arguably created one of the best comic book films ever.

So yes, sequels can be a good thing when done correctly and I am more than happy to sit down and watch a sequel if I feel it is going to elaborate and continue what has gone before. But I do not want to be continually fed big budget sequels that are simply a cash cow for the production company, which I sneakily suspect is the only reason behind films such as Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and Dark of the Moon. The first Transformers was an ok action film. The second one was giant robot balls. I certainly don't want to be fed these sequels at the expense of other, more original films that would also attract an audience if marketed correctly, a film such as Inception for example. Again, it was a breath of fresh air, a thriller that did not assume the audience was stupid and continually played with expectations whilst delivering great action scenes throughout. It remains to be seen whether this would have been made or publicised quite so much had Christopher Nolan not been at the helm but it was something different, a standalone film enjoyed by a multitude of audiences.

Sadly, however, whilst these sequels continue to make obscene amounts of money [Transformers 3 has just hit the $400 million mark], major production companies will stick with these films rather than risking investment on something new. Then again, I can only hope that some of the sequels coming out this summer or in the next couple of years will be good continuations of their respective stories rather than hollow attempts at grabbing people's money. And on that note, I bid you adieu. I'm going to watch Inception... again.

Quotes and Quotability

So, last Wednesday night, I was in the pub with friends and someone mentioned liking 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' which promptly exploded the conversation into an intense, thoroughly geeky [in the best possible way] conversation about films and television series that we all shared one of those fanboy/girlesque passions for. And this got me thinking. This kind of devotion to visual media is not often expressed in conversation as you have to be a). in a dialogue with someone who shares an equal love for said film or programme, or is at least willing to acknowledge that it might be worth their time and b). be courageous enough to express your love in such an enthusiastic manner. However, there is one other way in which this is manifested and that is through the eternally fun medium that is quoting.

Is there anything more fun in this world than quoting your favourite characters? Probably. But there is a certain unbridled joy that exists in having an entire conversation in quotations from 'Friends' or in my family's case, 'Hot Shots' or 'Airplane!'. I can receive a text from my brother that simply says 'Harry, it's an inanimate fucking object' to which I will promptly reply 'You're an inanimate fucking object!' [In Bruges], something which will mean nothing to anyone attempting to read the conversation, but it is something all to ourselves, a joke that will make both of us smile.

Then there are particularly good things to quote, films in which quotations have passed into a social consciousness. A website [I can't for the life of me remember which] recently ran a list of quotes that were so good, the films from which they came are now remembered so well because of these lines. For example, who can think of 'Casablanca' without immediately thinking of 'Here's looking at you, kid' or 'Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship'. Then there's 'Some Like It Hot' in which one line singlehandedly outshone an entire film. I am of course referring to the very last line of the film 'Nobody's perfect' (Tip: Do not watch the end of this film whilst sipping a drink). Let's face it, anyone can quote 'Star Wars' whether they've actually seen it or not. There's the more sinister ones too, 'I'll make him an offer he can't refuse' or 'You talkin' to me?'. These are lines that carry meaning all by themselves to be dropped into conversation when one wants to look and sound like a film buff.

Being a film and TV nerd myself, I personally find it much more fun to drop less obvious quotes into conversation and see if I get a reaction. Anything by Joss Whedon is instantly useful for this as the dialogue from Buffy, Angel or Firefly especially are key to discovering other Whedonverse fans. I've lost count of the amount of times I have slipped 'I'll just jump off that bridge when I get to it' or 'Out for a walk. Bitch' into conversation [Ok, maybe not the last one but I've always been tempted to use it]. I discovered one of my friends was a fan of Dr. Horrible when I said 'I don't go to the gym, I'm just naturally like this' as a joke when discussing exercise, and she responded with 'Captain Hammer, Corporate Tool'. Cue lots of laughing, mutual appreciation and a complete geek out. Thanks to Battlestar Galactica, my new favourite swear word is 'frak!'. [Sadly no one else I know is actually a fan so I just look a bit weird...] But this is also fun in public situations. I was once having a phone conversation with my dad in which I had said the word 'Inconceivable' many times. After I got off the phone, the woman opposite me leant over and said in a faux Spanish accent, 'you keep using that word, I don't think it means what you think it means'. This was a wonderful moment for two reasons; one, the subsequent conversation helped a long journey pass quite quickly and two, I realised, perhaps gratefully, that I am not the only person who can quote every line of dialogue in The Princess Bride.

I guess the point I am trying to make is quoting is fun. Yes its nerdy and sometimes inappropriate but it allows you to both show off and connect with people at the same time. Earlier today, I randomly dropped a Blackadder quote into conversation with a friend, provoking a little giggle. It is these moments that I love, receiving a text from my friend that consists solely of a Friends quote, connecting with a random person on a train through a mutual love of the most awesome film ever [if you haven't seen The Princess Bride, you must, and if you don't like it, don't expect me to talk to you for a while].

So here is my challenge to you, dear reader. Go forth and quote! Discover things your friends liked that you didn't know you had in common, smile whenever you hear someone on a train quote some obscure piece of dialogue that you thought only you knew and, most importantly, see how many Whedonverse quotations you can drop into any one conversation. Trust me, no one else will have a clue what you're on about, but it is just too much fun.

On that note, 'go, experience this thing called fun!'

So say we all.