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Wuthering Heights

Wuthering Heights

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Favorite Movie
Review: Juliet Binoche and Ralph Fienne's preformances are, to say the least, perhaps the most brilliant bit of acting I've yet seen. I had cried at, perhaps, let's say a total of three movies before watching this one night on BRAVO - and never at a man's preformance. Ralph Fiennes produces a gut-wrenching preformance as Heathcliff - hard, cruel, and yet a bit more human than the author protrayed him in the book. Juliet Binoche adds light to all her dark, dank scenes - and the film is mostly dark and dank - and gives the added beauty to the cast. The casting of beautiful - startingly - Sinead O'Conner as the author was plain genious, as the forlorn and yet dazzling look of Bronte mirrors perfectly that of a perfectly costumed O'Conner.

This would still be my favorite movie if it had ended badly - with Heathcliff dying, kaput, THE END. Sadly, many tradegy/dramas like this end up ending miserably and leaving the viewer with the feeling of "What a perfectly good waste of film". No one wants to watch a beautifully shot and acted film based on a heart-wrenching novel like that. No matter HOW beautiful. Thankfully, you don't have to. You're left with a sense of "Wow" instead of "Well, now I'm off to buy more Kleenex". First rule of a critique: never gush. Well, to heck with it all - this is the best darned movie you're ever going to watch, in this lifetime or the next. Take my word for it.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A breakout performance
Review: Every once in a while, I encounter an actor who, although playing a familiar character, seems to re-invent it and show details of it that have never before been displayed. Such is Ralph Fiennes portrayal of Heathcliff in this film. I was not at all surprised that Spielberg chose him for "Schindler's List" after watching this film--Fiennes' Heathcliff is almost wholly unsympathetic (he is a wife---and child-- abuser) but Fiennes lets us know the inner heartbreak that drives Heathcliff to such meanness. Previous Heathcliffs have been more stock romantic leads--the original Moody Guys a' la' James Dean.

I can't really understand the extreme negativity of the "official" reviews--it appears that the movie, as is the novel, its characters, the author, and her entire family is a little off-center and out of the mainstream. The Brontes were a bunch of weird and wild kids in a weird and wild part of the world, and "Wuthering Heights" is a weird and wild book--not a proper Victorian romance, as other reviewers have suggested. Comparing Emily Bronte to Jane Austen is like comparing William Faulkner to John Grisham because they are both from Mississippi. None of Austen's characters could survive in Bronte's Yorkshire, and the Brontes would probably be unwelcome in Austen's stately Hampshire homes.

I,too, liked this book as a teenager, and now have the opportunity to teach it to high schoolers,and I must say my students generally prefer this novel and this film treatment to most others in British Literature. The film does have its flaws--but not enough to make it unwatchable, and having spent a wild, rainy weekend in the Bronte's hometown of Haworth, Yorkshire, I do believe the film aptly captures the mood of that forbidding place.

As for the choice of Sinead O'Connor to play Emily "framing" the "frame story"-- all I can guess is that she does bear a passing resemblance to the portrait of Charlotte Bronte that hangs over my computer (great, big, intense eyes). Plus the Brontes were ethnically Irish.

Watch this film to help your English lit grade, to observe a truly artful nuanced acting performance, to enjoy some beautiful scenery, or just enjoy a weepy gothic romance. Any way you look at it, it can't possibly be a waste of time.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Closest to the book.
Review: Much better than the Timothy Dalton version.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The only film version of "Wuthering Heights" worth seeing
Review: I waited YEARS for this film to be released on DVD, and it is now one of the brightest gems in my movie collection. If you're looking for the best adaptation of Emily Bronte's novel, then this is the film for you. Juliette Binoche and Ralph Fiennes are perfectly cast as Catherine and Heathcliff, and although they both do a superb job, Fiennes steals the show as Heathcliff. The scenes leading up to and directly following Catherine's death are absolutely heartbreaking, and I cry every time I watch it! Binoche is wonderful in her dual role, and this is the only film version of "Wuthering Heights" that manages to accurately depict the beauty of Bronte's novel.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Not a Period Piece
Review: I'm quite familiar with the book, and I think the actors did a good job depicting its stormy and self-destructive passions. However, I was continually distracted by the poor quality of the sets, costumes, and hairstyles. The lintel of the Wuthering Heights house door--shown close up suspiciously detached from the rest of the house--bears a date of 1501. The house, when shot from outside as a whole, is late Victorian gothic fantasy gingerbread, probably a real mansion built by a wealthy industrialist. Although if the rock garden outside it is real the landscape artist should be shot. The interiors do not relate to the rest of the house, and some--particularly the rude stone fireplace in the kitchen--are probably purpose-built sets. Cathy Earnshaw's box bed appears to have been concocted from a circa 1905 oak wardrobe. The Art Nouveau decoration on the double doors is a dead giveaway. The female leads have purely late 20th-century faces, hairstyles, and mannerisms. "Shot on location on the moors" this film may be. But, although the moors are fine, the rest of the visual aspects will damage the film for viewers who are sensitive to such things.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Wonderful adaptation of great book.
Review: The English Patient costars Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche star in this brilliant adaptation of Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights.

Having just recently read and enjoyed the book, I had a look at this on the weekend. It's very well done. Wonderful cinematography, great acting by Fienne's as Heathcliff has a haunting music score and moves along very nicely. Unfortunately the copy I got was only pan and scan but this one is in widescreen which would look really good.

I'd recommend reading the book first so you have something to compare it to. Considering all the rubbish coming out these days, I'd rather watch Wuthering Heights anytime.

Thanks for reading.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: For the love of god, avoid this film
Review: This film has soiled the movie industry for me, with its sickening sentimentality, and total disregard for the text.

Wuthering Heights, the book, is not a straightforward love story. It's complex, dark, and intelligent. Cathy and Heathcliff are not textbook lovers. In fact, they are not lovers at all. Mostly, they're just mad people, who have a very deep connection.

This film, is a love story. The writers have taken the characters and plot, raped, pillaged, violated and completely mutated them, leaving only their names intact. Cathy is turned from a volatile, spoilt maniac, into a flailing heroine. Heathcliff is turned from a ferocious, abusive animal, into a romantic hero

It's an alright film, if you want a love story. If you've read the book, do not watch this film. The rich tapestry of human emotion, thought and sanity explored within the book is quite simply absent in the film.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Cathy.... CATHY......
Review: Well, i can't get enough of this film. Angst, unrequited love, heart broken breakdowns and all that with Juliette B to boot: where can you go wrong?

Sadly, in England. "We don't like her French accent" the poms moaned, despite her having voiced the entire film in her second language,, and thankfully without a grating Yorkshire brogue or even worse, a Valleygirl whine. No, really there is nothing wrong with Ms Binoche at all, neither in looks, acting, nor voice.

And Raif ! now you're a superstar, but back then you were just a moody young thing - and perfect for the part.

Scenery is great - music was haunting - direction, as usual, was superb. Kosminsky is probably my favourite director, but he's only done 2 films you might have seen in America - the rest were in England, released over the years. Worth migrating for that alone...

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Mesmerizing!!!!!!!!!!!!
Review: I saw this on TNT in 1994, finally was able to buy the VHS and only recently (thank God!!!) the DVD. Well, I absolutely LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this movie!!!--Wouldn't change a thing and don't believe there is any waste of film. While I did find Binoche's accent a trifle disconcerting at times--it was easily overlooked by the sheer power of her performance. Fine, fine Fiennes--probably not a lot of people know this--but Steven Spielberg picked Fiennes to star in Schindler's List as the German officer Amon Goeth after witnessing the brutality he brought to the role of Healthcliff. I love this movie and am privileged to own the soundtrack on CD by Sakamoto. It is a very haunting movie, haunting music, absolutely POWERFUL performances. I recommend this. IT IS ONE OF MY FAVORITE MOVIES AND I AM SO GLAD TO OWN IT NOW ON DVD!!!!!!!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Fidelity to the Novel is Not Necessarily a Virtue
Review: Peter's Kosminsky's version of Emily Bronte's WUTHERING HEIGHTS is true to the angst-ridden torment that is Heathcliff's life. In the 1939 version, Heathcliff was played by Sir Lawrence Olivier in a subdued and sympathetic way. In this 1992 adaption, Heathcliff is Ralph Fiennes, who plays his character as more sadistic than tormented. Comparisons to Olivier are both unfortunate and illuminating. Olivier was cruel toward Catherine and Hindley, but his cruelty was tightly focused. Fiennes' cruelty is more generalized, almost as if he is lashing out at the world of which Catherine and Hindley are but symbols. Fiennes in his animus is so over the top that he very quickly loses the sympathy of the viewer. How one sees the development of Heathcliff goes a long way toward determining how one sees the novel or the film. In the novel, Bronte has pages aplenty to prepare the reader for the many and extended time jumps to account for the rounding of Heathcliff, Catherine, and others. In the 1939 film, some judicious editing allowed the excising of extraneous material after the death of Catherine, that allowed the focus of that film to remain pure and undiluted. Unfortunately, the 1992 version is so faithful to the novel that the horrendous nature of Heathcliff's inner demons remain at the forefront at all times. Unlike Bronte, director Kosminsky does not have the luxury to gradually permit a believable segue from one plot complication to another. What he does show are confusing time shifts, lack of character development (especially with Hindley and Hareton), and a bottled-up sense of agida that has no place to go to but implode. Juliet Binoche in a double role of Catherine and Cathy is irritatingly whiny and uncertain of her feelings and motivations. The primary fault of the 1992 WUTHERING HEIGHTS is that it tries too hard to replicate totally in less than two hours what Emily Bronte more successfully accomplished in nearly three hundred pages.


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