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Wednesday, 14 August 2013

One Very Strong Scene of Precious Bane

Me and Miss Aimson were watching Wuthering Heights on television at lunchtime.  It was the 1939 version and when it started it didn't seem as bad as I remembered.  The start with Mr Lockwood's story and Cathy at the window was really quite good, much better than I thought.  In the window scene you can hear the sound of Kate Bush: it's me Cathy, let me in at your window... Then when it starts on the story of Cathy and Heathcliff, it's a bit soppy.
We really enjoyed the 2011 version:

A DVD

I didn't watch it for quite a while, because I didn't fancy the way she had chosen a black Heathcliff, I thought it was just "political correctness gone mad".  Eventually I bought the DVD and watched it, and the casting makes perfect sense, to try to explain Heathcliff's isolation from society in a way present day audiences can feel.
I was a bit surprised with the rating: 15 - Contains strong language, once very strong, racist terms and animal killings. I never worked out which was the one use of very strong language; and I wondered why it was so bad when the one scene of necrophilia didn't get a mention.  How come s******* a corpse doesn't get a rating?  Am I really just a prude?
The same way I can see why Heathcliff as an African works to explain his character, I can understand that the necrophilia works to explain the feeling in the book where Heathcliff explains that he wants the sides knocking out of his and Cathy's coffins so that their bodies can decompose into one slime together, which might be quite hard to express to a modern-day audience, which isn't as familiar as Victorians with talk of graves.
The 2011 film is really good, but I feel there's still room for more art based on Wuthering Heights.  I'd like to make some myself, actually.  Emily Bronte and Wuthering Heights aren't as gothy as you think, they're much more down to earth than that.  It's Charlotte Bronte and Jane Eyre that are  as gothy as can be, and Jane Eyre is always filmed soppy, instead of gothic.  Talking of down to earth, Miss Aimson has just read Gone to Earth by Mary Webb, and has just started on Precious Bane.  They are favourite books of mine.  Gone to Earth is a great black and white film, as well.

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