Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Wuthering Heights - Episode 2



Flat is the first word that comes to mind. I gave my lenghty opinion on the first part on this same blog so I'm not going to say it again as I have the same issues with it.

I was shocked to see the little time given to Hareton and Cathy's relationship, and more specifically to the absence of such a relationship. The made it seem as if Cathy had always been in love with him which is so not true to the book. I've already talked about this in my first post so I'm not going to repeat it but really, I was hoping for something more.

Catherine and Heathcliff stole the show, as was expected. It disappointed me very much as the book doesn't only focus on them. Poor Nelly, she didn't have much screen time although she's one of the main characters in the novel. The whole thing was too simple and wasn't nearly as crazy as the book, one scream of pain, however powerfully done, does not craziness make. The gothic was barely here, Catherine's ghost made but a short apparition and I couldn't find any difference between the supposed moor and any other country landscape. The music could have supported that but all we had was a score which I agree was beautiful but was only supporting the love story. I disagree. Wuthering Heights is more than that, Bram Stoker used Heathcliff as an inspiration for Dracula. Well, he sure couldn't have used Tom Hardy's Heathcliff for that, all the characters looked very much grounded in reality when it's a novel of excess and surfeit.

There's no questioning the actors' talent, they were all excellent in portraying the characters, it's the script and TV restrictions that are to blame. A longer, more passionate adaptation would have been refreshing and would have introduced new people to an original, shocking story. There was barely anything shocking in what we were shown and I for one won't be buying the DVD.