by Jake Hjort, Contributing Writer
Hello readers, and welcome back to another foray into the past, with 20th Century Flicks! This month, we’ll be traveling all the way back to 1939 to examine William Wyler’s Wuthering Heights. Easily the most well-known of the many adaptations of the 1847 novel of the same name by Emily Brontë, the film was nominated for eight Academy Awards in a year in which the competition included Gone with the Wind, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,and The Wizard of Oz, winning one for Best Cinematography – Black-and-White. Although I have no personal experience with the source material,I chose this film on the behest of my wife, a fan of the novel, wanting to explore this adaptation of one of the English language’s classic love stories and the ways in which Romance films have evolved in the past 85 years.
Wuthering Heights tells the story of the relationship between Cathy Earnshaw (Merle Oberon), a free-spirited young woman from the moors of Yorkshire, and Heathcliff (Laurence Olivier), an orphan taken in by her family when he was a boy. The Earnshaws reside at Wuthering Heights, a humble manor, and following the death of the Earnshaw patriarch, the household is passed down to Hindley (Hugh Williams), Cathy’s cruel brother. Under this new command, Heathcliff is demoted from a member of the household to a stable boy, and Cathy, desperate to advance socially, eschews her love for Heathcliff and marries their wealthier neighbor, Edgar Linton (David Niven). Dismayed, Heathcliff disappears from the country, only to return years later a much wealthier man. In a twisted attempt to both remain close to Cathy and to get revenge on her for choosing another man, Heathcliff purchases Wuthering Heights and marries Edgar’s sister, Isabella (Geraldine Fitzgerald). Heartbroken, Cathy falls gravely ill and she and Heathcliff finally confess their mutual love on her deathbed. Far in the future, Heathcliff hears the ghost of Cathy out on the moors in the middle of a blizzard and journeys out to join her once again in the afterlife.
One of the major themes of Wuthering Heights is the immense power of love, not only to create but to destroy. Cathy and Heathcliff begin and end the story as intertwined lovers, but throughout much of the plot are pulled apart by rigid social structures. Cathy always loves Heathcliff, but her desire to climb socially and escape Hindley and Wuthering Heights burns stronger. Edgar and Isabella are by no means villains in the story — both seem to be decent people who care deeply about their respective spouses — but because Cathy and Heathcliff are so messy and are incapable of openly admitting their feelings, the Lintons are dragged into an antagonistic role in the story, acting as an obstacle our protagonists have to overcome. In a way, this messiness makes Wuthering Heights feel much more modern than a lot of its contemporaries. It isn’t a schmaltzy Jane Austen story where love is beautiful and everyone gets a happy ending, but one where people make the wrong choices and love tears lives apart.
Of course, not everything in this 85-year-old film feels modern and has aged well. I know that it is a folly to attempt to judge these classic works by the morals of today’s society, but I admittedly have trouble rooting for the relationship between Heathcliff and Cathy to succeed after he slaps her across the face twice in the middle of the film. Frankly, I didn’t really find myself invested in their relationship at any point, in part due to the messiness and antiquated standards for a healthy partnership, but also due to a lack of chemistry between Olivier and Oberon. Individually, both are giving solid performances, with Olivier in particular really flexing his theatrical background with some great monologues, but together, I failed to find any spark. According to behind-the-scenes stories, this can likely be attributed to the fact that the film’s production was particularly toxic and that the two actors detested one another. Regardless, it is hard to want to return to any love story in which I don’t care for the success of the central romance, and at many points even find myself rooting against it.
I will find myself coming back to Wuthering Heights for its music. The score, penned by legendary film composer Alfred Newman, is easily my favorite part of the film. I’m not someone who typically pays too much attention to a film’s score, but I often found myself entranced by the orchestrations that are characters in their own right. In particular, I loved Cathy’s Theme, a hauntingly beautiful and deeply romantic piece of music, and an incredible, diegetic harpsichord performance of Mozart’s Ronda alla Turca, played by Alice Ehlers during a party scene. Although I don’t know if I ever see myself watching Wuthering Heights again, I do think that I’ll be listening to it in the future.
Despite the pedigree of its cast, crew, and source material, Wuthering Heights doesn’t earn true classic status. To use one metric, Gone with the Wind, another romance film released the same year, has six times as many user reviews on Letterboxd than it does. In a way, I do understand this: It’s an imperfect film with a troubled production, and at best I’d say I’m on the low end of liking it. However, I do think that both it and (according to my wife) the novel that it is based upon have played a key role in defining the language with which we tell love stories today.
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