As regular readers of this blog will know, I always (technology and life events permitting) produce a weekly blog post about Anne Brontë and her family. I’ve been doing that since 2015, meaning that I’ve been creating Brontë posts for over a decade now – and in that time I’ve covered a very wide range of Brontë-related subjects. If you’ve not subscribed please do hit the button on the left hand side of the screen and enter your details.
Today, as I sometimes do, I’m sending out an extra post. As many of you will know, the director Emerald Fennell is producing a new film version of ‘Wuthering Heights’, which will be released next year. It’s caused a stir already, as Fennel is seemingly putting her own spin on what I feel is the greatest novel of all time, and adding a little extra raunch factor.
I’m in many respects a Brontë traditionalist, as I always think the sisters themselves and their work should be front and centre, but that doesn’t mean that I automatically dislike modern or unusual interpretations – after all I enjoy watching the 1946 Hollywood Brontë biopic “Devotion”, and that has to be one of the strangest, least accurate biopic ever made.
In short, I’m looking forward to the film’s release next year and am prepared to judge it with an open mind. I wrote about it for the esteemed Newsweek magazine last year:
Emerald Fennell is clearly seeking a young audience for her work (and nothing wrong with that) and hired super-popular singer Charli XCX to provide the theme song. Running with this, Charli XCX was so taken with the script and concept of the film that she has created a whole Wuthering Heights themed album which is due out next February, as is the film itself.
Now I have a very eclectic taste in music, I like everything from classical and opera to Motown, Sinatra and Pulp. It has to be said, however, that I’m an old fuddy duddy in many ways. When I first encountered the Brontës as an 18 year old English literature student I was a young fuddy duddy, now in my mid-50s I’m a fully fledged fuddy duddy. I gave up listening to chart music when the new millennium arrived and frankly didn’t know what Charli XCX sang or what she sounded like, although I was aware of her popularity. It seems that Emily’s immortal story has really enthused her, as she told the BBC:
“When I think of Wuthering Heights, I think of many things, I think of passion and pain. I think of the mud and the cold. I think of determination and grit.”
That’s a pretty good one sentence summation of the book. I was also very impressed that she has linked up with John Cale for her first single from the soundtrack. Cale, now 83, was the bassist, and occasional viola player, for The Velvet Underground – the seminal New York band at one point managed by Andy Warhol. Cale, alongside singer Lou Reed, was the heart of the band’s creativity, and I’ve long been a big fan of his idiosyncratic music that never compromises. Here is the video for ‘House’ by Charli XCX featuring John Cale, and I think it very much captures the dark, brooding atmosphere of much of Emily Brontë’s novel:
I’m looking forward to hearing more of this soundtrack, and I’m looking forward to welcoming you here this Sunday for another new Brontë blog post.