I am a bit of a
PBS nut. Always have been, probably always will be. There's much more to it than just
Sesame Street. Although that is a very smart show, PBS has a lot more to offer for all ages.
Austin City Limits, Masterpiece Theatre, Mystery! and Nova are among my favorites; I've been watching them for years. PBS is the predecessor to the specialization that cable channels thrive on today, because they covered everything from cooking and home improvement to travel and documentaries. And they did it on a budget, no less.
PBS used to air some amazing (often BBC and also CBC) productions, many of which made up the Masterpiece and Mystery! repertoire. I remember seeing Fawlty Towers and Monty Python back in the 80s, when cable was just getting started. It was fantastic stuff. And PBS brought it to me, direct to my then cable-less TV set.
So I got used to expecting high quality productions from PBS. And
Masterpiece Theatre reminds me of cozy Sundays at home, when my mother and I would watch literary productions of books that we loved or hoped to read someday.
Being in the middle of a difficult semester, feeling overwhelmed and somewhat listless, what better way was there to comfort myself than to watch some PBS? So last night, I watched a DVD of Wuthering Heights, starring Orla Brady and Robert Cavanah, as Catherine and Heathcliff respectively. This BBC production originally aired in 1999 on Masterpiece Theatre, but somehow I had missed it the first time around.
Wuthering Heights is often hailed as one of literature's great love stories. The 19th century plot is a bit convoluded, and the basic story is this: Catherine and Heathcliff grew up together and believed that they were soulmates, but Heathcliff's irascible personality made it difficult for Catherine to understand his love for her. For financial security, she decides to marry a nobleman (played by Crispin Bonham-Carter), which sends Heathcliff away in a rage.
Several years later, a wealthy Heathcliff comes back to visit married Catherine and marries her sister-in-law to incite jealousy. Catherine and Heathcliff spend enough time together to make her husband jealous, and at the pinnacle of the conflict, Catherine dies giving birth to a baby girl. Several years pass, and Heathcliff is tormented because he is separated by death from his true love. He basically continues to torture everyone else until his death.
This movie took the melodrama of the book to a new level entirely. I don't remember wanting to hurl the novel off the roof when I read it in high school. But last night, if there had been a copy of Heights nearby, I certainly would have chucked it at the TV. I'm not panning the acting or the sets. All of that was up to the usual BBC/PBS quality. They had some well-established British theatre actors in the roles, but something didn't work.
At first, I couldn't quite figure out what was wrong with this production. My curiosity kept me going into the wee hours of the night, scrutinizing this movie to find the missing link.
That link boils down to melodrama/overacting which stems from a poorly constructed adaptation of the script and unbelieveable character development, but the worst offender was unrealistic make-up.
Even though I expect a certain level of drama in any production of this nature, this one went overboard. Everybody was running off huffing and puffing at the end of every scene. Women were being hit and abused, and there was no logical reason for it. Having read the book, I knew that Heathcliff had been a tortured child. That abuse played into his awful personality, but the movie didn't lead me to draw that same conclusion. I didn't have any sympathy whatsoever for him or for Catherine, nor did I believe their love for each other. Repeating how much they loved each other over and over again was not effective enough.
The first half of the story dragged on far too long. Generally, there needs to be a considerable amount of character development in these types of stories in order to understand the motivations later. But in this case, that development never quite happened. The plot was tied together by a string of events that made the characters even less likeable. (I vainly wanted everyone to take a bath because the greasiness across-the-board was unbearable!)
Unfortunately, I was actually pleased when Catherine finally met her demise. Had I known that it would lead to the most obnoxious wailing of "Cathy! Cathy!" from Heathcliff, I would've held my applause. As the story continues, Heathcliff obligingly progresses into an even bigger creep and tyrant than he originally was, outliving all of the other adults in the story, except the housekeeper.
Also, the second half of the story was rushed, from Catherine's death to her child, nieces and nephews becoming adolescents. It went so quickly that it was impossible to follow the story. I had to pause and review scenes a couple of times, before I gave up. Granted, things take place quickly in the novel, but there is at least a chance to take in the events and understand them. That moment of realization never occurs in any of the scenes following Catherine's death.
The other element that really bothered me was the make-up situation. None of the actors seemed to age, even though five to 15 years passed by in different parts of the movie. None of them had wrinkles, gray hair or had gained weight. Although Bonham-Carter donned a cane in his last scene as the nobleman Linton, he still looked like a 30-something playing dress-up in a 19th century wig.
If you are looking for a 19th century movie fix, I would suggest the 1995 BBC mini-series, Pride and Prejudice (the Colin Firth version.) It's time-consuming, but whole lot easier to watch. And it's classic, well mid-90's anyway, PBS.
