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ANDREA ARNOLD ASKS: WHY CAN'T HEATHCLIFF BE BLACK?

post #1 of 17
11/22/10 at 6:30pm
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post #2 of 17
11/22/10 at 6:44pm
Awesome write up Rappe.

On one hand I'm kind of pleased we're getting an 'ethnic' Heathcliffe. His 'other' status is a major part of the character and it's also key in not making Heathcliffe sympathetic but making Heathcliffe's story tragic.

It's a nature versus nurture story almost with Heathcliffe slowly being driven to his most wanton cruelty by the people around him. He's a monster of the public, someone who is openly held in contempt and has let that soak into his very being, and having a white actor kind of neutralises that. As such it's a big yay on that front.

On the other hand, Heathcliffe being black kind of pushes the plausibility of the story and almost makes it too on the nose.It plays into modern issues more than Victorian issues and sort of loses the macro 'badness in the blood' Victorian ideology which is a key facet of the book.
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post #3 of 17
11/22/10 at 6:54pm
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Originally Posted by Spike Marshall View Post
Awesome write up Rappe.

On one hand I'm kind of pleased we're getting an 'ethnic' Heathcliffe. His 'other' status is a major part of the character and it's also key in not making Heathcliffe sympathetic but making Heathcliffe's story tragic.

It's a nature versus nurture story almost with Heathcliffe slowly being driven to his most wanton cruelty by the people around him. He's a monster of the public, someone who is openly held in contempt and has let that soak into his very being, and having a white actor kind of neutralises that. As such it's a big yay on that front.

On the other hand, Heathcliffe being black kind of pushes the plausibility of the story and almost makes it too on the nose.It plays into modern issues more than Victorian issues and sort of loses the macro 'badness in the blood' Victorian ideology which is a key facet of the book.
Thanks -- but you beat me on the poetics, Spike.

The plausibility of it is a real issue,, and it paints it in a broad stroke. Like you, I feel it's too modern. I actually think modernizing the story -- setting it in 1970s Northern England, perhaps -- would have been more interesting and daring than saying "Hey look, a black guy in Victorian England. No wonder they hate him!" It's almost dumbing it down for the audience instead of asking them to examine the silly racial politics of the time and by extension, our own.

Then again, we live in stupid times. Maybe this is what people need.
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post #4 of 17
11/22/10 at 6:59pm
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Originally Posted by Elisabeth Rappe View Post
The plausibility of it is a real issue,, and it paints it in a broad stroke. Like you, I feel it's too modern. I actually think modernizing the story -- setting it in 1970s Northern England, perhaps -- would have been more interesting and daring than saying "Hey look, a black guy in Victorian England. No wonder they hate him!"
I would agree with you, but whenever I think about modernising stories like Wuthering Heights I always think about Macbeth...but set in Prohibition era Chicago! It just sometimes seems to easy to literally bring a story to the 'modern era' when it's more satisfying having a story steeped in history which still speaks to us on a personal and cultural level (one of the joys of The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is how it turns a period piece into a treatise on fame and ambition and power and in doing makes it feel utterly modern)
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post #5 of 17
11/22/10 at 7:06pm
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Originally Posted by Spike Marshall View Post
I would agree with you, but whenever I think about modernising stories like Wuthering Heights I always think about Macbeth...but set in Prohibition era Chicago! It just sometimes seems to easy to literally bring a story to the 'modern era' when it's more satisfying having a story steeped in history which still speaks to us on a personal and cultural level (one of the joys of The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is how it turns a period piece into a treatise on fame and ambition and power and in doing makes it feel utterly modern)
Same here. Sometimes I can get into it, but they often feel like novelty costume pieces more than serious examinations of anything.

It's actually going to be interesting to see how much Arnold modernizes Heights -- I fully expect it to be a costume piece, but I wonder if anyone in it is actually going to walk, talk, or act like a Victorian.
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post #6 of 17
11/22/10 at 7:10pm
I'd be interested to see how they'd get Heathcliffe's 'uncouth' and 'brutish' nature across if they didn't have the usual mannered Victorian style. I guess you could have him go completely vaudeville with it, but it seems like too much of a leap from her previous films which sort of emphasised the mundanity and banality of 'evil' characters. Then again Mike Leigh can switch between the natural (NAKED/ABIGAILS PARTY) and the whimsical (TOPSY TURVY) and I've always felt that Arnold was a natural 'student' of Leigh.
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post #7 of 17
11/22/10 at 7:28pm
"swarthy"
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post #8 of 17
11/22/10 at 7:36pm
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Originally Posted by DARKMITE8 View Post
"swarthy"
Thanks for the input, champ.
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post #9 of 17
11/22/10 at 8:11pm
Before you spend too much time wrestling with whether or not your opinion on this betrays otherwise post-racial thinking, ask yourself if a modified version of the story in which all of the characters were black would be a problem. My guess is no.

Or did you already say that... damn, can't re-read - gotta be somewhere!
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post #10 of 17
11/22/10 at 8:20pm
Ms. Rappe, what did you think of Tom Hardy in the BBC adaptation? If you keep up on those sorts of things.

I think you do make a valid point concerning the pale, wan Englishmen that have played Heathcliff so far...It's certainly some sort of rite of passage for many an English actor, but to be honest, I do like Arnold's emphasizing on Heathcliff's otherness. Whenever I watched a film adaptation, I didn't much get the hatred beyond the implication of the sibling rivalry that spiraled out of control. Perhaps it makes me shallow, but I think pointing out his 'swarthiness' in the extreme will really be unique, whether it's a black guy, or a Romanian actor, etc, etc.

Rhodes, I'm pretty sure an all-black version would still work, because it would most likely ape current versions that center on the doomed across-class love story angle. Bringing in race I think is a very, very valid way of emphasizing the other issues that are most often glossed over.
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post #11 of 17
11/22/10 at 8:20pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by J David Rhodes View Post
Before you spend too much time wrestling with whether or not your opinion on this betrays otherwise post-racial thinking, ask yourself if a modified version of the story in which all of the characters were black would be a problem. My guess is no.

Or did you already say that... damn, can't re-read - gotta be somewhere!
Well, a modified version of Wuthering Heights with an all-black cast wouldn't be Wuthering Heights in the least.

The story is, for better or worse, an Anglo one. The Earnshaws have lived at the Heights (which is in the wilds of Yorkshire) since the 17th century, so it's impossible for them to be anything but Caucasian. You'd have to change it geographically and historically, at which point the story would only be distantly related ... and you could just write an original story tackling race in England and do a better job of addressing it.

I do have to wonder aloud why a black Heathcliff bothers me. I can say it's not accurate to the source, but the source is pretty vague, and using a black actor does illustrate Heathcliff as Other. It raises an eyebrow for sure.
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post #12 of 17
11/22/10 at 8:21pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wayward_Woman View Post
Ms. Rappe, what did you think of Tom Hardy in the BBC adaptation? If you keep up on those sorts of things.
I thought he was ok, but he didn't go far enough ... and he seemed to interpret it as a lot of brooding and glowering. Part of it was the production though, it cut out all the nastier parts and didn't give him much to do!
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post #13 of 17
11/22/10 at 8:25pm
Ah. After my exposure to Olivier and Fiennes, I found his glowering and ungentlemanness to be rather refreshing. But agreed at the cutting out of the nasty bits.
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post #14 of 17
11/22/10 at 8:44pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wayward_Woman View Post
Ah. After my exposure to Olivier and Fiennes, I found his glowering and ungentlemanness to be rather refreshing. But agreed at the cutting out of the nasty bits.
It's definitely the closest to book Heathcliff that anyone has gotten. I half-wish Hardy was playing it here, if only because a big-screen adaptation would have had more freedom.
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post #15 of 17
11/22/10 at 11:11pm
I say we just square this business up by letting C Thomas Howell play Othello next time. That way, everybody wins.

(...that will make more sense to the older folks...)
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post #16 of 17
11/26/10 at 2:36am
I see what you did there Rhodes. For some reason casting a black actor as Heathcliff bothers me in some ways. I really prefer my period pieces to conform more to the source material. This stunt will take me right out of the movie. As a black woman this should bother me as racist thinking but--it's just how I feel.
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post #17 of 17
11/27/10 at 3:53am
As far as I'm concerned there is only one version of Wuthering Heights I want and it is THIS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqiUGjghlzU

Seriously though, I think in this day and age race shouldn't play too much into who gets what roles. Maybe this guy just really impressed her in the audition process?
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CHUD.com Community › Forums › THE MAIN SEWER › CHUD.COM Main › ANDREA ARNOLD ASKS: WHY CAN'T HEATHCLIFF BE BLACK?