Lyrics
Out on the wily, windy moors
We'd roll and fall in green
You had a temper like my jealousy
Too hot, too greedy
How could you leave me
When I needed to possess you?
I hated you, I loved you too
Bad dreams in the night
You told me I was going to lose the fight
Leave behind my wuthering, wuthering
Wuthering Heights
Heathcliff, it's me, Cathy, I've come home
I'm so cold, let me in your window
Heathcliff, it's me, Cathy, I've come home
I'm so cold, let me in your window
Ooh, it gets dark, it gets lonely
On the other side from you
I pine a lot, I find the lot
Falls through without you
I'm coming back, love
Cruel Heathcliff, my one dream
My only master
Too long I roamed in the night
I'm coming back to his side to put it right
I'm coming home to wuthering, wuthering
Wuthering Heights
Heathcliff, it's me, Cathy, I've come home
I'm so cold, let me in your window
Heathcliff, it's me, Cathy, I've come home
I'm so cold, let me in your window
Ooh, let me have it
Let me grab your soul away
Ooh, let me have it
Let me grab your soul away
You know it's me, Cathy
Heathcliff, it's me, Cathy, I've come home
I'm so cold, let me in your window
Heathcliff, it's me, Cathy, I've come home
I'm so cold, let me in your window
Heathcliff, it's me, Cathy, I've come home
I'm so cold
Heathcliff, it's me, Cathy, I've come home
I'm so cold, yeah
It's me, Cathy, I've come home
I'm so cold, yeah
We'd roll and fall in green
You had a temper like my jealousy
Too hot, too greedy
How could you leave me
When I needed to possess you?
I hated you, I loved you too
Bad dreams in the night
You told me I was going to lose the fight
Leave behind my wuthering, wuthering
Wuthering Heights
Heathcliff, it's me, Cathy, I've come home
I'm so cold, let me in your window
Heathcliff, it's me, Cathy, I've come home
I'm so cold, let me in your window
Ooh, it gets dark, it gets lonely
On the other side from you
I pine a lot, I find the lot
Falls through without you
I'm coming back, love
Cruel Heathcliff, my one dream
My only master
Too long I roamed in the night
I'm coming back to his side to put it right
I'm coming home to wuthering, wuthering
Wuthering Heights
Heathcliff, it's me, Cathy, I've come home
I'm so cold, let me in your window
Heathcliff, it's me, Cathy, I've come home
I'm so cold, let me in your window
Ooh, let me have it
Let me grab your soul away
Ooh, let me have it
Let me grab your soul away
You know it's me, Cathy
Heathcliff, it's me, Cathy, I've come home
I'm so cold, let me in your window
Heathcliff, it's me, Cathy, I've come home
I'm so cold, let me in your window
Heathcliff, it's me, Cathy, I've come home
I'm so cold
Heathcliff, it's me, Cathy, I've come home
I'm so cold, yeah
It's me, Cathy, I've come home
I'm so cold, yeah
I really, really dislike Kate Bush's music, including this song. But that's absolutely my own fault. Kate Bush is without a doubt a great artist. Her style is not just very singular and specific, but there is clearly also an idea behind it. This is how Bush wants to express herself, and she does so successfully. She achieves exactly what she aims to in her own personal, inimitable way, and it's quite remarkable how much popular success that has brought her. It's not my style, but you won't see anyone like her hitting the pop charts anytime soon. It's also quite unfortunate that there haven't been more pop songs that are basically adaptations/commentaries of/on literary classics.
The Movie: Wuthering Heights (William Wyler, 1939)
I am not the perfect person to write this piece, as I haven't actually read Emily Brontë's classic. I did like the movie quite a bit, but it gave me the impression that William Wyler is a far better director than Brontë is a writer. After watching the movie I read that Brontë didn't have any romantic experience when writing her novel, and it didn't surprise me. I found the story to be at times profoundly silly, though this may also be the fault of Charles MacArthur and Ben Hecht, the screenwriters of this film. Perhaps they misread the novel, or didn't really adapt it well enough. After all, according to Wikipedia the novel was considered controversial because 'its depiction of mental and physical cruelty was unusually stark' and because 'it challenged the Victorian ideals of the day, including religious hypocrisy, morality, social classes and gender inequality'. The movie does that too, but kind of halfheartedly. It is much more interested in being a mood piece, in capturing the mysterious spirit of the moors.
This is also a film that manages to combine different genres and modes of storytelling, without ever feeling tonally all over place. There are scenes at the beginning of the film, which make it seem like a British western. We meet Mr. Earnshaw and Heathcliff when they arrive at 'Wuthering Heights' from Liverpool, but we hardly see them there. The house seems to be in the middle of nowhere in Brittain, surrounded by large plains on which the young Cathy and Heathcliff ride horses. And when Heathcliff declares himself a prince at Peniston Rock, he is shot and framed as a hero from a classic adventure film, or from a medieval story. Moreover these shots are accompanied by an appropriate score, I also quite liked how it manages to combine the Gothic/horrific with the mundane. Wuthering Heights is basically a pretty normal farm, only made mysterious because of the mood Wyler creates around it. It is often surrounded by those wily winds Bush sings about, and by threatening thunderstorms, which seem to be more than mere storms, but portents of doom. It is basically a movie which imbues ordinary things and proceedings with horror. Late in the movie there is a party at the Lintons where all the main characters are gathered, and where they will act in ways that will have a profound effect at their lives. At the party is also a woman playing the piano, on which there is not much emphasis for much of the scene. Yet when she is about to end playing the we suddenly see a close-up of her arm as she is about to hit the final keys. This close-up basically resembles a shot from a horror movie, that signals that horrific things are about to happen. That shot signals that, but Wyler also suggests that the piano player could be the catalyst for these things to happen. That if she didn't hit those last keys, maybe all the characters would make other decisions.
There are a lot of similar suggestions in the film, and that is why the movie works. Taken on itself, the movie's plot is what Roger Ebert called an Idiot Plot. The characters are indeed hindered by class distinctions, but these aren't really developed enough, and you get the feeling that all of their lives would be much better if they weren't such idiots and solved their easily solvable misunderstandings. But they live in the moors. And here unseen, special forces are at work in the moors. Basically the characters behave irrationally, because the spirits of the moors force them to behave irrationally. Heathcliff and Cathy are the only ones who are vaguely aware of these forces and that's why the movie believes they should be together. Their strongest bond is basically their mutual belief that there is grand beauty in the heath. As these are very Romantic ideals, I assume the movie is faithful to the novel in this regard. It's also probably relatively faithful in what Wikipedia called 'its depiction of mental and physical cruelty'. These characters are unpleasant, bad people, and the movie does not pretend otherwise, but it doesn't moralize either. It absolutely believes Heathclifff, who is to say it non-euphemistically the biggest asshole of them all, and Cathy should be together, but simply because they love each other, not because they are somehow more decent than the rest of the characters.
Lastly, I find it amusing how much the Wuthering Heights movies connote that Heathcliff and Cathy should be together, through casting alone. Here Heathcliff is played by Laurence Olivier, while Edgar is played by David Niven. Niven is a respected actor, but he is no Olivier. In other movies the difference is even more stark. In the 1992 version Heathcliff is played by Ralph Fiennes, while Linton is played by someone named Simon Shepherd who looks like a stereotypical villain. And in a 1970 version Heathcliff is played by future Bond Timothy Dalton, while Linton is some Ian Ogilvy. Lastly I assume the 1992 version is not a better film than the 1939 version. This is just not a story suited to the style of 90's film making. But it's very probable that the romance between Cathy and Heathcliff is more believable there, mostly because 1992 Cathy is played by Juliette Binoche, while 1939 Cathy is played by Merle Oberon, who seems to be not a very good actress. The way she acts in her death scene is comically awful even.
This is also a film that manages to combine different genres and modes of storytelling, without ever feeling tonally all over place. There are scenes at the beginning of the film, which make it seem like a British western. We meet Mr. Earnshaw and Heathcliff when they arrive at 'Wuthering Heights' from Liverpool, but we hardly see them there. The house seems to be in the middle of nowhere in Brittain, surrounded by large plains on which the young Cathy and Heathcliff ride horses. And when Heathcliff declares himself a prince at Peniston Rock, he is shot and framed as a hero from a classic adventure film, or from a medieval story. Moreover these shots are accompanied by an appropriate score, I also quite liked how it manages to combine the Gothic/horrific with the mundane. Wuthering Heights is basically a pretty normal farm, only made mysterious because of the mood Wyler creates around it. It is often surrounded by those wily winds Bush sings about, and by threatening thunderstorms, which seem to be more than mere storms, but portents of doom. It is basically a movie which imbues ordinary things and proceedings with horror. Late in the movie there is a party at the Lintons where all the main characters are gathered, and where they will act in ways that will have a profound effect at their lives. At the party is also a woman playing the piano, on which there is not much emphasis for much of the scene. Yet when she is about to end playing the we suddenly see a close-up of her arm as she is about to hit the final keys. This close-up basically resembles a shot from a horror movie, that signals that horrific things are about to happen. That shot signals that, but Wyler also suggests that the piano player could be the catalyst for these things to happen. That if she didn't hit those last keys, maybe all the characters would make other decisions.
There are a lot of similar suggestions in the film, and that is why the movie works. Taken on itself, the movie's plot is what Roger Ebert called an Idiot Plot. The characters are indeed hindered by class distinctions, but these aren't really developed enough, and you get the feeling that all of their lives would be much better if they weren't such idiots and solved their easily solvable misunderstandings. But they live in the moors. And here unseen, special forces are at work in the moors. Basically the characters behave irrationally, because the spirits of the moors force them to behave irrationally. Heathcliff and Cathy are the only ones who are vaguely aware of these forces and that's why the movie believes they should be together. Their strongest bond is basically their mutual belief that there is grand beauty in the heath. As these are very Romantic ideals, I assume the movie is faithful to the novel in this regard. It's also probably relatively faithful in what Wikipedia called 'its depiction of mental and physical cruelty'. These characters are unpleasant, bad people, and the movie does not pretend otherwise, but it doesn't moralize either. It absolutely believes Heathclifff, who is to say it non-euphemistically the biggest asshole of them all, and Cathy should be together, but simply because they love each other, not because they are somehow more decent than the rest of the characters.
Lastly, I find it amusing how much the Wuthering Heights movies connote that Heathcliff and Cathy should be together, through casting alone. Here Heathcliff is played by Laurence Olivier, while Edgar is played by David Niven. Niven is a respected actor, but he is no Olivier. In other movies the difference is even more stark. In the 1992 version Heathcliff is played by Ralph Fiennes, while Linton is played by someone named Simon Shepherd who looks like a stereotypical villain. And in a 1970 version Heathcliff is played by future Bond Timothy Dalton, while Linton is some Ian Ogilvy. Lastly I assume the 1992 version is not a better film than the 1939 version. This is just not a story suited to the style of 90's film making. But it's very probable that the romance between Cathy and Heathcliff is more believable there, mostly because 1992 Cathy is played by Juliette Binoche, while 1939 Cathy is played by Merle Oberon, who seems to be not a very good actress. The way she acts in her death scene is comically awful even.
