Wuthering Heights (2009 TV serial)
| Wuthering Heights | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Written by |
Peter Bowker Emily Brontë (novel) |
| Directed by | Coky Giedroyc |
| Starring |
Tom Hardy Charlotte Riley Andrew Lincoln Sarah Lancashire Rebecca Night |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Original language(s) | English |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | Michele Buck Damien Timmer Hugo Heppell Rebecca Eaton |
| Cinematography | Ulf Brantås |
| Production company(s) |
Mammoth Screen WGBH |
| Distributor |
ITV PBS |
| Release | |
| Original release | January 2009 (US) |
Wuthering Heights is a two-part ITV television series adaptation of the novel Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. The episodes were adapted for the screen by Peter Bowker and directed by Coky Giedroyc. The programme stars Tom Hardy and Charlotte Riley in the roles of the famous lovers Heathcliff and Catherine or 'Cathy' Earnshaw.
The series was first broadcast in January 2009 in the US, as part of PBS'sMasterpiece Classic programming. It eventually aired in the UK in two separate 90-minute instalments on consecutive nights, on 30 and 31 August 2009. It was broadcast on the terrestrial networks ITV & UTV, and in early 2010 on STV in Scotland.
For an in-depth account of the plot, See Main Article: Wuthering Heights
Based on the classic novel by Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights is a story of love, obsession, hate and revenge. The protagonists, Cathy and Heathcliff, form a love that is dark and destructive and affects the lives of everyone around them.
In approaching the novel as a 180-minute, adaptation writer Peter Bowker observed: "How do you go about adapting the greatest love story in literature? Well, firstly by acknowledging that it isn't a love story. Or at least, it is many things as well as a love story. It's a story about hate, class, revenge, sibling rivalry, loss, grief, family, violence, land and money..."
He noted that the book had previously proved "stubbornly unadaptable", the most successful version being the Hollywood picture starring Laurence Olivier, which succeeded because "with classic Hollywood ruthlessness they filleted out the Cathy/Heathcliff story and ditched the rest of the plot. It's a great film but it does the novel a disservice."
Bowker hoped to "open up some of the other themes, not least the story of how damage is passed down through generations, how revenge poisons the innocent and the guilty, how the destructive nature of hate always threatens to overwhelm the redemptive power of love" but acknowledged that "structurally, the novel is notoriously difficult"
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