Costumes in Wuthering Heights Movie & TV Adaptions

Happy birthday, Emily Brontë! She was born this day, July 30, in 1818. While she’s known to have written extensively throughout her life, along with her sisters and brother, Emily only published one book, Wuthering Heights, under the pen name Ellis Bell in 1847. She died a mere year later in 1848, probably of tuberculosis. Contemporary reviews of Emily’s book were mixed, while her sister Charolette’s first novel Jane Eyre, published in the same year, was an immediate critical and commercial success. In the intervening century and then some, Wuthering Heights has become a foundation of gothic romance, and Emily’s poetic verse has been hugely praised.

Literary Setting for Wuthering Heights Movies & TV Adaptions

For all its popularity and classic status, only a handful of movie and TV adaptions have been made of Wuthering Heights. I think part of this is due to the lack of straightforward narrative. The novel is told through a series of narrators, each of which is perhaps less reliable than the other. It opens in 1801 with Mr. Lockwood renting out Thrushcross Grange and meeting Heathcliff (and Catherine Earnshaw’s ghost). Then Lockwood’s housekeeper, Nelly, tells him the story from 30 years before of Heathcliff and Catherine’s life. The whole story encompasses two different generations, Heathcliff and Catherine, and then their children, all framed by an outsider hearing the tale. It’s obviously too much to squeeze into a two-hour movie, though it could work well in a multi-part miniseries. Sadly, few adaptions get the entire thing on screen, and most importantly for Frock Flicks purposes, they rarely use the right costume periods throughout.

The book’s first chapter spells out the date, “1801,” and then you work backwards from that — NOT forwards. Maybe that’s the mistake Hollywood made when they first did Wuthering Heights as a movie? Because everybody else wanted to follow that lead, as you do.

To be accurate to the novel, the main action of the story has to take place from 1780 to 1784. There’s math involved, mostly so the two generations are old enough to marry young but still somewhat realistically. The novel is precisely plotted in time, and any critical edition (or Wikipedia) will show the timeline. Yet the most recent movie and TV versions of Wuthering Heights are costumed for the 1830s-40s (basically, the Brontë Sisters’ time period) or a random period, like Regency.

With this in mind, let’s take a look at these adaptions and their costumes. I don’t claim to have seen every one, but I’ve screened the major film versions and the recent TV miniseries that most people can get access to, so I can evaluate both the accuracy to the novel and the historical accuracy of the costumes.

Costumes in Wuthering Heights Movies & TV Adaptions

 

Wuthering Heights, 1939

Heathcliff: Laurence Olivier
Catherine: Merle Oberon
Time Period: 1850s

The inaccurate faces that launched a thousand wrong ships! Brooding Olivier and super-pretty Oberon make it through about 16 of Wuthering Heights‘ 35 chapters, barely enough of the story to really call it an adaption. Yet because it was the first big Hollywood telling, many people think that this is the whole thing. The 1939 edition made Wuthering Heights into a simple love-triangle between Heathcliff, Cathy, and Edgar (plus a little girl-fighting between Cathy and Isabelle). Then the heroine dies tragically, beautifully, but love never dies. While this film won an Oscar for Best Black-and-White Cinematography, it’s not winning either literary or costuming accuracy points with me. In addition to the severely truncated story, the costumes look like rejects from Gone With the Wind. Wrong time period entirely and fairly inaccurate for the 1850s too (especially the running-around-the-moors garb — looks like modern 1930s sportswear on Merle Oberon). No internal consistency for costume period either: The opening title credits state that the story is set “100 years ago,” thus around 1839, and then Nelly tells Lockwood the flashback tale, saying it happened “40 years ago,” so about 1799 when Heathcliff arrives at Wuthering Heights as a child. That’d put the main action of the story (when Heathcliff and Cathy are adults) around, say, 1820ish. Not by the looks of it!

Rating: 1 out of 5 ghostly Cathys haunting you

 

Wuthering Heights, 1967

Heathcliff: Ian McShane
Catherine: Angela Scoular
Time Period: 18th century

There were apparently a bunch of TV adaptions during the 1950s and 1960s, made by the BBC and in Australia (and maybe one in the U.S. too), but I can’t find any screencaps or video evidence of them. Boo! This four-episode BBC miniseries is the earliest one I could track down. It seems like it’d be long enough to cover the whole novel, yet I’m not clear if the second generation’s story is included, though apparently Lockwood is included with a voiceover. I haven’t seen the series and can only find these images and a few short clips, which indicate the story at least starts in the right time period, so I’ll give it a point for that. Looks very 1960s-ized with the hair and low-budget with the back-lacing and the trims.

Rating: 2 out of 5 ghostly Cathys haunting you

 

Wuthering Heights, 1970

Heathcliff: Timothy Dalton
Catherine:  Anna Calder-Marshall
Time Period: 18th century

Timothy Dalton is a solid actor in many respects, but this early outing is not his finest work IMO. The actress playing Cathy isn’t spectacular either. The abbreviated script has about the same plot as the 1939 film, minus the flashback framing device of Lockwood. The one thing I like better is Isabella in this Wuthering Heights film adaption; she’s sympathetic, plus she gets the best costumes. Which, however, are all rental stock from a place called “Nelsons,” according to the credits. The costuming is the right period, but it’s very lackluster, and the hair is all late-1960s/early-1970s bouffants on the women. The one real appeal of this version is the authentic locations.

Rating: 2 out of 5 ghostly Cathys haunting you

 

Wuthering Heights, 1978

Heathcliff: Ken Hutchison
Catherine: Kay Adshead
Time Period: 18th century

Many reviewers consider this five-episode BBC miniseries to be the most faithful to the novel (which makes sense to me, as it’s around the same time the BBC did the most literary-accurate version of Jane Eyre — the Beeb was on a roll!). I haven’t watched the entire series, but the eps I’ve seen have excellent Brontë-inspired dialog. And yet … the costuming is not quite right. The rougher garb for running around the moors is only vaguely period (check out that renfaire bodice, and I’ll bet there’s elastic in the blouse’s sleeves and neckline). But the fancier hanging’-with-the-Lintons costumes seem a bit more historically accurate. Bummer because many of these mid-1970s BBC productions did have excellent costumes, even if they were all filmed on soundstages.

Rating: 3 out of 5 ghostly Cathys haunting you

 

Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, 1992

Heathcliff: Ralph Fiennes
Catherine:  Juliette Binoche
Time Period: 1780s-1801

It’s pretty amazing that this 105-minute film adaption of Wuthering Heights manages to include all the major plot points of the novel, from Lockwood to the second generation, and does it in the right period costumes! Even better, those costumes are by Oscar-winning designer James Acheson (Dangerous Liaisons, Restoration, The Last Emperor), so they’re quite lovely — and very stripey; even Catherine’s running-on-the-moors gowns have subtle stripes in the fabrics. The only costuming downside is the hair. Cathy has bangs most of the times, and the Edgar’s hair is, like, totally bitchin’ for a surfer dude, but not the 18th century. This is my favorite version of the novel on screen because it gets the right balance between telling enough of the complete story and getting the costuming periods correct. I’d love a miniseries that used every bit of the novel plus had this high level of costuming (and better wigs) — but I’m not holding my breath.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 ghostly Cathys haunting you

 

Wuthering Heights, 1998

Heathcliff: Robert Cavanah
Catherine:  Orla Brady
Time Period: 1780s

Another miniseries adaption, this one brought to us by London Weekend Television and PBS Masterpiece Theatre. While the show does an admirable job of using the entire novel — Lockwood through second generation — the costuming throughout the entire tale is pretty much 1780s, and this is especially noticeable on the women’s gowns. Young Catherine Linton wears the same style of clothes as her mother, Cathy Earnshaw, and her aunt Isabelle Linton. They’re all nice period dresses, but you’d think there’d be some change over time. Also, young Cathy has an outrageous curly blond afro wig that is wack. That aside, this is the only Wuthering Heights adaption on film or TV I’ve seen that gives full and proper attention to the second generation’s love story, which is a really nice touch. Also, I was pleased to see Peter Davison, aka the Fifth Doctor Who, playing Mr. Lockwood — although he’s used only at the beginning to introduce the tale, and there’s no actual framing device.

Rating: 4 out of 5 ghostly Cathys haunting you

 

Wuthering Heights, 2009

Heathcliff: Tom Hardy
Catherine: Charlotte Riley
Time Period: 1815-1848

This is probably the most popular adaption of Wuthering Heights, thanks to rakish Tom Hardy. I’m not arguing his appeal. But the historical period is wrongity-wrong. The ITV / PBS Masterpiece Classic producers made the obvious mistake of setting the story in Emily Brontë’s lifetime — maybe they wanted to reuse some Regency gowns from a Jane Austen flick? Dunno. Also, when it’s not 1810s, the costumes are weak, random ye oldey-timey. The worst dressed is, unfortunately Catherine the Elder, whose “wild child” outfit is simply a fitted jacket, full skirt, and flowing hair. Then she wears prissy Regency gowns when she’s married to Edgar. Meh. While this two-part miniseries does a decent job covering both generations (but skipping Lockwood), this is very much a tale of Heathcliff’s revenge. That further makes Tom Hardy the central feature of this version, and he’s quite good. But the romance and poetry are downplayed in favor of the angry, vindictive streak that runs through the novel.

Rating: 3 out of 5 ghostly Cathys haunting you

 

Wuthering Heights, 2011

Heathcliff: James Howson
Catherine: Kaya Scodelario
Time Period: 1810s

Modern directors, hear my plea: It is not “edgy” or “daring” to film movies in 75% low lighting or let the actors mumble all of their lines. Also, this “adaption” of Wuthering Heights might actually use less of the novel than any other movie or TV version yet. The similarities it bears to the Emily Brontë novel can be summed up as: Heathcliff is adopted and develops an obsession with Cathy (unclear if the feelings are mutual in this film), Cathy’s father dies and her brother is a dick to everyone, Cathy marries Edgar, Cathy dies, Heathcliff is sad. That’s it. Almost none of the novel’s language is included, with barely an allusion to any of the famous speeches. Perhaps this is due to the fact that these characters speak about 20 lines of dialog in the entire movie. The thing I have the least problem with is casting a black actor as Heathcliff — the book calls him “a dark-skinned gipsy” at most, so he’s not exactly of African descent, Brontë is simply trying to show a contrast between the emotionally dark and turbulent Heathcliff and the pale, blond, quiet, complacent Lintons. This film made that metaphor literal, fine, whatever, it’s the movie’s smallest crime against against accuracy. The costumes are a bigger problem because they’re just so sad and dreary, when you can even see them in the gloom and darkness. Most of the time, Cathy runs around in random jackets and long, muddy-hemmed skirts. When she marries Edgar, she wears “nice” 1810s dresses that still look bedraggled. And the hair, not only is there a complete and utter lack of hairpins, everyone in the moors are in desperate need of some conditioner because the flyaway situation is out of control.

Rating: 1 out of 5 ghostly Cathys haunting you

 

Are you a Brontë fan? What’s your favorite movie or TV adaption of Wuthering Heights?