Author: SceneByGreen

Jia Zhangke | 2hr 34min

Unsatisfied with the escapist, expressionist Fifth Wave of Chinese filmmakers, Jia Zhangke burst onto the scene in the 1990s leading the more grounded Sixth Wave, and with his second film, the neorealist epic, Platform, he turned to China’s recent history to bring in the new millennium. This “epic” descriptor is only really applicable in the way it might be for a film like Richard Linklater’s Boyhood – not much “happens” in any individual moment, but the sheer span of time which we spend with the same characters reveals an accumulation of small changes set in motion by an increasingly globalising culture, pressing in on their lives and pushing them in separate directions.

As the 1980s dawn upon the young performers of the state-funded Peasant Cultural Group, they collectively ruminate on what sort of future lies ahead for their country in the year 2000. “The four modernisations: industry, agriculture, defence, science,” one of them conjectures, and he’s not wrong, though clearly they are unprepared for the sort of social and artistic shifts which will impact them in a far more personal manner than anything else. Three years after chairman Mao Zedong’s death, his likeness still adorns the walls of their homes, but in the coming years it is the new Paramount leader, Deng Xiaoping, whose influence and embrace of consumerist policies will come to dominate their lives.
 
Even when we first meet these characters though, many of these changes are already in motion. There are no pivotal turning points in Platform for Jia’s characters, but their lives are rather made up of miniscule shifts in cultural behaviours towards western trends. Foreign films and fashion fads are considered bad influences, and as early on as the ten-minute mark we see one of the group’s central performers, Cui Minliang, being scolded by his parents for wearing bell-bottomed jeans – an attitude he simply puts down to “the generation gap.” 

In choosing to shoot on location in China’s Shanxi province, Jia makes the most of the region’s dilapidated architecture, dwarfing his characters beneath these towering, crumbling buildings in an abundance of wide and mid-shots. The lack of structural maintenance is evident, as we return twice to the same set of half-constructed stairs which turn this part of the city into an obstacle course for Jia’s characters to navigate, leap across, and climb. Much like Cuarón would do in Roma 18 years later, Jia often pans his camera around his scenes, soaking in the detail of the dirtied interiors and streets of 1980s China. Early on, a trivial conversation between two performers, Zhang and Zhong, is set right next to a political rally for the newly-imposed one-child policy, and although the two affairs don’t directly collide in this moment, it paints out a politically-charged landscape of cultural turmoil that is slowly seeping into the everyday lives of its citizens.

Later, Cui and Yin, a performer with whom he shares a mutual attraction, meet on the ramparts of a grey brick fortress to discuss their relationship. With the camera planted just halfway around a protruding corner, we are only ever privy to one side of the conversation at a time, as both characters alternate positions into our scope of vision to deliver their own perspective. In doing so Jia effectively creates the same isolating effect that cutting to either side of the conversation might have, and yet through his patient, static camera, he instead uses the imposing architecture of the city to come between his characters. 

Eventually Yin finds herself slowly dragged away from her friends and passion to enter a planned marriage. “Everything’s arranged for me,” she quietly laments, and yet even in falling into this traditional custom, she too finds herself swept along a separate strand of consumerism which dominates China’s workplaces and private homes. Though she is bound to her stable, middle-class station in life, even she still can’t help bursting out into a small dance when she finds herself alone in her office, reminiscing on her nostalgic past.

The inevitable privatisation of the Peasant Cultural Group plays out in such understated moments, we might almost hope along with the characters that it won’t affect things too much. There is a brief reflection from one performer on how putting them up for sale effectively cheapens their livelihoods, but it is quickly cut short by the leader’s reassurance that he is making as much of a sacrifice as them. Regardless, we do witness a drastic evolution taking place in Jia’s sprinkling of their performances all throughout. While touring into an urban area, they are requested to “play concerts of light music” as opposed to their more traditional fare, in a bid to appeal to the more worldly city types. Later, Zhang returns home from an overseas trip with some new cassette tapes featuring euro disco music, and the song “Dschinghis Khan” quickly becomes a hit within his social circle. 
 
Bit by bit, the Peasant Cultural Group’s repertoire of Chinese folk music shifts to pop and rock, their muted outfits are replaced by colourful spandex and double denim, and they are eventually renamed the All-Star Rock and Breakdance Electronic Band. They have spent their careers spreading the state-approved message that a bright future awaits their generation, and yet by the end these promises are revealed to be utterly empty. 

“Young friends, this spring will be yours. Yours and mine. The new generation of the 1980s!” 

When it comes to the source of these promises, we turn to the older generations who, while not a significant focus of Platform, do find representation in the form of Cui’s troubled parents. Despite all their moral and ideological reprimands, they are far from sinless, as Cui’s father’s affair is only briefly confronted before it becomes a natural part of life, slowly fragmenting the family over the years. 
 
This is the way relationships come to an end in this new modernised culture – not with a farewell and a hug, but a silent tapering off, disappearing before anyone realises it. This set pattern pays off in an especially weighty scene towards the end, as Cui and Lin run into each other again after years of unresolved separation. Though they ruminate over the old days, the interaction remains morose. The closure they find in this moment together is special, but they also recognise it is not a privilege that they were granted with their other friends, recalling the last times they were together. 

“Leaving without a word. And since then, no news.” 

These losses and adjustments are incremental yet irreversible, and it is in this slow, gradual development over ten years that Jia’s melancholy reflections on China’s modernisation comes into focus. He isn’t exactly full of praise for the Cultural Revolution of the 60s and 70s either, as he exposes the superficiality which lay beneath its nationalism and deification of Mao, but he rather expresses a nostalgia for the blissful hope and ignorance of youth that seeps away with time. Though we can appreciate the immediate impact of Jia’s stark, minimalistic aesthetics giving visual context to these characters’ struggles along the road to modernity, it is only by the end when we look back at his formally ambitious construction of China over a ten-year span that we realise the full extent of the loss that has taken place.

Platform is available to stream on The Criterion Channel.

Valdimar Jóhannsson | 1hr 46min

Through a dreary, snowy landscape somewhere in an Icelandic mountain range, a herd of bedraggled horses wander an open field. We approach them from a distance in one long take, though the sound of heavy breathing clues us in that we are perhaps not a neutral observer in this situation. The horses buck and whinny, spooked by our presence in this expansive, rural region, though the mysterious figure whose identity we have briefly adopted is kept largely offscreen for much of the film.

This description of the opening scene may not help any argument that Lamb is not, in fact, a horror film as it has been advertised, but what it may help to illustrate is just how much first-time director Valdimar Jóhannsson is following in the footsteps of Bela Tarr, the Hungarian filmmaker whose name is essentially synonymous with bleak, arthouse cinema, and who is credited as executive producer on this film. Like Tarr, the use of eerie, repetitive sound design to create the impression of silence is one of Jóhannsson’s greatest tools, letting us tune into the audible breathing of sheep, the whirring engine of a tractor, or the bitter wind blowing through valleys. Dialogue is sparse, but what little there is simply conveys the bare facts of María and Ingvar’s cold, lonely lives.

It takes the supernatural arrival of a semi-horrific, semi-adorable creature on their farm to bring about a sudden shift in mood, and after drawing out the details of what exactly makes this infant so odd for a long time, the reveal comes in an ever so brief glimpse sure to draw a couple of double-takes. It belongs neither to the world of humans, nor to the animal kingdom, yet all it takes is a fleeting period of shock for María and Ingvar to adjust before readily taking on the responsibility of raising it as their own. As they bring out a cot from the shed and set up a nursery, the existence of some past heartbreak is hinted at, letting us in on the emptiness present in their lives. Just like that, Lamb takes a small step away from the horror genre, and more into that of a psychological family drama, probing questions of how parenting instincts overlap with the welfare of such a unique, irreconcilably “different” child.

Though the arrival of Ingvar’s brother, Pétur, in this narrative initially serves to underscore the tension in this messy family dynamic, his presence ultimately does little to sway the emotion of the film one way or the other. Explicit references to a past romance that he and María once shared do serve to instil tension in this family’s unaddressed, repressed emotions, but this touch of relationship drama does end up feeling more like an irrelevant footnote tacked onto everything else we watch play out.

Beyond this, there is a lot to be said about the way Jóhannsson finds such unexpected moments of humour in an otherwise merciless film. While combinations of snow, fog, wind, and rain leave us cowering at the beautiful terror of such an unforgiving environment, the ridiculousness of this family’s situation is never forgotten. The tittering one might hear from a theatre audience in certain parts is not at the expense of the film’s tension, nor is it an unintended consequence of some tonal mishandling. When forced to look at Lamb’s bizarre, folklore-tinted body horror, and then simultaneously faced with such desperate attempts by María, Ingvar, and Pétur to incorporate it into the pleasant image of a traditional, nuclear family, the straight-faced absurdity of humanity’s desire to tame the wildest, most incongruous parts of the world can be overpowering. In such situations as these, an exasperated laugh of disbelief directed at our own instinctual need for rigid, sanitised social structures might suffice just as well as anything.

Lamb is currently playing in theatres.

Charles Crichton | 1hr 48min

What looks at first glance to be a reunion of sorts between two members of Monty Python only delivers on that promise in the final act, and in a relatively brief moment. The restraint is admirable – John Cleese and Michael Palin may be two of the greatest British comedians of their generation, but A Fish Called Wanda is far from a rehash of the chemistry which launched them to fame in their younger years. Top billing here is also given to Jamie Lee Curtis and Kevin Kline, both of whom display a pair of comedic acting chops that see them go toe-to-toe against Cleese and Palin, and often come out on top. This blend of dry English humour and the brazen smarminess of American comedy makes for a delicious mix of character interactions, setting up the patriotic egos of both countries and then knocking them down a few pegs purely through their hilarious, bitter distaste for each other.

When a plot to rob a bank quickly devolves into treachery and back-stabbing, the four thieves at its centre find themselves in direct competition with each other to recover the stashed diamonds. Finding himself mixed up in this chaotic sequence of events is Archie Leach, an attorney who falls for one of these felons, Wanda Gershwitz, while defending her co-conspirator in court. The cultural clash is evident – in an early scene we watch the two Americans, Wanda and her lover, Otto, getting hot and heavy in bed, comically intercut with Archie’s own dull, dispassionate nightly routine of clipping his toenails, getting undressed, and then slipping into his single bed, separate from his wife. Charles Crichton is clearly a much better director of actors than he is a fully-rounded filmmaker, but in moments such as these he clearly delights in manipulating our perspective of the characters and their relationships, finding rhythms in the comedy beyond what is already present in the performances and screenplay.

And then there is the plotting, so formally intricate in its farcical construction of lies, secrets, and MacGuffins, but never letting these characters stray from their idiosyncratic pursuits of clear-cut objectives. Through the frequent pairings of characters who haven’t yet met, there is a freshness that is kept alive in the emerging dynamics. What sort of friction will we see when the insecure, Anglophobic thief Otto rubs up against Wendy, a posh, judgmental Brit? What about when the usually-patient Archie needs to extract important information from Ken, who possesses an intense stutter? How far can Otto’s jealousy be pushed when his scheme to recover stolen goods necessitates his girlfriend seducing another man? What A Fish Called Wanda ultimately delivers from this delightfully ridiculous onslaught of petty conflicts is an ensemble of Americans and Brits frustrated by the obstinance of those who stand in their way, not realising that they too possess the exact same qualities, and eventually being driven to the brink of sanity in their dogged, selfish pursuits.

A Fish Called Wanda is available to stream on Stan, and available to rent or buy on YouTube.

John Huston | 2hr 9min

In an era when American directors like Stanley Kubrick and Robert Altman were pushing the boundaries of cinema with the cynical and risqué artistic expressions of New Hollywood, John Huston was still finding joy in the classical Technicolor adventures that were more popular in the industry’s Golden Age. At the same time, it is important to note that this particular adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s novella The Man Who Would Be King could not have been made under the censorship of the Production Code, especially given the debauchery and outright irreverence of its two central characters, Daniel and Peachy. On page, neither are entirely likeable in their overt representations of imperialistic British hubris, and yet the performances of Sean Connery and Michael Caine tactfully draw out the self-deprecating, even endearing foolishness of both men, setting up a pair of boisterous egos we wouldn’t mind seeing knocked down a few pegs.

After being mistaken for a god by the locals of a Kafiristan village, Daniel quickly latches onto delusions of grandeur, becoming a literal manifestation of British colonisation that asserts itself as superior to those foreign cultures they invade and dominate. The greed of men has often been a primary preoccupation of Huston throughout his oeuvre, but never has he expanded it to the large-scale, godlike proportions we witness here, matching the epic historical backdrop against which it is set. Huston has rarely ventured so far into such pure, cinematic spectacle, using sweeping long shots to isolate Connery and Caine upon the snowy Khyber Pass, filling his frames with extras in kinetic battle scenes, and later, simply letting us gaze upon the holy city of Sikandergul, sitting high up on the peak of a rocky mountain range. With the whole world laying itself at their feet, Daniel and Peachy quickly grow carried away with megalomaniac aspirations of wealth and power.

“The two richest men in England.”

“The empire.”

“The world.”

But just as we observe, the path to glory is through a precariously stacked tower of falsehoods. At Daniel’s wedding to a beautiful local woman he barely knows, Huston builds a frenzied pace in his cutting, reminding us of a holy statue’s all-seeing eye caught in intimidating low angles, all the while the percussive beats played by black-clad musicians build to a feverish crescendo. We fully expect the artifice to come tumbling down around them in this moment, but given the light, reckless tone with which Daniel and Peachy have ripped through these foreign lands and cheapened cultural customs, we aren’t prepared for the heavy weight of the comeuppance when it finally arrives, revealing the true devastation which Daniel and Peachy have wreaked in their careless endeavours.

In a moment of poetic justice, the tearing down of Daniel’s greatest infrastructural achievement during his time as King brings about his own personal, literal downfall as well. Huston offers some sympathy for the death of this rollicking friendship between two arrogant, irresponsible adventurers, though he has no misgivings regarding how it came about. The men and women of Kafiristan may have dealt the final blow, but the fault lies entirely at the feet of these two pompous Brits who believed the world was theirs to own.

The Man Who Would Be King is available to stream on The Criterion Channel, and available to rent or buy on iTunes, YouTube, and Google Play.

Lawrence Kasdan | 1hr 45min

With an absolutely stacked cast featuring up-and-coming names including Jeff Goldblum, Glenn Close, Kevin Kline, William Hurt, and Tom Berenger, there was no way The Big Chill wouldn’t leave a mark on its audiences, even just for the acting alone. Kasdan mixes and matches different combinations of these great screen talents from scene to scene, always finding fresh, vibrant character interactions within this group of former high school friends. It creates tension between some, and sparks of romance between others, but binding them all together is the reason for the gathering – the death of an old comrade, which in turn comes to represent the death of an entire era. Both joyful and painful memories of their shared pasts are brought back to the surface after years of dormancy, this familiarity revealing itself in their unexplained inside jokes, communal habits, and even just the way they groove along to the music of their adolescence while preparing food in the kitchen.

Most of all though, these friends are all haunted by the grief felt for the suicide of a man they thought they knew so well. Kevin Costner was originally cast in the role of Alex, the deceased friend, and although all of his scenes were cut from the film, that feeling of emptiness remains, leaving a great deal of ambiguity in our minds around his character. What prompted this act to begin with? Did he realise some great, despairing truth about the hopelessness of living in modern America that hasn’t settled in for the others yet? Why didn’t he share his pain with them? Could it have even just been a freak accident?

While many of his friends are happy to distract themselves from the tough questions for a while, the lack of answers forces them to turn inwards to consider their own insecurities. Sam, a famous TV star, is the one to prompt this contemplation, as he in particular feels the great weight of a reputation that he can’t live up to pressing in on his life. All throughout The Big Chill, he finds that he is only ever celebrated and respected for the accomplishments of the character he plays on television, despite not even being able to smoothly leap into a convertible like he is so famous for. It is in this group of friends who have seen him at his most awkward and vulnerable, as a young adult, that he finds genuine acceptance. Though it is far from a permanent fix, this insular world that keeps alive the spirit of a bygone era is the one he, and the rest of his friends, wish to live in. Eventually the cynicism and meaningless of a nihilistic, contemporary American culture will creep back into their lives, but for now, this brief return to a hopeful past is all they have to cling onto.

The Big Chill is available to stream on the Criterion Channel and Binge, and available to rent or buy on YouTube.

Mel Brooks | 1hr 28min

Mel Brooks may be a greater writer than he is a director, but there is no holding back in either department when it comes to his film debut, The Producers. He wastes no time in zooming from one plot point to the next like a Marx Brothers routine, and it takes great comedic talents like those of Gene Wilder and Zero Mostel to not just match his brisk pace, but to push it even further. On top of that, The Producers would simply not work if Brooks had anything less than a full ensemble giving it their all in sending up the executives, directors, actors, writers, and even accountants of the musical theatre industry, in all their highly-strung, neurotic quirks.

Brooks’ main and supporting roles take turns playing the fool and the straight man as each scene sees fit, and yet all of their idiosyncrasies are always kept in mind to realise the full comedic potential of each interaction. These are some of Brooks’ best characters, and the groundwork he does in building them up makes for remarkable farcical pay-offs that almost always call back to established running gags and key character traits, from Max Bialystock’s willingness to degrade himself to hysterical lows for money, to Roger De Bris’ vain conviction that self-expression is humanity’s most noble pursuit.

Continuing to lift The Producers above many of Brooks’ other directorial efforts is the pure insanity of his editing choices, as he builds the opening credits from freeze frames of Max’s sweaty face in the midst of a playful yet desperate affair with an older woman, trying to extract money from her. Later, Brooks’ set décor vividly complements the lunacy of the characters that inhabit them – the red walls of the restaurant, the blue curtains of the bar, the oranges and whites of Max’s office, and especially the yellow patterned wallpaper of Roger De Bris’ apartment, luridly clashing with the theatre director’s blue, sequinned dress.

Finally, we reach the brazenly offensive musical production, ‘Springtime for Hitler’, complete with pretzel bras and a Busby Berkeley-style dancing swastika. As the camp tastelessness of these artists is revealed in the flamboyant, Nazi regalia, Brooks’ abject, visual artistry fully manifests in all its scandalous glory. And then, just as that reaches its peak, so too does his hilarious send-up of these entitled creators who rip through hallowed topics with reckless abandon, monetising controversy for their own tactless, selfish purposes.

The Producers is available to rent or buy on YouTube.

Jia Zhangke | 2hr 17min

A monstrous volcano emerges from a landscape of flat, green fields, rising up in the background where mob boss, Bin, teaches Qiao, his lover, how to shoot a gun. “Anything that burns at a high temperature is made pure,” she ruminates, gazing at its beauty, and Jia Zhangke thus draws up the central metaphor which defines the three chapters of Ash is the Purest White. She suffers deep losses and hardships for the sacrifices that she makes, but rather than letting this intense pressure corrupt or embitter her attitude, she becomes assertive, kind, and clever – the purest version of herself. Where the trifurcated narrative structure of Jia’s previous film, Mountains May Depart, was slightly weakened by its lack of formal consistency, it serves a much greater purpose here in capturing the three stages of Qiao’s emotional growth, each represented by a specific colour.

In the year 2001, green is chosen to characterise Qiao’s youth, naivety, and inability to fully grasp worldly matters. It is there in the painted walls, stained glass, and mahjong tables where Bin and Qiao spend much of their time, but it is also present in the open fields when she is taught how to shoot a gun and, more significantly, the principles of the “jianghu”. This Chinese term lacks any direct English translation, but in remaining the only Chinese word left untouched and “pure” in the film, it retains a unique cultural significance. Traditionally, it has referred to the martial arts community of wuxia tales, and in more recent times it has been used in reference to criminal underworlds. But most importantly, it is spoken of here as an ethical code, through which its adherents persevere until they either break or strengthen in spirit.

Jia, still wearing his Michelangelo Antonioni influence on his sleeve, remains dedicated to the manmade architecture and natural landforms in his backgrounds, especially in his visual emphasis on the vast, green volcano protruding from a flat terrain. It forms a stirring backdrop to Qiao’s own grappling with the tenets of jianghu, reminding us of the intense pressure that may form within this otherwise isolated, apparently innocuous being. In an incredible long take towards the end of this chapter that showcases a tightly choreographed fight scene lit by neon green lights, we watch as Bin is violently beaten by assailants, this ordeal only coming to an end when Qiao interferes and puts herself at risk.

After taking that first step into the heat of the volcano, Qiao is whisked away from Bin for five long years, and takes the opportunity to mould her identity in the flames of hardship. Quite appropriately, this second chapter to her story becomes a passionate, fiery red. In a direct call back to Still Life, Jia returns to the Three Gorges Dam as the site of these ex-lovers’ reunion, once again using the slowly-flooding city to remind us that this is where cultural histories and personal memories come to die. Where this setting was permeated by a green haze in Still Life, it is now infused with a faint, yellow tint, and punctuated by bursts of red in furniture, flowers, costumes, and of course, the vivid Wushan Yangtze River Bridge, its façade appearing for a third time in Jia’s filmography.

It is surely no coincidence that the film which marks perhaps Zhao Tao’s best performance to date also demonstrates a particular interest on Jia’s part in the way she is blocked against other actors. Jia’s muse has always been a reliable vessel in conveying ambiguous, internal conflict, but never more so than in Qiao’s eventual confrontation with Bin, where she just cannot summon the respect to make eye contact with him. Though seething with feelings of betrayal, Zhao also brings a quiet confidence to Qiao’s recognition that the issue lies in his own brokenness, having buckled under the pressure of the jianghu lifestyle. Even as the décor of the hotel room where they meet is still painted in vivid reds, a green, neon light shines through the window, subtly reminding the ex-lovers of the innocent past they once shared, and pushing them on to some sort of resolution.

The cool, blue hues of the final chapter emerge almost immediately after this meeting, as if Qiao’s impassioned disposition has been suddenly lifted out of the volcano and doused with water. It is in the shift to 2017 though, nine years later, that we meet Qiao in her final, purest form, sitting as a high-ranking member of the jianghu which Bin once governed. After suffering a stroke from his alcoholism, Bin is now bound to a wheelchair and comes calling to Qiao for help, recognising her as the strongest, most dependable person in his life. The relationship that reignites between them isn’t romantic, but rather protective and considerate. Returning to the volcano backdrop where he taught her about jianghu all those years ago, she now teaches him how to walk again, returning the favour in a touching moment that brings their relationship full circle. Perplexed by her persistence in helping him despite all he has done to hurt her, she recalls the self-sacrificing principles of jianghu which he has forgotten.

“In the jianghu we talk about righteousness. You’re no longer in the jianghu. So you wouldn’t understand.”

Though each chapter in Qiao’s journey is separated by Jia’s shifting colour palettes, they are bound together by his return to the more naturalistic style of camerawork that governed his earlier films. Whether he is moving between characters in mid-shots and close-ups to capture the heat of an emotionally charged moment, or setting it back to absorb the full architectural weight of their surroundings, his long takes effectively preserve the realism of each scene, letting the progression of moods emerge organically without the manipulation of overzealous cutting.

As we see in the inexplicable insertion of a reality-shattering UFO though, Jia isn’t always able to muster up the formal conviction that he has shown in his strongest works, especially as this exact same device was used to much greater effect in Still Life. But at the same time, this film still stands among his most structurally impressive, as he instils its sound design, music, architecture, and colours with a soothing repetition that echoes down through all three chapters of Qiao’s life. Many of Jia’s previous movies might be more accurately described as landscapes than portraits, and yet it is in his interweaving of several complex, recurring motifs in Ash is Purest White that he creates an epic character study of feminine strength, and its moulding in the fiery heat of adversity.

Ash is Purest White is currently unavailable to stream in Australia.

William Wyler | 1hr 44min

The year 1939 was a tough one for any filmmaker who isn’t Victor Fleming to direct an adaptation of a classic novel, especially when they are competing with such resounding Technicolor successes as Gone With the Wind and The Wizard of Oz. But even in spite of being slightly overshadowed, William Wyler still manages to create the definitive cinematic interpretation of Wuthering Heights, delving deep into the relationship of Cathy and Heathcliff, two twisted lovers who cannot separate themselves from each other.

Though much credit must be given to Emily Brontë for crafting such a compelling narrative and rich characters to begin with, the masterful translation from page to screen that writers Charles Macarthur, Ben Hecht, and an uncredited John Huston undertake shouldn’t be undervalued. There are sacrifices that are made from Brontë’s original text, most notably the entire second half about the children of Cathy, Heathcliff, and Hindley, but in implementing these changes the focus of Wuthering Heights remains on its core group of characters. Given that there are moments where some of the heavier emotional beats are little rushed over, it is indeed rather fortunate that this film isn’t any denser than it is.

At its centre is the strong-minded Catherine Earnshaw, whose relationship with surrogate brother and lover Heathcliff becomes the tragic obsession upon which everything else hangs. Merle Oberon doesn’t have the magnetism necessary to pulling off a famous literary heroine in the same way as someone like Vivien Leigh, though it must be a doubly tough task when trying to stay afloat in any scene against a handsome, young Laurence Olivier. How fitting he is for Heathcliff, being a relatively fresh-faced newcomer to the film industry and yet exuding a magnificent, self-possessed screen presence. He especially plays well into the air of mysterious confidence about Heathcliff, even before discovering his fortune as an adult. It is as if the brooding lover possesses some precognisant awareness that he is destined for greatness, and as such holds tightly onto oaths of vengeance against those who wrong him.

Over time, Heathcliff becomes the personification of Cathy’s childhood home, Wuthering Heights – or perhaps it is the other way round, with the manor absorbing his foreboding austerity, gradually dimming from bright, natural light into gloomy shadows. Wyler’s collaboration with Gregg Toland is an important one, as the cinematographer who would go on to shoot Citizen Kane puts his deep focus to excellent use here in capturing Wyler’s layered staging of his ensemble within the minimalistic, Dreyer-like architecture of the manor. Rusticated furniture, stairs, and beams that act as dividers between characters, tall, waxy candles rising out of sparse walls and tables – the impression Wyler creates in his stark mise-en-scene is that of a tomb, literally and figuratively trapping the souls of its inhabitants. The outdoors are for the living, where young lovers go to frolic and flirt, but within Wuthering Heights, a stale deathliness hangs in its air. Cathy even feels so bound to this place that she can’t imagine her spirit ending up anywhere else, foreshadowing her own real fate.

“I dreamt I went to heaven, and that heaven didn’t seem to be my home. And I broke my heart with weeping to come back to earth. And the angels were so angry, they flung me out in the middle of the heath, on top of Wuthering Heights.” 

Eventually, we arrive at Thrushcross Grange, and suddenly we find Wyler sweeping us into a whole new world. So often we are kept at a distance from it, peering through windows, doors, and over garden walls like an outsider, but when we move inside, the décor is everything that Wuthering Heights is not, opulently adorned with chandeliers and white columns. Wyler also lifts his camera off its tripod here to elegantly float it through the space, bringing a delicacy to this aristocratic world. In a ball scene the camera observes the dancing in the reflection of a wall mirror, before drifting through the splendidly-dressed crowd, rising up to a high angle, and then proceeding to move between rooms, letting this smooth shot play out for a full minute before cutting.

If the sullen Wuthering Heights is Heathcliff, then Thrushcross Grange is Edgar, the rival suitor with from a wealthier, more stable background. Both tug at Cathy’s heart and mind, and yet in the end it isn’t even a conscious decision which decides her fate. “I am Heathcliff,” she proclaims, as if the choice was baked into the very fabric of her own intrinsic identity, thereby yielding to the dark allure of her eerie, limbo-like childhood home. With such a rigorous dedication to turning the architecture of these settings into characters, Wyler cuts right to the heart of Emily Brontë’s novel, submerging his tragic paramours in a ghostly melancholy that haunts them through life and death.

Wuthering Heights is available to stream on Amazon Prime Video and Kanopy.