Do3 - Wuthering Heights

[DracoM]

Astonishingly, in the Grauniad's write-up it assumes that R3 listeners probably need to be shocked out of their feeling that WH is a 'cosy love story'.

EH????????

Nothing like setting up and then stoning a diversionary, speacial pleading Aunt Sally!
I mean, who the heck EVER thought WH was a 'cosy love story'? Have they actually READ it?


Pah!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

It certainly is not a cosy love story, though some screen versions have been a little cosier than the book.

[french frank]

Much has been said of liberalism's turn to the right fiscally. Obviously, I don't like that much. What concerns me far more is this ongoing trend of liberalism being used as a means to promote ultra right wing concepts. This is a relatively new phenomenon here - the last five years - although its roots might be in the sexism of hip-hop. That has always been more Corporation than ghetto of course.

Is it really that? The BBC seems to be facing both ways. It comes down like a ton of bricks on expendable nonentities like Thatcher and that Strictly Come Dancing bloke, facing down the 'PC gone mad' brigade. But they let Moyles and Lamb get away with 'right-wing' insults in the name of 'edginess'.

I think this WH is a bit pathetic with its expletives and 'racist terms', but in general wouldn't it be a higher artistic achievement to attack racism effectively by using the actions and language of racists against them?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I think this WH is a bit pathetic with its expletives and 'racist terms', but in general wouldn't it be a higher artistic achievement to attack racism effectively by using the actions and language of racists against them?

Could you elaborate, or am I just a bit slow?

[Lateralthinking1]

Well, I don't like Moyles or Lamb at all. The "freedom of speech" thing is interesting because you have one team who will swear like soldiers and go crackers over the slightest hint of racism and another that thinks that swearing on the Beeb is diabolical but sloppy or vindictive comments about minorities is ok. I would prefer neither. Now we often get both from individuals. There was never a time when there was neither unfortunately but I don't recall feeling that the absence of non-pc comment was stifling and I wouldn't feel that either with an absence of swearing.

I am fairly easy-going on lapse and error. I am a firm believer in being tolerant if something is said occasionally that isn't all that pleasant. I also think that there are places where swearing actually adds to the atmosphere and I support its occasional effective use in the arts. Additionally, I believe that there is scope for discussion on race. I don't like the clamping down on debate with the reflex "that is racist, that is." But I think that with rights there should be responsibilities. It is that which represents progress. Overall, I'm with JB - I just don't like the offensiveness brand which, as she says, is now given to us almost dictatorially like it is good for our health in the same way as eating five vegetables a day. As for mucking around in that way with the classics and on Radio 3, no, no, no. It is disrespectful and territorially invasive.

I'm not sure what you mean by "in general wouldn't it be a higher artistic achievement to attack racism effectively by using the actions and language of racists against them?". I wonder if this challenges us to consider how this might be the same or different from the way in which I used language to address the sex and swearing in WH? If so, a good question, but I am not quite sure how it would work. I would find it more difficult to do. To be in the clean-up broadcasting room - and I would shudder that this should sound like the NVLA but there is a happy medium, albeit variable according to context - is to be in the minority. To be in the non-racist room is to be in the majority. I am not sure that you can subvert a minority artistically.

Griffin for example is so obviously fringe and Roy Chubby Brown likewise. I am actually slightly controversial on the former. It seems to me that if he ditched all the anti black stuff and focussed solely on the ordinary citizen, he might just have some point in reflecting a few constructive sentiments not represented in the mainstream. As it is, he is who he is, and rather sad it often seems to be too. What do you do? Call him "paleface", a "loner", a "loser"? I've lost this a bit, frenchfrank. What did you mean exactly?

[french frank]

Could you elaborate, or am I just a bit slow?

Well (I think Lat was querying this too), take a drama which has the purpose of attacking racism. In depicting racism it has to somehow rise above merely being racist itself. I don't think it can be right to ban racist language, but to justify its use the message must win out. Substituting obscene language, for example, or nudity, it can often appear to be gratuitous in spite of attempts to justify it. But 'racist language' that was felt to be gratuitous wouldn't be acceptable, would it?

Anyway, to WH: I didn't find the performances as bad as Draco did. The old business of speaking narrative rather than dialogue isn't often satisfactory. I was mildly interested in being reminded of the story.

As for the 'updating', I thought it just seemed false in what is, after all, an 18th/19th c setting. It's part of the attraction of such works that you are taken inside the community and society of the time, not to something in tune with our own time. In any case, we're so battered by obscenities being uttered everywhere that it absolutely doesn't have the effect of 'shocking' in the particular way Holloway intended.

No questioning the power of the novel, and I think this production did capture it (I liked the atmosphere created by the music), it was rough and repellent . But it isn't a play and I found some of it a bit muddling as a result of cutting (couldn't always make out who was speaking either).

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

(couldn't always make out who was speaking either).

This is something I've always found difficult in radio plays. I often wonder whether this is one of the reasons why The Archers has introduced so many characters with regional accents over the years. But you can't really do that with the Brontes.

[Eudaimonia]

As for the 'updating', I thought it just seemed false in what is, after all, an 18th/19th c setting. It's part of the attraction of such works that you are taken inside the community and society of the time, not to something in tune with our own time.

Excuse me? There was more than enough sex and cursing in 18th/19th century literature...here's a little recommended reading:

The Romantic Agony by Mario Praz

http://www.artandpopularculture.com/The_Romantic_Agony

The Romantic Agony is a book of literary history by Italian scholar Mario Praz. First published in Italy as La carne, la morte, e il diavolo nella letteratura romantica in 1930, it is his best-known work. It is a comprehensive survey of the erotic (Romantic) and morbid (agony) themes that characterized European literature of the late 18th and 19th centuries.

Praz's study is concerned with romantic and decadent responses to modernism, a certain psychopathological sensibility in nineteenth century literature. Praz codifies the deviant bourgeois imagination in search of the frisson; sex, horror, the supernatural, making this one of the earliest works of thematic literary criticism of Western literature. The chapter titles are "the beauty of the Medusa, metamorphoses of Satan, the shadow of the divine marquis, la belle dame sans merci, Byzantium, Swinburne and 'le vice anglais'.

***

Definitely worth reading and one of my favourites: what The Grand Tradition did for my knowledge of opera, The Romantic Agony did for my knowledge of literature. I don't know how many hours I've spent hunting down and reading all these great works.

Five stars!

[Lateralthinking1]

It gets difficult this, doesn't it? When I try to think of films in which racist language, and action, have been used to demonstrate that racism isn't good, there has generally been the feeling that it could be interpreted in the opposite way. The same with nationalism of a certain kind. Born in the USA. Where it seems to be most effective is with reference to history. Alex Haley - Roots.

On sex and swearing in art or popular culture, I am aware that I don't find either offensive per se. What I really object to is the constant aggression thrown at us and what I would ask generally is this. First, what percentage of them in culture are set in aggressive contexts and then what additional percentage have some sort of aggressive connotation, ie are there deliberately to cause offence. In total, my estimate would be about 85-90% and it is that which I find objectionable. Their depiction in the media is skewed towards violence. It shouldn't be that way.

[Eudaimonia]

I mean, who the heck EVER thought WH was a 'cosy love story'?

Evidently, a jaw-droppingly large number of [expletive deleteds]:

Wuthering Heights named Britain's favourite love story of all time

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-474388/Wuthering-Heights-named-Britains-favourite-love-story-time.html#ixzz1HvyYSDn7

Yes, I know, I know... "in the US, they've never read it at all".
There. Beat you to it.

[PatrickOD]

The book passed me by. I didn't hear the play. I'll settle for Kate's adaptation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdmvs7r1u9c

[french frank]

Excuse me? There was more than enough sex and cursing in 18th/19th century literature

The point I was making, clearly, I thought, by the use of the word 'updating', was that Holloway's feeble attempts to 'shock' by using everyday street language were unnecessary and ineffectual. Everything is there in the original.

[Eudaimonia]

The point I was making, clearly, I thought, by the use of the word 'updating', was that Holloway's feeble attempts to 'shock' by using everyday street language were unnecessary and ineffectual. Everything is there in the original.

I agree, but was just pointing out that being "taken inside the community and society" of an "18th/19th c setting" doesn't preclude foul language and shocking sexual descriptions. In fact, in addition to all the old favourites, the foul language of the time was a bit more creative than that of today. I would give examples, but know I should probably drop it. Er...nevermind.

Oh, and Lat? You've pontificated at such length about this WH, one would think you'd at least have the common decency to listen to it. In fact, with such a build-up, I was rather looking forward to reading your opinion. Go on...why not? Let us have it!

[Mobson7]

It appears the next adaption of Wuthering Heights is already in post production and will be released here in the Uk in September. The film directed by Andrea Arnold, who was awarded an OBE in the 2011 Queen's New Years Honours for services to film; will star a black Heathcliff, thus going further than 
Emily Bronte's description "he is a dark skinned gypsy in aspect, and a little lascar". James Howson, an unknown actor born & bred in Leeds, was chosen after a 'search of streets' was undertaken! How that happened is told here: www.guardian.co.uk/f...