Wuthering Heights realises Brontë’s vision with its dark-skinned Heathcliff

Posted in Articles, Arts, Literary/Artistic Criticism, Media Archive, United Kingdom on 2011-10-28 18:19Z by Steven

Wuthering Heights realises Brontë’s vision with its dark-skinned Heathcliff

The Guardian
Film Blog
2011-10-21

Tola Onanuga, Freelance Subeditor and Writer

At last, Andrea Arnold has bucked the trend of casting white actors in the role of Emily Brontë’s ‘gypsy’ foundling hero

Andrea Arnold’s forthcoming adaptation of Emily Brontë’s classic 1847 novel Wuthering Heights, will see, for the first time, the character of Heathcliff played on screen by a mixed race actor.

The casting of unknown actor James Howson, who is in his early 20s and from Leeds, shouldn’t be surprising given that Heathcliff was described in the original book as a “dark-skinned gypsy” and “a little lascar“—a 19th-century term for Indian sailors. Among the many screen adaptations of Wuthering Heights—which include musicals, TV serials, a Mexican version directed by Luis Buñuel and an ill-conceived teen romcom produced by MTV—a dark-skinned actor has never been given the role.

Even though Brontë passed away in 1848, one can easily imagine the writer turning in her grave at the prospect of so many white actors portraying her “little lascar” throughout history. As any Briton who’s ever watched an American war film knows, it’s common practice for history to be rewritten during the film-making process, with writers often pushing the boundaries of artistic licence to its very limits…

Read the entire article here.

Tags: , , , ,