Academy Award winning filmmaker Emerald Fennell recently announced her next project on X (formerly Twitter).
The Saltburn director posted an artwork by Katie Buckley with the words “Be with me always,” “Take any form,” and “Drive me mad” above intertwined skeletons. In the center is the title of the 1847 classic gothic novel Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë under the pen name Ellis Bell.
The story follows two landed gentry families residing in the West Yorkshire moors, the Earnshaws and the Lintons. It’s centered on Heathcliff, the Earnshaws’ foster son. He rises up in society and returns to exact revenge on both Earnshaws and Lintons who he believes kept him from his true love, Catherine.
“Whatever our souls are made out of, his and mine are the same.”
Wuthering Heights has been adapted several times in film. The first was a silent film in 1920 but it’s unknown if its print still exists. It was adapted later on in 1939 directed by William Wyler and starring Laurence Olivier as Heathcliff and Merle Oberon as Catherine. The movie was nominated for eight Oscars and won best cinematography, black-and-white. This version only focuses on 16 chapters out of the novel’s 34, which meant that the story of the second generation wasn’t included.
It was again adapted in 1970 directed by Robert Fuest, starring Timothy Dalton as Heathcliff and Anna Calder-Marshall as Catherine. Like the 1939 movie, this film did away with the second generation characters as well.
Its third Hollywood adaptation was in 1992 directed by Peter Kosminsky, starring Ralph Fiennes (in his film debut) as Heathcliff and Juliette Binoche as Catherine. Unlike the previous two adaptations, this movie included the second generation characters.
Wuthering Heights’ latest adaptation was in 2011 directed by Andrea Arnold, with Kaya Scodelario as Catherine and James Howson as Heathcliff. This version focuses on the main characters’ childhood and adolescence. It also deviated from the book since the Earnshaw and Linton households weren’t named. It also cut out certain key parts of the story after Catherine’s death such as Linton’s birth, Linton’s romance with Cathy and Heathcliff’s death.
Fennell, who’s also an actor, appeared as Midge in last year’s Barbie. She also played Camilla Parker Bowles in Netflix’s The Crown. The multi-hyphenate artist first broke out as a writer with her work on the series Killing Eve. She went on to write and direct 2020’s Promising Young Woman, for which she won an Oscar for best original screenplay and nominated for two others, best achievement in directing and best picture.
Fennell’s latest work was last year’s Saltburn which starred Jacob Elordi and Barry Keoghan for Amazon.
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