Simply Sue: Wuthering Depths
Having decided that Yorkshire was not a suitable place to film Wuthering Heights, where did the film makers look? Uzbekistan? Sue Papworth has some fun speculating on the sleight to her home county.
They decided not to film the latest version of Wuthering Heights in Yorkshire because they couldn’t find anywhere that looks right. I don’t know where else they’d looked, but if the usual brand of filmic authenticity comes in, I’d guess Monument Valley or somewhere in Uzbekistan. Anyway, according to London Weekend Television, Yorkshire isn’t the quiet rural place it was in Emily Bronte’s time.
By gum.
They’ve obviously not been looking at the right bits - but for Pete’s sake don’t go and tell them where they are!
Haworth’s been pretty well Bronted to death already. They don’t need windmills up on the moors to generate power for the Worth Valley - the whole place runs off power generated by the unfortunate sisters rotating at high speed in their crypts at the stuff carried out in their names - and what most of it has to do with them and their boozy brother has me beat.
The Bronte Kawasaki Centre. Charlotte, in black leather, on a huge Japanese bike? I suppose she did like travel… Bronte Panel Beaters. Emily braying stuff with a seven-pound hammer? Well, she was a tough lady… The Bronte Burger Bar. Anne slinging hash, with a fag stuck to her bottom lip? Look, I’m not too sure about all this…
I’d put my money on there being a Bronte Hang Gliding Centre, and even a Bronte Karaoke Bar And Pie And Pea Bistro Centre - but oddly enough, I’ve not spotted a Branwell Bronte Opium Parlour. Though there is a Bronte model shop… “I’ll have a small Branwell, please, and a large Emily to use as a doorstop…’’
I hope they all come back and haunt them. I think Emily would probably do it with a machine gun.
There have been questions in the House about preserving Top Withens, the farmhouse some folk think is where Emily based Wuthering Heights - though anyone who’s read it knows it’s located firmly in her imagination, and no less real for that. Some Parliamentary idiot made a crack about listing Cliff Richard instead, but if the Department of Not Mucking Up Our Heritage has a few more brains, it’d see that Top Withens stays a ruin, and doesn’t get turned into some kind of gin palace. And when it comes to filming, maybe they should stick to doing Wuthering Heights on the radio, where the scenery’s so much better.
We’ll all know exactly what it looks like.
