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Wuthering Heights (1967)
Faithful adaptation that could have easily been better
As a collector of versions of Wuthering Heights, I was very excited to obtain this 1967 miniseries on DVD and watch it for the first time. On the whole, this is an impressively faithful rendering of the novel – although a few minor liberties might have created a stronger production. Here are my impressions of the positive and negative aspects:
Good: The black and white photography and ever-present howling wind both contribute much to the general bleakness in a way that I found appealing (the wind made it a little hard to hear the dialog at times, though!). They helped to create an atmosphere that seemed musty, suffocating and hostile (the interior scenes), and wild and unpredictable (the moors). Ian McShane is an ideal Heathcliff, dusky and moody and quick to anger. All of the actors were quite well-chosen for their parts, with Isabella, Hareton, Edgar and Linton particularly fine. Cathy is tough to get right but Angela Scoulari is convincingly childish, petty, fervent and hysterical by turns.
Bad: The acting is a little over-the-top in a manner usually found in the theater, not in a film, where subtlety can be appreciated. Even the hairpieces and mustaches seemed like stage contrivances that would be fine at a distance, but not good enough for close camera scrutiny. And Angela Scoulari is appealingly pretty but her voice was quite high-pitched and forced, as though she was trying hard to sound younger. I found myself turning the volume down at times to soften the squealing tone of it. As for the storyline, they gave us almost none of the tender moments on the moor between young Heathcliff and Cathy; one moment she and Hindley are tormenting him relentlessly, then Hindley goes to school and suddenly she and Heathcliff are inseparable. They could have easily spent a little more time establishing their unnaturally close bond, and sacrificed a little of the slower, dragging pace of the 4th part.
Well worth seeing for viewers who love the novel
B.T.K. (2008)
Guess what -- it's all a dream/nightmare
As many reviewers here have noted, the events in this film are substantially different from Dennis Rader's BTK crimes. It's poorly acted and just plain gruesome. But I do think I understand what this production was attempting to do.
This film picks up in 2004 when the BTK crimes had become a cold case to the police, who are surprised to start getting letters from BTK again. We enter the deranged mind of Dennis Rader as he sleeps -- and DREAMS -- about the other crimes he has been considering committing, and how it might play out if he were caught. Yes, folks, this whole thing is a BTK dream (but the audience's nightmare). Rader admitted freely that he had been stalking and planning other murders when he was finally arrested in 2005, and several of the women he harasses/kills in this film fit the known details of his intended targets. In reality, a couple of women had restraining orders on him and one even moved away because of his harassment -- and two of the women he stalks in this film are clearly based on them.
At first, while watching this, I didn't understand why they would include so much factual information (actual poetry and drawings) but then depict murders that never happened. But the similarity to his intended future victims is what made me see what they were up to: the cliché old dream sequence technique.
However, even understanding that doesn't redeem this voyeuristic and gratuitously violent film. The lead actor physically resembles Rader in many ways and does his best to appear menacing. The women mostly overact (his wife "Susan" and one of the daughters, for example) or underact (the other daughter).
Wish I had never watched this. Made me feel like I had been dragged through scum and needed to take a shower.