Retrospective 2016

Hurlevent

Wuthering Heights
Jacques Rivette
FRA 1985
130 min
V'16

HURLEVENT is Rivette’s impressive rendition of Emily Brontë’s “Wuthering Heights”. He shifted the action to the Cévennes and characterised by a wild, sun-drenched landscape where isolated farms can be several miles apart. He also introduced three dream sequences, the most impressive of which is interpolated in the middle of the movie and marks a turning point in the action, the three-year separation of Heathcliff/ Roch from Catherine. The blurring of frontiers between conscious and unconscious perception which is made tangible in this central oneiric scene allows a poignant insight into Catherine’s psyche without any need for words. Rivette understood perfectly well that simplicity in the dialogues, locations and costumes was necessary to avoid the trap of over-dramatisation – into which the old period drama of 1939 (with Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon) had fallen. (Valérie Hazette)

Credits
  • Fabienne Babe - Catherine
  • Lucas Belvaux - Roch
  • Olivier Cruveiller - Guillaume
  • Olivier Torres - Olivier
  • Alice de Poncheville - Isabelle
  • Sandra Montaigu - Hélène
  • Jacques Rivette
  • Suzanne Schiffman
  • Pascal Bonitzer
  • Renato Berta
  • Alix Comte
  • Nicole Lubtchansky
  • Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares
  • Emmanuel de Chauvigny
  • Laurence Struz
La Cécilia, Renn Productions
35 mm
col
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