A strange way of loving : the Brontean sadistic heart of Jacques Rivette's Hurlevent

Abstract

This essay analyses Jacques Rivette's Hurlevent, the French film adaptation of Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights, in terms of the adaptor's reworking of the novel's major themes and characters in predominantly visual images. The analysis seeks to determine whether the changes created by the film-maker affect the faithfulness and aesthetic worth of Hurlevent as an adaptation of Bronte's text. In the light of various notions of adaptation, such as Battestin's and Armour's theory of analogical autonomy, this analysis also seeks to demonstrate whether this film has succeeded in unveiling the roots of the novel's sadistic traits and the soil from which they stem; the agony of love denied.