Andrea Arnold: Wuthering Heights

Andrea Arnold does not like to play it safe. In this revealing interview, she says, "When I'm working, I don't like to make things easy for myself. I create trouble and make things very difficult so that every day is full of challenges and I never know how it's going to turn out." The filmmaker, whose last feature was the 2009 film Fish Tank, was compelled to take on an adaptation of Emily Bronte's novel Wuthering Heights as her next project. Arnold scrutinized every aspect of the book in order to push herself creatively. For instance, she cast a black man as Heathcliffe, which she says felt obvious to her given clues Bronte's text. She also shot the film in old Academy 4:3 aspect ratio, instead of widescreen which "feels like you're watching a Wimbledon match," she says. She may have kept the setting and the costuming true to the book's origin, but the pictures and the emotions feel completely modern, making this version of Wuthering Heights unlike anything that's come before.

Banner image: (L-R) Solomon Glave and Shannon Beer in Wuthering Heights, courtesy of Oscilloscope Labs