LITGASM PLUS

[la_belle_laide]

SWEET PYGMY JESUS, TOM HARDY AS HEATHCLIFF.

I've been jonzing to look at something else with T-Hard in it, since Inception and RockNRolla. Inception, which was really kind of just nifty for me, obviously ate my entire soul with its glorious cast, enough to make me fanpoodle. RockNRolla, tons of fun. Tom Hardy, sex even when he's camwhoring like a moron.

Wuthering Heights, I say without shame, is one of my favorite books ever written. So rarely done well on screen.

Thank you for not making Heathcliff some sympathetic victim. He killed puppies, okay, let's not get too far away from that. And while I can totally do without puppy-killing in a movie, I mean, the fact remains that Heathcliff was really kind of a monster. Obviously he didn't have too much of a choice and all (if you go by cycles of abuse and the nonexistent recourse that abused people had in that setting) but seriously: unrepentant.

OMG, thank you, T-Hard, for giving Heathcliff such quiet menace and thinly controlled rage, unnnnnffff, thank you for not having to yell and scream in order to convey that kind of wrathful heartbreak that we all wish we could act on. Umm, sometimes.

I think it's sad that people miss the point that Wuthering Heights makes about the cycle of abuse, the idea of which was so ahead of its time. It saddens me that people just see it as some kind of early romance novel. The book was so difficult, brutal and heartbreaking. And so, at its heart, about child abuse. (I'm getting repetitive; sorry. It's late? Long, emotional day, topped by this film?)

I remember my professor from college, she was mad awesome and I valued her so much, and her opinions which I either agreed with naturally or quickly adopted, because she was just right most of the time and because she had such passion for literature. We used to have these endless conversations about the assigned books, in her office or after class, and one time she had a tea party at her house where a bunch of other English majors sat and geeked out for hours. We'd hang around and talk about who we'd cast as our heroes and villains.

Once, she told me that she could only picture Catherine as me, since she'd met me. Another professor disagreed, saying I wasn't insane enough. (He was lovely, I doted on him. But he didn't quite get me. ;D ) In fact when she said that, we were discussing the scene where Catherine flips her crap and starts bashing her head in (I haven't seen that part yet; the movie is a two-parter and I really, really hope they go there.)

I know I could never do any kind of justice to something like that, but it was fun to speculate. Catherine was insane; she was so maladjusted, manic, depressive, violent. My professor's favorite line in the book was when Catherine says, "I am Heathcliff. Like, she's so passionate it consumes her entire identity.

I remember another student positing that Catherine and Heathcliff had never banged, because, she said, if they had, "The moors would have caught fire!" I begged to differ; of course they banged, jesus. It's not like they were just crushing on each other.

I'm not yet sure how I feel about Charlotte Riley as Catherine, though. She's beautiful and has the best hair I've ever seen. The costume design they did for her was pretty cool. But she came across as kind of funky, edgy and free-spirited, rather than the BITCH CRAZY I've always preferred her. Why do we not push the envelope with Catherine? Though like I said, I haven't yet watched part two. She's still got time to be all head-bashing and baby-shaking. (Although, they gave the head-bashing scene to Heathcliff already, so.)

UNNNNNNGGGG Tom Hardy is so hot and scary in this. He plays it real quiet but that makes him more intimidating. He's all "Beeatch you'd better get used to appeasing me" and I'm all, homeboy I'd appease you like a screen door in a hurricane, shyeeet.

One other thing I notice about this is how easy it would be to get the dialogue all damn wrong. When you read it on the page, it could easily come across as stilted and false. This movie suffers no such flaw. It just flows. There's something about—yes--Tom Hardy's delivery that's really, really simple.

If anyone here hasn't heard him speak, do so.

Anyway, I am so floored when people make acting seem so effortless. You have to be really unselfconscious, that's for sure. I mean you totally have to utterly, without reserve, completely not care wtf anyone thinks of you at any time, ever. I hope that by my use of many adverbs you can understand how true that is. It seems such a simple thing, but it isn't: to let go of that "but what if someone judges me?" and "how do I look when I say or do these things?"

(This is why I could never really act. Not in a dramatic role, I mean. Making people laugh or whatever, that's different. When they laugh, it's because you're doing it on purpose. Umm, my own issues. Anyway.)

Okay, I've already gone on like thirty paragraphs longer than I meant to. This has made me want to dig up the paper I wrote on this book. I know it's in a drawer somewhere with the rest of all my damn papers I wrote for my BA.

So, yeah, Tired!Effusive!me has gone on way too long.

Everyone should look at Tom Hardy. I want to share him like Christopher Nolan seems to want to. He's brilliant, to use an already overused word for actors. No, but he really is.

Comments

[malenka-zeut.livejournal.com]

How'm I supposed to go to work now??? I'll get right on that one. So to speak.

[shonagonchan.livejournal.com]

It's just, gahhhh, words don't even. Wait till you hear him speak.

[shonagonchan.livejournal.com]

(http://s103.photobucket.com/albums/m157/importantphotos_album/?action=view&current=TomisHeathcliff.jpg)


Also let me know what you think afterwards. Once you're done with your mental cigarette. ;D

Oh, yo that's mothereffing huge, lemme edit that down a bit.

THAT'S WHAT HE SAID only not "edit." I guess.

OKAY, there we are. Only it's just no good until you've heard him speak. He's just given my a voice-kink.