Wuthering Heights director warns remake will recreate novel’s ‘enormous sadomasochism’
'There’s a reason people were deeply shocked by it.'
Emerald Fennell has made a ‘primal, sexual’ version of Wuthering Heights that her 14-year-old self could connect to.
The Saltburn filmmaker is working on an adaptation of Emily Brontë’s classic novel, featuring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi in the lead roles, which has already stirred up controversy with its raunchy trailer.
But the 39-year-old director, who thinks there is an ‘enormous amount of sadomasochism’ in the book, recalled how she has felt a ‘profound connection’ with the story since she first read it as a teenager.
Speaking for the first time about her upcoming movie at the Brontë Women’s Writing Festival in Yorkshire, she explained: ‘I wanted to make something that made me feel like I felt when I first read it, which means that it’s an emotional response to something. It’s, like, primal, sexual.
‘It cracked me open [as a teenager]. It’s difficult, it’s complicated, it’s just not like anything else. It’s completely singular. It’s so sexy. It’s so horrible. It’s so devastating.’
According to the BBC, she added: ‘I wanted to make something that was the book that I experienced when I was 14.’
