This past winter, around Valentine’s Day, to be more precise, provocative filmmaker Emerald Fennell released the version of “Wuthering Heights” that she had always wanted to make. The meant making changes to the structure of the text and some of the characters. Whether or not these choices satisfied everyone, there were plenty of strong remarks celebrating the film’s visual design. I too was quite in favor of the stellar composition work, whether that meant admiring the costumes, favoring the set decorations, or taking in the amazing cinematography. Now, with the home release on 4K UHD Blu-ray, I was happy to delve even further into these terrific aspects of the movie by speaking with cinematographer Linus Sandgren, production designer Charlotte Dirickx, and set decorator Susie Davies.
Speaking to Sandgren first, he detailed the creative process behind the film’s visual language, the use of weather as an emotional tool, and the technical decision to shoot on VistaVision and Sandgren detaqils the creative process behind the film’s visual language, the use of weather as an emotional tool, and the technical decision to shoot on VistaVision and 35mm film.
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When asked about Fennell’s approach to the film, Sandgren stated, “We were about to design a film from scratch from her sort of mind… everything—and you will talk maybe with Suzie about it—but how she built sets just from a fantasy version of how she basically saw it.”
With the movie notably shot on film, that choice also had a key reason. Sandgren explained it, “Emerald really felt that the grain was needed for the emotional story… in my opinion, 16 millimeter is the most poetic emotional of all of those usually because… there’s some nostalgia or something that is helping you feel the texture of the skin.”
Of course, with this film, Sandgren had to work with VistaVision cameras. For that format, as he stated, “What’s good with VistaVision for us was that we could have the same film stock and the same format and then just have a VistaVision camera. To me, like everything you—every decision you make should have a reason… usually in emotional stories I think it always helps with film so far… to create that sort of—that you’re actually watching an impression of reality and not reality.”
Sandgren had plenty more to say about the production, including how the film’s visual style was built around “heightened realism,” using a stage-bound environment to create a “magical” and “surreal” atmosphere. Key emotional beats were emphasized through weather motifs. Production designer Susie Davies further expanded this. For Davies, the key was the process of building the film’s “heightened, surreal” world on a soundstage, her meticulous approach to designing the contrasting environments of the Heights and Thrushcross Grange, and the close-knit collaboration between herself, the cinematographer, and the set decorator.
Again, commenting on that “heightened realism,” Davies noted, “We were aiming for that sliver between reality and unreality. And when you’re on a soundstage, we aimed to make it feel real. We didn’t want anyone really to know, but ultimately… You end up with this weird sliver between reality and unreality.”
Davies also recognized that this was something Fennell had wanted to do since her younger days. With that in mind, “This whole world building, you know, this teenage lens that we were going to show this story through, bringing to life her imagination was extraordinary.”
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As a great way to set things up for production designer Charlotte Dirickx, Davies talks about this continued collaboration. As she states, “She’s a real perfectionist, whereas I might cut corners for speed. She knows when to hold fast or, you know, her wealth of knowledge is like nothing else… yeah, she’s extraordinary and so talented with her eye.”
For Dirckix, the experience did have its challenges. As she states, “The production involved highly unusual props and set details, spanning from real fish accented with lipstick set in resin jellies to massive fake strawberries crafted from cake. For the outdoor sets, the team referenced the stagey atmosphere of Florence Yoch’s gardens from Gone with the Wind and Fragonard’s painting The Swing, adding 12-foot weaves of dried gypsophila to construct a dreamlike background.
This also spoke to the anachronistic take that was key to Fennell’s vision. “…We would take like a period shape, say for the furniture, but then upholster it in a kind of different or more modern fabric. So you’ve always got that slight jarring going on.”
It’s this wide variety of choices that allows for the movie to stand out as much as it did in theaters. I was quite the fan and would have been happy spending so much more time with each of these three to dive even further into what the process of making so many exciting choices to realize this fully realized version of the world, originating with Emily Brontë and reimagined here by Fennell, was like. Given that all of these craftspeople worked on Saltburn as well, I’ll certainly be curious to see what they all tackle next.
Wuthering Heights is now available on 4K UHD and Blu-ray.
