Hee hee! Why not, indeed? :) Those high-waisted breeches are a thing of beauty, it's hard to deny!
I promise I am not attempting to stan the '83 miniseries in an annoying way, it has plenty of problems and I'm watching it through the forgiving lens of nostalgia, but I will just leave a link here in case you're ever in the mood to take another look at it (the whole thing is on YouTube). I think it does better than average in a lot of the areas that you've mentioned as important to you (it certainly doesn't focus on the romantic pairing and nothing else!): 1983 Jane Eyre episode playlist
I agree, Wuthering Heights is so unusually structured - and so deeply ambivalent about its own romance - that most adaptations struggle badly with it. The two-episode 2009 series with Tom Hardy as Heathcliff is the only one I've ever come across that I liked, though it still doesn't have enough time to be as complex as the novel. But it's trying; its heart's in the right place. According to Wikipedia, the script writer on that one said:
Peter Bowker observed: "How do you go about adapting the greatest love story in literature? Well, firstly by acknowledging that it isn't a love story. Or at least, it is many things as well as a love story. It's a story about hate, class, revenge, sibling rivalry, loss, grief, family, violence, land and money...".
He noted that the book had previously proved "stubbornly unadaptable", the most successful version being the Hollywood picture starring Laurence Olivier, which succeeded because "with classic Hollywood ruthlessness they filleted out the Cathy/Heathcliff story and ditched the rest of the plot. It's a great film but it does the novel a disservice."
Bowker hoped to "open up some of the other themes, not least the story of how damage is passed down through generations, how revenge poisons the innocent and the guilty, how the destructive nature of hate always threatens to overwhelm the redemptive power of love" but acknowledged that "structurally, the novel is notoriously difficult".
no subject
I promise I am not attempting to stan the '83 miniseries in an annoying way, it has plenty of problems and I'm watching it through the forgiving lens of nostalgia, but I will just leave a link here in case you're ever in the mood to take another look at it (the whole thing is on YouTube). I think it does better than average in a lot of the areas that you've mentioned as important to you (it certainly doesn't focus on the romantic pairing and nothing else!): 1983 Jane Eyre episode playlist
I agree, Wuthering Heights is so unusually structured - and so deeply ambivalent about its own romance - that most adaptations struggle badly with it. The two-episode 2009 series with Tom Hardy as Heathcliff is the only one I've ever come across that I liked, though it still doesn't have enough time to be as complex as the novel. But it's trying; its heart's in the right place. According to Wikipedia, the script writer on that one said:
Peter Bowker observed: "How do you go about adapting the greatest love story in literature? Well, firstly by acknowledging that it isn't a love story. Or at least, it is many things as well as a love story. It's a story about hate, class, revenge, sibling rivalry, loss, grief, family, violence, land and money...".
He noted that the book had previously proved "stubbornly unadaptable", the most successful version being the Hollywood picture starring Laurence Olivier, which succeeded because "with classic Hollywood ruthlessness they filleted out the Cathy/Heathcliff story and ditched the rest of the plot. It's a great film but it does the novel a disservice."
Bowker hoped to "open up some of the other themes, not least the story of how damage is passed down through generations, how revenge poisons the innocent and the guilty, how the destructive nature of hate always threatens to overwhelm the redemptive power of love" but acknowledged that "structurally, the novel is notoriously difficult".