Heathcliff has been characterized in previous film and television adaptations almost uniformly as the classically dashing, chiselled Englishman: Laurence Olivier, Timothy Dalton and Ralph Fiennes have all taken up the mantle. Arnold resolutely eschewed painting Heathcliff as this traditional masculine figure, emphasizing instead his dramatic weather-changes and emotional turbulence – “When you look at Heathcliff, he’s really not very male – there’s something not very macho about him, there’s something very androgynous about him. Even though he storms about, and has this very dark side to him and has this reputation as being a brooding character, he had this awful childhood. If people are treated really badly, then perhaps they turn out really badly. I started to think I might have cast Heathcliff as a woman – If I started now that’s probably what I would have done!”

The dearth of films released that are helmed by women is a subject continuously broached the media, but a subject Arnold remains passionate to dissect, “I remember going to a woman’s film festival some years ago and weeping at the films because they were so relevant to me, and thinking it’s a shame that there’s not more films made by women, because there is a different sensibility, a different way of experiencing the world. It’s not completely different, of course, but I do remember being moved, more than usual, and I think it’s because they were communicating something that I don’t see very often.”