Since this video predates the concept of what music video would become in the following years after its making I won't be too harsh on this one. It's not lame or anything, it's just simplistic and doesn't add much to the history of video clips. The song is a masterpiece and launched Kate Bush to the world in this tale about Emily Bronte's classic novel. This clip version was the one released in U. S. since the other video wasn't much for their taste. Here, Bush wears a red dress and dances with unusual moves in this forest like scenario.
Why the video works: the music, the music, the music. Won't say more than that, although Kate Bush is an interesting and skill-full dancer, and quite a good actress as well, I must say. Her expressions show so many things at the same time while performing the song that I wonder how come she never got acting parts in famous films. I won't say that her act echoes the feelings of Catherine in "Wuthering Heights" but there's some emotion in there that you can't deny that there's something special there. A song that powerful and with such literary reference needed a video to echo the book's theme and the story presented in the song, with actors and some plot to be seen but this was 1978 and clips like that weren't something imagined - despite The Beatles already had things like that, thanks to their movies. However, like the song there is a charm, a mystery and an appealing effect that is hard to describe yet we admire, it's like seeing/hearing an angel, a presence that is hard to find these days. There's a magic that seems everlasting, an element out of this world and that's why we love to hear her singing "Wuthering, Wuthering Heights...Heathcliff, it's me your Cathy, I've come home...". She brings another era into the 20th century and it feels romantic, poetic and wonderful. Decades later and we're still swooning to this magic. 8/10.
Why the video works: the music, the music, the music. Won't say more than that, although Kate Bush is an interesting and skill-full dancer, and quite a good actress as well, I must say. Her expressions show so many things at the same time while performing the song that I wonder how come she never got acting parts in famous films. I won't say that her act echoes the feelings of Catherine in "Wuthering Heights" but there's some emotion in there that you can't deny that there's something special there. A song that powerful and with such literary reference needed a video to echo the book's theme and the story presented in the song, with actors and some plot to be seen but this was 1978 and clips like that weren't something imagined - despite The Beatles already had things like that, thanks to their movies. However, like the song there is a charm, a mystery and an appealing effect that is hard to describe yet we admire, it's like seeing/hearing an angel, a presence that is hard to find these days. There's a magic that seems everlasting, an element out of this world and that's why we love to hear her singing "Wuthering, Wuthering Heights...Heathcliff, it's me your Cathy, I've come home...". She brings another era into the 20th century and it feels romantic, poetic and wonderful. Decades later and we're still swooning to this magic. 8/10.
