Milan Records today releases “WUTHERING HEIGHTS” (ORIGINAL MOTION PICTURE SCORE), an album of original score music written by acclaimed composer ANTHONY WILLIS for director Emerald Fennell’s bold interpretation of the classic love story. Available everywhere now, the album is the latest in Willis and Fennell’s ongoing creative partnership, which spans all three of the filmmaker’s feature films. For “Wuthering Heights,” Willis set aside some of the more traditional music interpretations of the novel and instead pursued a sonic palette that reflects the innocence of emotion between the two young leads. His music centers on a plaintive, delicately restrained thematic line, evoking a sense of pure, unadulterated yearning that permeates throughout the onscreen love story and effortlessly intertwines with the original songs by Charli XCX. “Wuthering Heights” is in theaters now from Warner Bros. Pictures.
Of the score, composer ANTHONY WILLIS says, “I’m thrilled for the release of my original score for “Wuthering Heights,” my third collaboration with the brilliant Emerald Fennell, and her unique imagining of this timeless classic. The heart of the score is a rustic theme for Cathy & Heathcliff: intimate, yearning and restrained. Emerald and I wanted to explore that fragile void between tender and stark, ethereal and haunting, hope and doom.
“At Wuthering Heights, ‘C & H’ grow up under the increasingly unhinged temperament of Mr. Earnshaw. This more unforgiving palette features rustling harmonics to evoke the wind, bowed guitars, grunting cellos, and their yearning motif slowed, twisted and fractured around the orchestra. Cathy later finds escape and distraction in the intriguing, but ultimately, hollow elegance of Thrushcross Grange, scored with harps, a music box piano and dulcimer. In the final act, it was a particular highlight to work with Emerald to sculpt the music around Emily Bronte’s iconic lines: ‘Be with me always – take any form – drive me mad! Only do not leave me in this abyss where I cannot find you!’
“This was a very special film for all of us involved and it was a joy to create the score, to complement the fantastic songs by Charli XCX, and Olivia Chaney’s beautiful cover of ‘The Dark Eyed Sailor.’”
ABOUT “WUTHERING HEIGHTS”
From Warner Bros. Pictures and Academy Award- and BAFTA-winning filmmaker Emerald Fennell comes “Wuthering Heights,” starring Academy Award and BAFTA nominees Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi.
A bold and original interpretation of one of the greatest love stories of all time, Emerald Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights” stars Margot Robbie as Cathy and Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff, whose forbidden passion for one another turns from romantic to intoxicating in an epic tale of lust, love and madness.
The film also stars alongside Oscar nominee Hong Chau, Shazad Latif, Alison Oliver, BAFTA winner Martin Clunes and Ewan Mitchell.
Fennell directs from her own screenplay based on the novel Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, and produces alongside Oscar nominee and BAFTA award winner Josey McNamara and Robbie. Oscar nominee Tom Ackerley and Sara Desmond are executive producing.
Behind the scenes, Fennell worked with such frequent collaborators as Oscar- and BAFTA-winning director of photography Linus Sandgren, Oscar- and BAFTA-nominated production designer Suzie Davies, BAFTA-nominated editor Victoria Boydell, award-winning casting director Kharmel Cochrane and BAFTA-nominated composer Anthony Willis. Oscar and BAFTA winner Jacqueline Durran designed the costumes. Original songs by Charli XCX.
Warner Bros. Pictures and MRC Present A Lie Still Production, A LuckyChap Production, A Film by Emerald Fennell, “Wuthering Heights.”
ABOUT ANTHONY WILLIS
Anthony Willis is a two-time BAFTA-nominated composer, best known for his evocative scores for Emerald Fennell’s Oscar-winning Promising Young Woman, her psychological thriller Saltburn (Amazon MGM), starring Barry Keoghan and Jacob Elordi, and her interpretation of Wuthering Heights, which reunites the director-composer duo once again. Another upcoming project includes Soulmate, a new installment in Blumhouse’s M3GAN franchise, following his breakout score for the original film.
He was named one of Variety’s Top 10 Artisans to Watch in 2023 at the SCAD Savannah Film Festival. In addition to his two BAFTA nominations, Anthony also received a SCL Award nomination for Saltburn and several World Soundtrack Awards nominations, including Film Composer of the Year in 2024. His projects also include DreamWorks’ Animation’s Annie award-winning How To Train Your Dragon: Homecoming, Seasons 6-8 of Epic’s video game sensation Fortnite, and Michelle Morgan’s comedy It Happened in L.A.
As a protege of Oscar-nominated composer John Powell and Henry Jackman, Anthony has also contributed additional music to many of Hollywood’s most beloved franchises including How to Train your Dragon, Jumanji, Wreck it Ralph, Solo: A Star Wars Story, Pirates of the Caribbean and Rio.
Originally from London England, Anthony trained as a chorister of St. George’s chapel, Windsor Castle, UK before earning a First-class honors degree in Music from the University of Bristol and a later graduate degree in Film Scoring from University of Southern California.
TRACKLIST
- C & H
- The Kindest Man Alive
- Again & Again
- A Very Important Family
- Thrushcross Mirage
- Kitten in Clover
- I cannot play with you!
- Isabella’s Dollhouse
- Watch me grope for them!
- Dog in a Manger
- Shall I come fetch you?
- You’re not enough for her!
- So kiss me and be damned.
- Nelly’s New Position
- Wounded Swallow
- This is how he loves you?
- Mrs. Heathcliff
- It Is My Name
- I Will Wait for You
- I’ve never believed you!
- Be with Me Always
- Wuthering Heights Suite
- Thrushcross Grange Suite
