Pittsburgh Alpha to Omega

Checked out John Schlesinger’s Far from the Madding Crowd adaptation and it’s killer.

5/5 stars

Julie Christie (who turns up in another Nicholas Roeg-cinematographed adaptation of another masterpiece, Truffaut’s Fahrenheit 451) does a solid Bathsheba, with Terence Stamp (Troy [of, yes, the 11th Dragoon Guards]), Peter Finch (Boldwood) and Alan Bates (Oak) episodically freaking out over/being stoically cool about her.  The peripherals, ever central to Hardy’s humor and pathos, are comparably well-cast, Roeg at his finest shooting Dorset, Frederic Raphael’s script faithful as Oak (though Stamp’s Troy, naturally, gets to deliver the pithiest lines, among them, disentangling himself from Bathsheba upon their meeting, “I only wish it had been the knot of knots there’s no untying,” and the pick-upable put-down, “Don’t be so desperate.”), Richard Bennett’s symphonic score is haunting, and the handful of folk songs from the book played and sung are all the important ones.  My favorite set-pieces from the book (Oak deflates the sheep with “a thing made on purpose”, Troy and his wedding guests get their God-forgive-me on, the “gurgoyle” spits on Fanny’s fresh grave) are all there, and even the undercurrent of cynicism in Hardy’s uncharacteristically sunshiny denouement is rendered cleverly.  Sure, a lot of stuff isn’t there, but as a Hardy geek I was pleased indeed with what was and how presented.

While Schlesinger totally does Hardy’s first hit justice (I still  haven’t seen Polanski’s Tess, Winterbottom’s Jude, or any other Hardy-based films save Phil Agland’s The Woodlanders (1997) and Ian Sharp’s Tess (1998), both of which I dug) there’s apparently a 1998 adaptation which may well be more rad (it’s longer anyway) I’m going to have to bug Dean to hook up.

Schlesinger’s Far from the Madding Crowd is available from Dreaming Ant.

Happy viewing and cuídate.

Tags: 11, Alan Bates, Bathsheba, Dreaming Ant, Far from the Madding Crowd, John Schlesinger, Julie Christie, movie reviews, Nicholas Roeg, Peter Finch, Terence Stamp, Thomas Hardy

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 12th, 2009 at 2:23 pm and is filed under Pittsburgh. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.