Tess of the d'Urbervilles

[rogerzilla]

What's the point?  The definitive version already exists.

Tess (1979)

Some of the casting in the new version looks dreadful, too.

[Chris S]

TV.

Pfft!

Life is much more fun!  .

[LEE]

What's the point?  The definitive version already exists.

Exactly what I think every time the BBC launch a new version of a drama that already exists (usually made by them as well).

It's not as if the clothes look more dated after 20 years.

Give it 10 years and they'll be launching a new "Elizabeth I"

[Chris S]

Isn't this how it works though?

TV recycle so much general stuff - including The Classics.

But they also do new stuff. And occasionally, Something Special happens.

Edge of Darkness
The Paradise Club
Local Hero (Channel 4)
Lovejoy (Not my taste, but others loved it)

I guess we should accept a lot of Bollox in exchange for those "FFS this is F brilliant! Where the F did this come from?!" moments.

[LEE]

Isn't this how it works though?

TV recycle so much general stuff - including The Classics.

But they also do new stuff. And occasionally, Something Special happens.

Edge of Darkness
The Paradise Club
Local Hero (Channel 4)
Lovejoy (Not my taste, but others loved it)

I guess we should accept a lot of Bollox in exchange for those "FFS this is F brilliant! Where the F did this come from?!" moments.

That's the problem, they aren't recycling the classics, they keep remaking them.  It'll be "I Clavdivs" next

If they stopped remaking dramas that were already perfectly reasonable they could make more new stuff (and increase the chances of creating some more FFS moments). 

[ChrisO]

Sometimes though recycling classics produces something that is also a moment of brilliance.

Like the episodic Bleak House - the one with Scully from X-files. One of, if not the, best adaptations of Dickens I've seen.

[vince]

It hasn't exactly inspired me so far. I've liked Hardy since my early twenties, but this does'nt have enough of the feel of old Wessex about it.

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

I'm watching the first one just now and it's not holding my attention. I don't much like Hardy's novels though. I love his poetry, but the novels do my head in a bit.

[Notsototalnewbie]

I find the novels are good for making your life seem wonderful by comparison.

He only gave Far From the Madding Crowd a happy ending cos his publishers made him. 

[vince]

That's why I think there is bugger all point in trying to get teenage lads to read the stuff in school. There's no way a youth who is convinced that he can do anything at that age is going to get the message of most of Hardy's stuff. Give it a couple of years and he becomes a good read though 

[onb]

Ive quite enjoyed it ,some of the acting has left a bit to be desired ,but the actual lighting and filming has been bang on .I do wondr where thy got all those long hot summer days fro.When we were in Brittany recently we visited Locranon where Polanski shot Tess in the 70s ,lovely unchanged village spoilt by add on commercialism,and I can see the contradiction there.

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

I've given up on it. I can't cope with the misery.

[Gandalf]

I've given up on it. I can't cope with the misery.

Stick with it, it gets much worse.

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

That's why I've given up. All that misery just for more misery. They should do a contemporary version with the soundtrack by The Smiths.

[Really Ancien]

That's why I've given up. All that misery just for more misery. They should do a contemporary version with the soundtrack by The Smiths.

Or Leonard Cohen.

Damon.

[rogerzilla]

It's a positive grin-fest compared to "Jude The Obscure", or the frankly disturbing "The Well-Beloved".

[Notsototalnewbie]

I thought this was pretty good; she was an excellent Tess.

My nan rang me yesterday and said she was really looking forward to the last episode and she hoped it would have a happy ending 'after the life she'd had'. I broke it to her, as gently as I could, that the ending was not the happiest...would have come as a nasty shock otherwise.

[rogerzilla]

It's OK for Angel Clare; he gets to trade in a slightly loopy wife for a younger model.  In fact, he comes across as a truly unpleasant piece of work.

[Notsototalnewbie]

She was driven loopy by the two men in her life, Angel included. He knows it, too, which is why he's crying his little eyes out in the final scene.

Some say Hardy was a misogynist, but it's the men who are portrayed as shits in this novel.

[Jasper the surreal cyclist]

Perhaps not an intentional misogynist, but he did not write women particularly well. And the men are shits, even the Mayor of Casterbridge has no redeming features at the end.

His poetry is much better, particularly that written to his wife who he had realised he had treated badly.....

[clarion]

Trivia:  Thomas Hardy was a mad-keen cyclist.

But yes, I think that his women tend to be very two-dimensional.  Not much interior life to them at all, and they often end up as ciphers, or objects to which events happen, rather than actors in their own lives.

[Jasper the surreal cyclist]

More trivia, he liked his bacon sprinkled with brown sugar...

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

His poetry is much better, particularly that written to his wife who he had realised he had treated badly.....

I really like his poetry, much much more than I like his novels. I wouldn't say he writes women well in the novels, but the way he writes about Tess is very tender. He's heart-sorry for the way she suffers as a result of other people's behaviour.

[clarion]

More trivia, he liked his bacon sprinkled with brown sugar...

My trivia was more interesting









...and less weird