Tess (1979)

Beautiful to look at, not just the scenery but the art direction as well but overlong and somewhat ponderous. Nastassja Kinski handles the complex lead role with surety and exudes a great deal of charisma and star quality, it's surprising that her career fizzled out so completely but as she matured those qualities in evidence here diminished. Director Polanski's silent tribute to his late wife Sharon Tate at the end of the opening credits with a simple "To Sharon" after his credit is quite moving. She had left the Hardy novel with a note that she thought he would make a fine film of it when she headed back to the states just before her death.

Fmovies: I just viewed the DVD edition of TESS; I loved the Commentaries. TESS is a stunningly beautiful work of art. Thank God for the talent, vision and perseverance of Roman Polanski, his cast, crew and backers.

Given Polanski's celebrated appetite for young girls, I was not surprised that he portrayed the swinish Alex Stokes/D'Urberville in an almost sympathetic light. 17 Year-old Natassia Kinski is imbued with a luminous, almost unearthly beauty, even in the darkest of scenes. No wonder Polanski couldn't keep his hands off her. This film offers us a glance back in time to a long-gone pastoral life and the parochial intolerance of its people and their leaders. All faced the changes wrought by the juggernaut Industrial Revolution.

Long ago, while still in college, I was influenced against Hardy by W. Somerset Maugham's petulant, whining novel, CAKES AND ALE, with its veiled references to Hardy as a pedestrian writer with little artistic merit. Was I surprised when, in 1962, I got around to reading TESS! I was struck by its narrative and descriptive power and its still relevant social commentary. TESS filled me with outrage over the injustice meted out to a spirited, yet simple farm girl, whose main fault was being too beautiful. Following that enlightenment, I read just about everything Hardy has written.

Tess had a lot going for it, a wonderful book and a director that was responsible for masterpieces like Chinatown, Repulsion and Rosemary's Baby. Tess didn't quite live up to the promising potential it did have and I don't consider it one of Polanski's masterpieces. However it is a commendable film and adaptation(even if I do prefer the 2008 BBC series) and better on re-watch than when I saw it a couple of years back and didn't care at all for it. The film is overlong, and while the pace is purposeful considering the book's complexity there are times where it does get a bit too languid. On the other hand, visually it is stunning with evocative scenery and photography. The music is also resolutely haunting, the scripting thought-provoking and literate and the story having its necessary pathos as well as being devastating and powerful in equal measure. The denouncement with Stonehenge as the backdrop is just stunning. The characters are not as complex as in the book or the series but are still interesting and emphatic. Nastassja Kinski does have moments where she is a little flat, but on the whole it is a very moving performance. Peter Firth is suitably subtle as Angel Clare and Leigh Lawson's menacing Alec comes close to stealing the film. Polanski's direction is exemplary. All in all, has much to admire but falls flat of being a truly outstanding movie. 7/10 Bethany Cox

Tess fmovies. Roman Polanski's film Tess, (1979) adaptation of Thomas Hardy famous novel of the 19th century "Tess of the D'Urbervilles" , won many prestigious awards, including three Oscars of six nominations and every award for Best Cinematography it was nominated for. If any film deserves recognition for its beautiful, lyrical, sensual yet melancholic and poetic visual presentation, "Tess" is it. The movie might be Roman Polanski's finest achievement, and this statement comes from a viewer who is in love with all Polanski's films starting with his debut "Knife in the Water". "Tess" is one of the best adaptations of the classic novel I've seen and it lives, breathes and moves freely. It never rushes to tell its long story but tells it with rare finesse, compassion, and love for the heroine, a gentle creature who had been insulted, humiliated, and ultimately destroyed.

The success of the movie starts with the choice of the actress for the title role. Tess as played by 20 years old Nasstassia Kisnki is beautiful, sensual, shy and full of life and hope for love. The life of Tess unfolds in front of us from her teenage years as an innocent country girl until the powerfully tragic final scene at the magnificent Stonehenge. The film is almost three hours long but I never was bored, on the contrary, I felt compassion for the girl and anger toward the men that used and corrupted her, ruined her hopes for love and happiness, and toward the society that mercifully discarded of her. Tess is one of the best movies I've seen. It is stunning, subtle, emotional, tragic, and unforgettable.

Polanski's 'Tess' is rich with images and poetry. To start with, the director really does make use of the countryside and life in the country during the late 1800s. Those themes are presented as characters themselves. And, coupled with the fitting score it gives a feel of what the time may have been like. Along with some fine cinematography, many of the shots linger on the beautiful and yet sad countryside.

The pacing is exceptionally well maintained. 'Tess' is longer than the traditional 100 minute flick but not for a moment does it feel as though it's lagging or dragging in pace.

Another strength of the film is its subtlety. For example, to the director's credit, there's an outstanding sequence of how murder is implied just with a few drops of blood. Even the finally sequence (beautifully done) implies Tess's fate (before the epilogue clarifies it). 'Tess' touches on some heavy themes such as sexism, poverty and betrayal but it doesn't preach about them. Rather it tells the story of a strong-willed, devoted and kind woman who was faulted for being beautiful.

Moreover, the characters are brilliantly layered. The screenplay has safely avoided caricatures). A very young Nastassja Kinski is incredible in one of her early roles. Her restrained performance and gestural expressions are remarkable. Peter Firth does a fine job too. They are supported by very good performers.

This is easily one of Polanski's finest: his most subtle and poetic films. A treat to watch.

This has been my favourite movie since I first saw it in the late 1980s, and I have viewed it probably once a year since that time. My videotape copy was fading and failing, so I was lucky to replace it recently with the Japanese DVD version.

When you compare it to other films made in 1979, it is amazing how little it has "aged". Of course, it is an historical drama, with a "timeless" setting. And yet the cinematography is so assuredly wonderful that the movie is almost as if set in amber.

Many have commented on the score, and it is a pity that this is no longer in issue. Still, there seem to be enough people like myself who are fans of this film, perhaps there is enough of an interest?

While the A and E version was an above-average production, I think Polanski's beats it on almost any characteristic. Polanski's film is a series of tableaux, very few of which do not work well. (One that I find a little bit stupid is the scene where Tess sleeps out in the forest and the deer comes to visit her. Gimme a break!). There are many scenes which, if left in still, look like 19th century portraiture, a la Mary Cassatt or Edgar Degas. The scene where the pedlar comes across Tess at the Crescent Hand! This guy has just stepped out of another century. This is a stunningly visual movie, and perhaps the reason it is so easy to watch time and time again. The dialogue, too, full of the cadences of West Country speech (still there, but disappearing) are an evocation of a lost age. These are hinted at in the scenes showing the modernization of England (the train bringing the milk to market, the threshing machine) which is changing their lives. Tess, and her aristocratic background, are an anachronism, particularly compared with the worldly (and successful) Stokes.

I enjoy the rhythm of the movie, which is rural and slow. Time is marked in slow and languid drips, such as we see with the milk at the dairy farm, and finally with the blood at the boarding house. This is classic story-telling, replete with foreshadowing (particularly Tess' temper and pride). What I enjoyed most is the symmetry of the story-telling, which make it more myth-like, particularly the juxtaposition of the two opening and closing scenes (the dancing of the village girls at sunset, and Stonehenge--which legend has as a circle of giants dancing and frozen by Merlin--at daybreak). Other examples are Alec Durberville's "saving" Tess from a fight with her "rival" and Angel choosing Tess over her rivals on the flooded road.

As you can see, Tess is a movie that replays itself in my mind. Polanski's effort reflects on what I think is one of the greatest 19th century English novels (in my mind, rivaled only by "Middlemarch"), and is a great springboard to further consideration of art and life.