Tess (Special Edition)
by Roman Polanski
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DVD details
Actor: Brigid Erin Bates, Jeanne Biras, John Collin, Nastassja Kinski, Tony ChurchDirector: Roman Polanski
Brand: N/A
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; English (Published), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; Spanish (Subtitles For Dubbed)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Special Edition, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: Anamorphic Widescreen, 2.35:1
Running Time: 190 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2004-09-28
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Product features:
- Includes over 70 minutes of Behind-the-Scenes Featurettes.
- * Featurette: Tess, From Novel to Screen
- * Featurette: Filming Tess
- * Featurette: Tess, The Experience
- * English with subtitles in English, French and Spanish.
DVD Reviews of Tess (Special Edition)
DVD Review: Beautiful But Lacking Something
Summary: 4 Stars
I know there has been a lot of praise (and controversy) over Roman Polanski's "Tess", and while I think this is a good film, I wonder sometimes if it is a bit overrated. Don't get me wrong, I have it in my collection, I enjoy comparing adaptations and such, but it's a bit too subdued and slow moving for my taste at times (and I know that it's not a story that can move quickly) and while Nastassja Kinski (of whom I am a fan) is very good and stunningly beautiful in the part, she just doesn't seem like an English country girl to me, she's quite exotic-looking (due to her Teutonic/Slavic ancestry). Her accent is quite good, despite what some have said, but some of her lines are spoken so softly and lowly you have to hit the volume button just to make sure you can hear her dialogue. The fact that Polanski had to film in France due to Britain's extradition laws (he was on the run from US authorities due to statutory rape charges involving a 13-year-old girl), and he had been having an affair with Kinski while she was underage added to a lot of uneasiness and controversy that swirled around the production and its release. It's dedicated to Sharon Tate (of whom I am also a fan), who suggested that Polanski read the novel and consider making it into a film (Julie Christie gave Tate a copy of the book and inscribed it, "To my Hardy heroine", Chrisitie herself having played a Hardy heroine in the 1967 epic Far From The Madding Crowd), which I find very touching. Leigh Lawson is very good as Alec, but he strikes me as a bit too old for the role, Peter Firth comes across as quite lackluster as Angel, not a lot of charisma, while Tess's mother comes off more as a silly matchmaking woman (I know Tess's parents are ignorant, but they should also come across as a bit more exploitative, since they pretty much pimp her out).
There are other things about Polanski's "Tess" that bother me. First off, it doesn't show how the death of Prince is what made Tess go along with her parents insistence that she claim kin. Her guilt over the loss of the family horse is crucial foreshadowing in the plot, but in Polanski's film it's only mentioned that the horse died, so that is somewhat of a loss in the narrative, which is a pity. Also, Tess in the novel, while she was naive in the beginning, she did have spirit and pluck, but she was made very passive and compliant in this film. Perhaps Polanski intended the film to be more introspective, since Kinski has very little dialogue for a film that runs three hours. The Chase sequence lost some of its impact for me when Polanski had Tess push Alec off of the horse and her begging his forgiveness, leading to a kiss and while she struggles with him, it makes it seem as if she is "reluctantly seduced" as one Thomas Hardy scholar noted on the DVD special features than forcibly taken by her "cousin". Or that it showed that Tess stayed on for a while as Alec's mistress, although the novel did say she didn't leave Trantridge until a few weeks after the night in the woods. The romance between Tess and Angel wasn't developed enough to feel for it or long for their reunion. Also, the fact that Alec became a preacher was totally left out, so the explanation of why he reappears in Tess's life is because Tess's mother wrote him telling him of Tess's troubles (the pregnancy, the baby's death, her abandonment by Angel), which seems absurd when she could have wrote him when Tess returned with child from Trantridge. Polanski said in a 1979 interview about the film that he left out Alec's conversion because it was "too Victorian". Whatever. I think he missed a big opportunity there, as well as the fact that the movie jumps ahead in time without much explanation which made it a bit confusing and awkward if you haven't read the novel. Both the BBC mini and the '98 A&E/LondonWeekendTelevision adaptations benefited from including those crucial parts of the plot into their presentations. Of course, none of the presentations are perfect (there's no such thing) but I feel that these latest two capture the spirit of the novel a bit better in some respects. Both Arterton and Waddell captured Tess's inner strength and somewhat independent way (it's interesting to note that Polanski also omitted the scene when Tess argues with her mother after she returns home after working for her "sham kin", regarding the fact that she has been "compromised/violated" by Alec and she did not get him to marry her and how her "condition" is something they'll have to make the best of). Also, we don't get much of an insight into Tess's family dynamic in this 1979 picture (such as her relationships with her younger siblings, and their names). With Kinski's Tess, who was a bit more introverted with her emotions, you sometimes had to guess her thoughts.
The French countryside (Normandy and Brittany) is gorgeous but it is missing that Wessex/Dorset aura - all you have to do is watch other Hardy adaptations (Far From The Madding Crowd, Jude, The Woodlanders and the other Tess versions), to get the idea. I can usually pick up on the authentic feel of certain locations, and I found that was missing in the Polanski film. That's probably one of the reasons why I prefer the later adaptations.
Great costuming though, lovely cinematography and Phillipe Sarde's score is very emotionally in tune with the tone of the story and the changing of the seasons.
Description of Tess (Special Edition)
The daughter of a simple farmer is sent to determine if her family is related to a rich land owning family.Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: UN
Release Date: 7-NOV-2006
Media Type: DVD
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