The Mayor of Casterbridge
by David Thacker
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DVD details
Actor: Ciarán Hinds, James Purefoy, Jodhi May, Juliet Aubrey, Polly WalkerDirector: David Thacker
Brand: A and E Home Video
Cinematographer: Ivan Strasburg
Editor: St. John O'Rorke
Producer: Delia Fine
Producer: Georgina Lowe
Producer: Sally Head
Writer: Ted Whitehead
Writer: Thomas Hardy
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Format: Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 200 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-09-30
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: A&E Home Video
Product features:
- Destitute and drunken, Michael Henchard is an itinerant farmhand who sells his wife and daughter to a sailor in a moment of alcohol-fueled desperation. So begins THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE, Thomas Hardy s enduringic. This lavish new adaptation from A&E and Britain s ITV stars Ciaran Hinds ("Road to Perdition," "Jane Eyre")as the tragic, tormented Henchard. Decades after his fateful decision, no
DVD Reviews of The Mayor of Casterbridge
DVD Review: Good but fast Casterbridge
Summary: 4 Stars
I enjoyed this version of The Mayor of Casterbridge, although it took me a second start watching it to truly connect and enjoy the ride. I haven't seen any other film version, but have read the book, and consider it one of my favorites, as well as one of Thomas Hardy's best.
On my initial attempt to watch the film, I stopped about 10 minutes into it,and put it aside for several days. Although I thought it beautifully realized (so far as visual quality, setting, and the actors chosen to play the roles), I found the fastpace truly irritating. I must admit, I'd hoped for a much more leisurely, thoughtful rendering of the book. It all felt too rushed - and the beginning is important, as it sets up the entire story and all that follows. If you don't care about the characters in the initial set-up, how can you possibly care what comes after?
I appreciate that with a book being transformed into film, some license must be taken. After all, Sense and Sensibility (Ang Lee's version, that is, with the screen play by Emma T) took plenty of license - combining some characters, leaving others out, and transferring dialogue to characters that in the book had not uttered those particular words - all for expediency, and to keep the film not only moving along. But it "felt" like Jane Austen, and care was clearly taken to ensure that Austen's tone and sense of time, place and circumstance were not sacrificed on the alter of expediency. As clearly Emma and Ang were able to do it (and in a lot less running time than given this version of The M of C), I figured someone bothering to translate The Mayor of Casterbridge to film would be able to do the same.
With this version of The Mayor, all important plot points seem to be there, but the atmosphere/tone of the book I loved so much was sorely lacking - for me, an important issue. Why else does one enjoy and read one author over another? What else makes one brilliant while another (telling a similar tale)pedestrian? Why bother to make a film of an author's work if you are totally insensitive to what it was that made the author go through the long, arduace process of bringing that particular story and those particular characters to life in print?
I finally figured, what the heck! I've already bought the DVD (based on my love of the book), so I might as well watch the thing. And truth be told, I did enjoy it. After awhile, I found myself once again swept up in the story, and actually caring what happens, as I had on reading the book.
Much of that has to do with the casting, and the quality of the actors chosen. All managed to paint vivid impressions with the few brushstrokes the limited time alotted them allowed.
The main characters were extremely well cast. I particularly like the lead actress playing Elizabeth Jane's mother. Frankly (in my opinion), she gave the character more depth than Hardy had in the book, giving flesh to the one character in the book that I had always felt was an enigma. The actress playing Elizabeth Jane was spot on, as was her "love interest", the Mayor's foil. Polly Walker gave a beautifully nuanced performance that truly brought to life a women who continues to choose the direction dictated by her heart, in an age when such choices could mean utter ruin. (In today's world, she'd likely be running the show!) The sexual politics of the day were wonderfully realized through her performance in particular.
And Ciaran Hinds (sp?) was, I thought, brilliant in his depiction of a basically decent man struggling to take possession of his soul, trying to make up for a regretable personal history, continually tortured by the character flaws that continue to haunt. His performance gave final, true weight to the entire endeavor. I must admit I had only seen him in "Calendar Girls" up to that point (in which he was very good as well, in a much more limited role), and was truly impressed at his ability to get across as complex a character as The Mayor of Casterbridge.
So yes, eventually, I allowed the film to take hold, and the high caliber of the acting to sweep me along. But again - and not to give anything away - I wish that more time had been allowed at the end of the film as well.
I do suppose that, as the film was clearly a made-for-television flick, some time constraints were imposed. I just wish that, at times, the director had let us linger just a bit longer at certain points in the story. Cramming everything in Is a talent, I suppose. But more thought should have been given to why Hardy is still read and appreciated nearly two hundered years later (perhaps appreciated more now than during his lifetime).
More care should have been taken to get across all the subtle moments that are the hallmark of Hardy - all the happiness,tragedy, and in-between that reveal who we are as human beings; the choices we make and the consequences of those choices; the sometimes oppressive weight of the society and times we live in; the intentional as well as the unintentional cruelties we sometimes inflict on each other. My feelings for Hardy's work, as I am sure it must be for others, runs much deeper than his ability to spin a good yarn. When I read the Mayor of Casterbridge, I lingered on his words, and marvelled at the depth he was able to achieve in simple, sparing language.
This film version of the book sometimes felt like it had been made by a devotee of the Evelyn Wood School for Speed Reading, not by someone who savoured the experience of being allowed into Hardy's world. Savouring Hardy's words and the emotions they bring out should have been given as high a priority in the director's mind as the plot points. Clearly he was surrounded by the talent to pull it off.
And if he couldn't, he should have just handed the reins over someone who could - like (not to belabour the point!)Ang Lee, a maestro with true vision and an artist's touch, someone able to magically capture powerful emotions with a few brush stroke, all the while getting across a strong sense of the time and place in which the story is unfolding.
The acting made the whole enterprise rise to Nearly the top, however. So my four stars is a tribute to all the wonderful actors (including those not mentioned in this review) who made this version of The Mayor of Casterbridge worth watching.
And the one point taken away is for the clear lack of appreciation the director showed for the material handed him.
Description of The Mayor of Casterbridge
MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE - DVD MovieCommon sense suggests that no good can come of auctioning off your wife in a drunken fit, but Thomas Hardy's classic novel The Mayor of Casterbridge turns this dark story, set in rural England in the mid-1800s, into a compelling, compulsive ride. The discarded wife (Juliet Aubrey) returns after 19 years with her daughter (Jodhi May) in tow, only to discover that her former husband, Michael Henchard (Ciarán Hinds) has risen as a merchant and a politician. But though he welcomes her back and arranges to renew their bond without public shame, Henchard's pride and fear remain intractable; the struggle for love and happiness collides with shame and secrets as Hardy's complex tale unfolds. While the 1978 miniseries with Alan Bates is much less abridged and gives a fuller immersion into the novel and life at the time, the swiftness of this two-part adaptation makes it more immediately emotionally engaging, and the superb, compact performances by the entire cast (including Polly Walker and James Purefoy) give this version a potent punch. --Bret Fetzer
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