![]() ![]() Everyone speaks formally and wears a corset, and sex is referred to in only the most elliptical fashion. The society they describe looks remarkably different from our own (if only at first glance), and even farther from contemporary pop culture. ![]() Apparently classic novels, particularly classic 19th-century novels, are boring to today’s audiences. I think it’s because there’s a widespread misapprehension, both in Hollywood and among those of us who consume its products, that it’s nigh on impossible to make an exciting film adaptation of a classic novel. So why is Vinterberg’s Far From the Madding crowd frustratingly mediocre? He is an excellent director of actors, capable of efficiently capturing the psychological complexity of characters and their relationships - which should make him the perfect interpreter for Hardy, whose detailed internal portraiture is the centerpiece of his work. ![]() And it’s directed by Thomas Vinterberg, a Danish filmmaker best known for two movies that examine child sexual abuse from very different, equally unflinching perspectives: 1998’s The Celebration, which kicked off the Dogme 95 movement, and 2013’s The Hunt, which was nominated for a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. It’s only the third film adaptation of the classic Thomas Hardy novel - and the first since John Schlesinger’s in 1967, though there was also a TV movie in 1998 - and its cast includes such promising names as Carey Mulligan and Michael Sheen. Far From the Madding Crowd, in theaters Friday, appears to have plenty going for it. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |