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41 out of 44 people found the following review useful: Comparison of scenes from "Tess" & "The Third Man", 12 January 2006 Author: prospectpt from Vancouver, Canada.
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
This is a delicious film - a cinematic strawberry-sundae - with entrancing Nastassja Kinski as the succulent cherry on top.Don't miss the opening scene, in which the village maidens, all dressed in white with flowers in hair, skip along behind musicians as they slowly make their way up an old farming roadway towards camera & then past... In my opinion, this scene is as subtly magnificent as that classic scene from "The Third Man": 'Anna', coming from the grave site, making that seeming-to-take-forever walk along the road towards where 'Holly Martin' stands awaiting her, & then, she walks straight past, ignoring him...and from a pocket of his rumpled overcoat, he digs-out a pack of ciggies & lights one up...The End.Both are magical, time-suspending scenes, created by visual virtuosos who also knew that sometimes a modicum of music can be far more effective than a deluge of dialog.TB - a staff member of Prospect Point Productions, Inc
49 out of 62 people found the following review useful: Beautiful Film at last arrives on DVD, 30 September 2004 Author: David Smith from Saffron Walden Essex, UK
I don't know what's been keeping them but 'Tess' has been overdue for a DVD release for a very long time. At last it's here, and it looks gorgeous, although it hasn't been digitally cleaned up and there are a couple of scratches here and there. It's been worth the wait though, as this is possibly the most beautifully photographed film ever made.Ever since the release of '2001: A Space Odyssey' I have been fascinated by the work of Stanley Kubrick and his cinematographer on that film, Geoffrey Unsworth. 'Tess' was Unsworth's last work; he died during the filming, and shared his Oscar for this with Ghislain Cloquet, who finished shooting, copying Unsworth's own style. The lighting is subtle and appears beautifully natural: just look at the first five minutes starting with village club dancers walking to the field, John Durbeyfield's fateful meeting with the parson, the arrival of Tess' future husband Angel Clare, with the late summer afternoon shading gradually into evening and darkness and all before we have even identified which girl is Tess. Oh, and that stunning moment when Tess finds her confessional letter to Angel has slipped under the carpet of his room unread, and her stunned realisation is underlined by the wheeling camera shot and the blinding flaring of the sun behind her head suddenly wiping all else off the screen for a moment. Wonderful.Do yourself a favour and look up Geoffrey Unsworth on the internet movie database – the number, quality and range of films he contributed to is astonishing. By all accounts he was a lovely man too, the featurettes underline the terrific camaraderie that existed on the shoot between all the cast and crew, and it is really moving to hear their tributes and memories of Unsworth, particularly Nastassia Kinski fighting back tears as she recalls his death.In the film, of course, Kinski is absolutely wonderful, just perfect for the role of tragic victim Tess, the 'pure woman' of Hardy's subtitle. Despite comments to the contrary I find her accent quite a commendable attempt at Dorset, having lived and worked there myself, and my wife having been born there. Some of the other accents are generalised country yokel, but Kinski has learned a pretty authentic representation of Dorset's rolling rounded vowels.I'm also a Hardy fan, and Tess is quite possibly my favourite novel. I remain astonished that Polanski was so successful in transferring it to the screen. The featurettes make it clear the main task of literary adaptation for the screen is cutting things out, yet when I first saw the film I couldn't think of a thing that was missing. That's impossible of course, but the choice of what to film and what to leave out is almost seamless. Perhaps the only serious omission is the passage in the book where Tess feels guilt for inadvertently causing the death of the family horse in a night-time collision with the post-cart, and it is to assuage this guilt that she agrees to visit 'cousin' Alec, which is of course her great undoing. Polanski tried to cut the film to meet the expectations of distributors (and Francis Ford Coppola!) but some idea of his reluctance comes from the disclosure that he took 3 months to cut 20 minutes. I'd love to see a director's cut with that footage restored.Finally, the background material reveals the bone-headiness of some of those involved in film distribution. The co-producer shows the film to the buyers of the two main IK distributors, and (pre-Oscars) one of them says 'This film will only show in my cinemas over my dead body.' Doesn't that remind you of Decca turning down The Beatles?
38 out of 50 people found the following review useful: A return viewing., 29 July 2001 Author: (victor7754@hotmail.com) from St John
Roman Polanksi's Tess gets better and better with age. The mists...the sounds of footsteps on the dirt roads... the ambling horse... the elflike man that appears at the Cross in Hands, Tess' walk to her Inlaws church, The dripping water, The taking of the boots, the misplaced letter, the milk run, the puddle in the road, the dripping milk pouches, The strawberry, the blood stain, The burial, Stonehenge...Everything is beautifully shot. It lingers in the mind long after viewing. Geoffrey Unsworth's final cinematographic film. Thank you for all your beautiful work.It is neither pretentious nor bold.Mesmerizing! The musical composition is charging. Nastassja Kinski's plays the title character. She reacts so well. Her beauty in a time of such oppression and depression would be an ill fate. Tess knows this fate and she wishes she was never born. She is the sacrifice of a paradigm. Victorian era was finished. Edwardian Enlightenment would soon come but not for Tess, the sacrificial pure beauty.Thomas Hardy created a pure woman in Tess. That is why her plight is so tragic. She possesses a strong spirit that is oppressed by the male political and religious world around her. The opening shot is well directed in the morning sunrise as fair maidens dance with one another. Tess' oversight by Angel begins this tragic tale. "As Flies to wanton boys, are we to the Gods, they kill us for their sport."Tess, Thomas HardyDo not take your eyes off of it. It is beautifully told!Victor Nunnally, BFA Dramatic and Film Theory and History, AA Performing Experience.
30 out of 39 people found the following review useful: Perfect homage to Hardy's novel, 30 November 2004 Author: modern_maiden
This film was an almost exact replication of Thomas Hardy's novel "Tess of the d'Urbervilles". It's so rare to watch a film after reading the novel and not be disappointed by it, but this film didn't disappoint in any way.Details, such as the whiteness of the maids' dresses, the sound of milk squirting into a bucket, the sloshing mud of a wet English turnip field, and the glint of adoration in the eyes of the young lovers -- all came gloriously to life as if fresh off the pages of the book.I highly recommend this film for anyone who enjoys a good old fashioned Victorian love story.
26 out of 36 people found the following review useful: a reflection on fate, 14 July 2002 Author: nwakego from Vietnam
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.
16 out of 20 people found the following review useful: Why dont they make them like this anymore?, 17 July 2001 Author: Adampreston from Cornwall
I saw Tess as a teenager and the images and emotions have lingered with me ever since. I remembered Natasia Kinski as Tess being tempted with a strawberry by her cad of a cousin, the subtlety of showing a murder by just having the tiniest spot of blood appear on the ceiling below, the powerful poetry of the final scene at Stonehenge... I have just watched the film again and it was even better than I remembered. I will go to my grave being in love with Kinski in this role! I had forgotten also what a perfect performance Peter Firth gives as Angel Clair, and the apparent authenticity of life in rural Victorian England. Perhaps what is most extraordinary is the leisurely pace at which the story is told. Shots linger on the countryside after characters have said their lines and moved off. many sequences exist entirely to build up to a single glance or gesture. Altogether Tess is a superb lesson in story telling and one of the truly great movies of all
13 out of 16 people found the following review useful: Tess (1979), 23 December 2006 Author: imdke from Olympia, WA
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.
11 out of 16 people found the following review useful: "I'm ready", 10 January 2002 Author: marisol (patita@mmail.com.py)
Tess is a wonderful adaptation from a great book(by Thomas Hardy)),Nastassja Kinski was perfect for the part,long hair,bright eyes,fine featured,I always thought that her power as an actress is in her face(through gestures and tics); the director of the film Roman Polanski,said that "Thomas Hardy links the girl to the rhythm of nature",for that reason,in some scenes, she looks different, in spring her beauty flourish like pink roses,when her fate follows her,the weather is cold and windy,Tess seems pale,sad and lonely like a ghost;Nastassia projects this with delicacy and tenderness;Tess is a complex character,"not a typical victorian lady",the movie works in different levels:as a romantic/tragic love story,as an accusation of the hypocrisy of that rigid society,and that controversial scene when she loses her virginity,Hardy describes the event with ambiguity...was she raped o was she seduced?;but in the movie shows Alec "cruel intentions"more clearly.I just love Tess because she still stays untouched after all the problems,she has an special dignity,visually, the film looks great,Cherbourg villages(north of France) are similar to Dorset;Philippe Sarde haunting music penetrates under your skin,and that is pure emotion.
5 out of 6 people found the following review useful: Polanski's Most Elegant Picture, 14 April 2006 Author: zachhh from Tampa, Florida
The role that was made for Sharon Tate, Tess d'Urberville, the novel by Thomas Hardy, which Tate had given to Polanski suggesting he turn into a motion picture. After her tragic death, Polanski put the project aside for a decade. He revives the suggestion years later and dishes out a picture with some of the most beautiful stunning cinematography, with Powell's exquisite costume designs and Kinski's heartbreakingly convincing performance make Tess a truly unforgettable film. Kinski is perfect in the role of Tess, the often shy and awkward naive young woman. Roman Polanski's Tess follows the path of a young adamant Tess Durbeyfield. Tess comes from a peasant family, until her Father is told he and his family are descendants of a noble, powerful ancestry. She is soon sent by her drunken father to visit their family's newly discovered relatives.Throughout the film, Tess is the desirable affection of two very different men. Alec, her so called "cousin" and the other, Angel, whom she incidentally encounters. Alec, the self centered, controlling seducer, who has a relentless and overbearing control over Tess. Alec is immediately inclined to her delicate beauty. She is soon impregnated with Alec's child, it dying soon after it's birth. Angel, the gentle, some what weak and troubled man who in the beginning doesn't realize his unyielding love for Tess, cannot bear to come to realization with her unpleasant confession. Angel leaves Tess, his new bride, traveling to South America, maybe in hopes of understanding her past. Tess often finds herself clashing with the two, in the end falling back into the arms of the man she had loved so much.Tess' journeys, troubles and heartbreaking conflicts are captured vividly by Polanski, he and Oscar winning cinematographers Ghislain Cloquet and Geoffrey Unsworth flaunt the enchanting utopian landscape of the rural France. The beautiful seasonal settings of the various European provinces are brilliantly showcased throughout the film, including the true-to-life construction of a Stone Henge replica. Tess, the heart-rending story of a young woman torn emotionally between two men, in the end tragically comes to term with her spontaneous mishap. Polanski showcases the artistic essence that is his luminous directorial career. My moral understanding of the film is true love, is eternal, with the occasional up's and down's should never be taken for granted, but truly cherished and adored.
3 out of 3 people found the following review useful: Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented, 10 December 2008 Author: Galina from Virginia, USA
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.
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