Offers news, comment and features about the British arts scene with sections on books, films, music, theatre, art and architecture. Requires free registration. The AXS Cookie Policy. This website, like most others, uses cookies in order to give you a great online experience. By continuing to use our website you accept to our use of cookies. Alternatively, you can find out more about. Movies The latest movie news, casting updates and rumors, trailer sneak peeks, and expert reviews on MTV. Turner Classic Movies - Movie News. Tess (1. 97. 9), Roman Polanski's film adaptation of Thomas Hardy's 1. Tess of the D'Urbervilles, has in 2. Blu- Ray and DVD release from Criterion. Restored by Pathe under the direct supervision of Polanski himself, the movie looks and sounds magnificent. At first glance, the lushly beautiful Tess is a seemingly unusual work for Polanski, whose films we tend to associate with horror and sex, but this was actually a highly personal project for the master filmmaker. It was his first picture after fleeing the United States in 1. Slant Magazine's film section is your gateway to some of the web's most incisive and biting film criticism and features. TCM Remembers Debbie Reynolds (1932-2016) Turner Classic Movies pays tribute to Debbie Reynolds on Friday, January 27 with the following festival of films. This program will replace the previously scheduled movies for that day. Sharon Tate, had suggested he make as a vehicle for herself - - just before she was murdered by the Manson gang in 1. Polanski read the novel after her death and realized it was indeed right up his alley, and he dedicated the eventual film to her with an on- screen inscription. Hardy's tale, to which the film is very faithful, is about a poor English girl, Tess, whose father learns he is a distant descendant of a once prominent, rich family, the D'Urbervilles. He sends Tess to the home of a remaining D'Urberville to find employment (or at least a handout), but Tess winds up being seduced by the ne'er- do- well Alec D'Urberville (Leigh Lawson), who becomes obsessed with her. Fleeing Alec, she eventually finds work at a dairy farm and starts a passionate relationship with a young farmer named Angel Clare (Peter Firth). But in this society, the revelation of the sins of her past, even if they were not her fault, could doom Tess to shame, ostracism and worse. Ultimately, Tess is about a woman struggling to make her way in the world, looking for happiness, or at least survival, but finding that a judgmental society, timing and even luck are all working against her. Polanski explores this theme vividly, sympathetically and cinematically. Costumes, speech and physical mannerisms of the actors all convince the audience of the time period and of the distinctions among the social classes, and the film's pictorial beauty does much to stress the contrasting cruelty of some of the characters. Most important, one really feels the isolation of Tess throughout the film, which is at once sprawling and intimate. The plot itself, while important, feels less vital here than the depiction of Tess' emotional experience of the world she is forced to inhabit, and as a result, the long running time feels entirely appropriate and never tedious. Tess was shot entirely in France, mostly on locations in Normandy and Brittany, because Polanski worried that if he traveled to England he would be extradited to the United States. Polanski later wrote, . The only way to convey the rhythm of his epic was to use that setting as an integral part of the film, signaling the passage of time and the change in Tess herself by means of a visible, almost palpable change in seasons. Once our rural locations were chosen, we would have to film throughout the year from early spring, through high summer, to the depths of winter. Freak weather and labor strikes only added to the overall time and expense. If Tess is atypical of Polanski, it's in the way that The Age of Innocence (1. Martin Scorsese. But in fact, both films are completely emblematic of their directors' concerns and are indeed suffused with violence. It's just that the violence is emotional, an undercurrent beneath a pristine surface - - exactly like the societies the films depict. That being said, it's hard to shake some of Tess's most exquisitely beautiful imagery, such as the lovely natural light of an outdoor dance, or the riders and dogs on a fox hunt who appear out of a sublime mist, or the face of Nastassia Kinski, who is heart- stoppingly gorgeous (a quality, incidentally, that is vital to the story). Cinematographer Geoffrey Unsworth, who had shot such films as Becket (1. Cabaret (1. 97. 2), died a few weeks into production and was replaced by Ghislain Cloquet, who sadly would himself pass away two years later. They shared the Oscar for Best Cinematography. The film also won for Best Art Direction and Best Costume Design and was nominated for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Score. Criterion's dual- format release contains one Blu- ray disc and two DVDs, with both formats containing the film and identical extras. And there are plenty, starting with three short documentaries about the film's making (originally included in Columbia's 2. DVD release), directed by Laurent Bouzereau and totaling 7. Bouzereau expertly interviews key players like Polanski, producers Claude Berri and Timothy Burrill, co- writer John Brownjohn, actors Nastassia Kinski and Leigh Lawson, set decorator Pierre Guffroy, costume designer Anthony Powell, hair and makeup artists, the crew electrician, the assistant editor and others. The artists discuss fascinating details of production, like the challenge of getting the . Powell is fascinating as he discusses his approach, and also about the little splotch of blood he put on the hem of Tess' dress at a key point in the story, which Polanski shot for maximum impact. Burrill recalls that on location the filmmakers were only able to see the rushes days after shooting, rather than the next day, and not always under the best conditions. But gradually, he says, . I don't think there was ever one day when she fluffed a line. She was word- perfect, always. This is also interesting, but it covers much of the same material as the Bouzereau pieces, with many of the same interviewees telling the same stories. It's also not as smoothly edited. But unlike the Bouzereau film, it includes composer Philippe Sarde, and delves more into Polanski's pre- Tess life and career. It also recounts the difficulties in Tess's post- production, particularly concerning the running time. Francis Coppola was brought in by producer Claude Berri to trim the film, which was deemed overlong, but Polanski hated the result, leading to a falling- out between Berri and Polanski and between Polanski and Sarde. Polanski himself eventually trimmed the film by about 2. Third, there's a 1. French TV program Cine Regards, running 4. Tess and interviews Polanski during the film's production. The interviews with Polanski are revealing, but the real strengths of the piece are the long, uninterrupted slices of life on the set as Polanski directs and thinks through scenes, conducting his orchestra of crewmembers. These sequences go on long enough to make us feel as if we are there. Fourth is a 1. 97. British TV program The South Bank Show, 5. Melvyn Bragg interviews Polanski. And Criterion rounds things out with the film's trailer as well as a handsome printed booklet containing a fine essay by Colin Mac. Cabe and crisp, colorful photos from the film, almost all of which feature the entrancing Nastassia Kinski. It's a beautiful package and motion picture, all very highly recommended. By Jeremy Arnold. Locus Online Reviewsby Gary Westfahl. There are several reasons to admire Passengers: it addresses a topic that is usually avoided in science fiction films . And yet, there is also something strangely incongruous about the film, as its uneasy blend of disparate elements sometimes makes it seem like a film at war with itself. As one issue to discuss, consider the two types of space films that I identified in my book The Spacesuit Film: A History, 1. First, there are relatively small numbers of spacesuit films, which acknowledge and depict the harsh, potentially lethal environments of outer space and typical planets and therefore have their protagonists regularly don spacesuits. Second is the broader category of space films, which usually posit, implausibly, that space travel will solely be a matter of voyaging within safe, comfortable vehicles to hospitable Earth- like worlds, never requiring spacesuits, as in the Star Trek and Star Wars universes. Quite unusually, Passengers solidly fits into both categories. On one hand, the two starship passengers prematurely awakened from hibernation . Strikingly, the first two women to take space walks in films . But later, when he takes Lane with him, they seem to celebrate the wonders and freedom of space as they float together, recalling the way that the robots Wall- E and Eve soar through space in Wall- E (2. Clearly thrilled, Lane says . The overall look of the Avalon may have been influenced by the similarly huge starship of Czech film Ikarie XB- 1 (1. The ship also contains versions of Star Trek. All of this suggests that traveling through space will be like going on a pleasant cruise, as in typical space films, although the protagonists here occasionally take a bracing plunge into the more austere world of the spacesuit film. The science behind the story is also an odd mixture of logic and illogic. The Avalon is propelled by a . And placing passengers in hibernation for journeys to other stars that take decades, if not centuries, also seems a reasonable and eventually realizable system. However, unlike other recent spacesuit films like Gravity (2. Also, in other science fiction portrayals of interstellar travel at sublight speeds, as in Arthur C. On the Avalon, everybody is in hibernation, and if someone awakens accidentally, there is no way to return them to hibernation. And if a starship like this one was indeed placed entirely on . We told that the ship is on a 1. While it would require some time to accelerate to that speed, and to decelerate as it approaches its destination, one could roughly guess that it is traveling about sixty light years . Preston and Lane have awakened after 3. Earth. Yet in one of the film. But Arcturus is 3. Earth, so the starship could never reach it in 3. It would have required about five minutes of online research to find the name of a star that Preston and Lane might have actually observed, but clearly, no one thought that this was important. Journalist Lane properly calls this . Yet this film instead focuses on two individuals who are forced to abandon their aspirations, destined to become forgotten footnotes to a grand historical saga. Lane even suggests that people are fundamentally incapable of achieving great things: . The evils of corporate greed are underlined by the exorbitant price of Preston. But director Morten Tyldum and screenwriter Jons Spaihts might respond that this is all beside the point; their film is primarily a character study, focused on how a relationship might develop between unlikely individuals in uniquely stressful circumstances. Yet the film is also problematic if examined within that context. In some respects, this film. To achieve this dynamic, the film must adjust its terminology: Preston is initially identified as a . In fact, we are told he wants to immigrate to another world because he feels useless on Earth, where broken items are replaced; on a colony planet, a person who can repair items will be appreciated. Preston also comes from Denver, Colorado, close to the wilderness, while Lane lives in sophisticated New York City, writing as she gazes at the Chrysler Building. As another sign that he is d. However, although there have been many memorable journalists in films, the screen generally does a poor job of depicting writers, and Lane exhibits most of the typical flaws. For the record, actual writers talk like everybody else, spend most of their time alone, writing, expect and receive little praise, and feel constantly insecure about the quality of their writing. Lane periodically responds to situations by dispensing lame platitudes; though we are once told she has done some writing, she usually seems to be doing something else; her writing is said to be so wonderful as to make Preston fall in love with her, though I was not particularly impressed by the visible samples; and Lane seems entirely too pleased by her own talents, once announcing that she has just done . In sum, if Lane actually epitomized everything it means to be a writer, I. But Pratt ultimately overuses his characteristic, . And while Lawrence excels at being sad, angry, and irritable, she is rarely persuasive when asked to be happy; she connects with audiences, I think, because they feel sorry for her, not because they like her. Another problem with these characters involves their actions in the film. When protagonists do unforgiveable things, they should not be forgiven, and they should not be rewarded with happy endings; Macbeth cannot end with King Macbeth apologizing for killing all those people and resolving to henceforth be a morally scrupulous ruler, while Macduff graciously accepts his apology and promises to become his loyal subject. But in contemporary Hollywood, it requires a considerable amount of courage to provide an appropriate ending if it is not an entirely happy ending; and I will simply note that, in this respect, Tyldum and Spaihts do not prove to be particularly courageous. As a welcome respite from Preston and Lane, the film might have devoted more screen time to Mancuso, arguably its most sympathetic character; but Fishburne is woefully underutilized, as his character functions solely as a device to jump- start the plot before he vanishes from the scene. Another veteran actor, Andy Garcia, has so little to do, despite his fifth billing, that I could not honestly list him in the accompanying credits. The other robotic voices and holograms throughout the ship have even less intelligence, and merely reinforce the film. For it is a good film that could have been a better film with a little more attention to its science, story, and characters. But like Aurora Lane, I suppose, filmgoers sometimes must settle for what fate provides us.
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