The return of the Hardy novel

India,where this filmmaker found parallels to Hardy’s ossified Victorian England. In many ways the obstacles Hardy’s beleaguered characters face are as evident today as they were in his time: the unbridgeable gap between rich and poor,advanced education that favours the privileged,religious intolerance,and sexual double standards regarding honour and virtue.

In films,Hardy heroines are usually played by actresses with the kind of sad beauty that suggests a lifetime of hardship to come,a porcelain armour that draws predators: Julie Christie as Bathsheba Everdene (in John Schlesinger’s 1967 version of Madding Crowd),struggling for independence from men who merely want to possess her; Nastassja Kinski as Tess (in Roman Polanski’s 1980 film).

“What I really love about Hardy’s books,especially the later ones like Tess and Jude,is his sense of radical critique”,Winterbottom said “He takes very simple stories and shows the way these characters have been formed by society around them,and so often their dreams and ambitions are thwarted by that same society.” Like Tess,Trishna (played by Freida Pinto) is harassed by unforeseen circumstances and,at her family’s behest,must relieve its misfortune by relying on the kindness of strangers. Apart from the time period and setting,perhaps Winterbottom’s most daring move is to merge Tess’s nemesis,the parvenu Alec d’Urberville,and the man she views as her saviour,the enlightened Angel Clare,into one composite figure named Jay,played by Riz Ahmed.

In Hardy’s book both exhibit flaws that will determine Tess’s fate: Alec with his nouveau riche sense of entitlement and Angel with his political and moral hypocrisy. Because they both end up betraying Tess,Alec and Angel could be viewed as two sides of the same coin. “Alec is very sensual,and Angel is very spiritual,” Winterbottom explained. “By dividing them into these two opposites,it feels a bit schematic. I felt it was more believable that one person has aspects of both these people.”

Polanski’s sumptuous Tess was clouded by the scandal of his arrest in 1977 for unlawful sex with a minor; it didn’t help that he was romantically linked with his young star,Kinski,who was 17 when filming began. Then the master cinematographer Geoffrey Unsworth died midway through production. Nevertheless the film garnered favourable reviews and won three Oscars. Polanski took some visual cues from the way Hardy objectifies Tess’s nubile appeal: “her freshness,” “the red and ivory of her mouth.” But Ian Duncan,a professor who teaches 19th-century literature at the University of California,Berkeley,objected to what he considered an overly passive Tess.

It’s hard to imagine what Hardy would have made of these modern-day interpretations,since what he saw in his day was relatively crude. The Hardy biographer Michael Millgate said the novelist did attend a press showing of the 1913 Tess. He later wrote to a friend that “it was a curious production,and I was interested in it as a scientific toy,but I can say nothing as to its relation to or rendering of the story.”