040 - Tess, 1979, France, United Kingdom. Dir. Roman Polanski.

Thursday, February 9, 2017

040 - Tess, 1979, France, United Kingdom. Dir. Roman Polanski.

Every frame a Van Eyck!

Roman Polanski says in an interview that he loves the painting The Arnolfini Marriage by Johannes Van Eyck .  He recalls that Van Eyck painted his signature in very fine print above the convex mirror, as if to say, "Van Eyck was here."  He found it powerful "to feel you were inside the painting."

Take a moment to look up that painting, even if you already know it.  Make it big on your screen and stare at it for awhile.  What do you see?

Look in the convex mirror on the back wall and imagine the skill it took to paint the reflection in that mirror.  As well as the ten small circles around the convex mirror.

Polanski compares this feeling to his first discovery of Laurence Olivier, in Hamlet.  He found he preferred watching movies with intimate interiors rather than just exteriors with a cast of thousands, because the interiors gave him a sense of place, a sense of being inside somewhere, as though he himself were inside the painting, inside the movie.

Polanski says that as a young man he watched Orson Welles' film Citizen Kane over and over and over.  Then he watched Carol Reed's film Odd Man Out (which we will get to, starring our man from Bigger Than Life, James Mason) more than 30 times.

Meanwhile, Orson Welles himself watched John Ford's movie Stagecoach forty times before making Citizen Kane.

Have you watched any movie more than thirty or forty times?

If you are a filmmaker, an aspiring filmmaker, actor, writer, producer, or any kind of artist, then what if you select a couple of the greatest movies and watch them more than thirty or forty times.

Or more than a hundred.

Become the expert that you desire to be.

Roman Polanski is one of our great directors.

We first saw him with Repulsion (024) on January 24.  We will see him again with several more movies.

As a quick reminder, he directed classics like Rosemary's Baby, Chinatown, and The Pianist, thrillers such as Frantic, The Ninth Gate, and The Ghost Writer, and literary adaptations, including Macbeth, Oliver Twist, and our film Tess.

Polanski says he wants to see films that are more realistic, more essential, and more human, films that show love, betrayal, shame, the intolerance and cruelty of society, films that make the audience feel.

Polanski is shorter than average.  He has the camera operator place the camera at his own height rather than the camera operator's height.  He wants to see the film the way he personally sees the world.  That is interesting.  He is the director.  It is his movie.  He can do that.

Remember in Tokyo Story (021, January 21) Yasujiro Ozu placed the camera at the height he would be if he were sitting on the floor the way the Japanese do.  Everything appears to us from a lower angle than we are used to.

Directors place the cameras where they want to.  It affects how we see things.  They share with us their vision of the world.

At the time of filming, Tess was the most expensive French film ever made, and at nine months, it was the French film that took the longest to make.  Polanski defended it, saying his films cost only what they need to cost, implying that he does not waste money on indulgence or extravagance but simply pursues his vision with focus.

He further defended the size of the film by referring to the golden age of filmmaking in France.
listing Children of Paradise, Port of Shadows, Grand Illusion, Fanfan la Tulipe, and Lover Happy Lover as examples of big budget, big pictures that showcased the glories of France.

"We've forgotten we had such a glorious industry, such a glorious past."

Then he mentioned PlayTime (our film 009, 1967), Jacques Tati's grand expression of filmmaker madness which broke the bank and sent the French film industry into a state of fearful caution.  Polanski would love to return to such a glorious past.

So let us return with him.  And let us look at Tess.  Yes, that Tess.  Tess of the d'Urbervilles.  By Thomas Hardy.

Quickly: list all the Thomas Hardy novels you read or were supposed to read in high school.

Here is your list.

Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), The Return of the Native (1878), The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891), Jude the Obscure (1895).

Why are his other novels not on the list?  I do not know.  Ask your English teacher.

Has it been awhile?  Perhaps you can take up and read again.  Or for the first time.  These books make for better reading than political posts on social media.  Do something good with your time.  Feed your brain.

Thomas Hardy was a Victorian novelist.  He fits within the group of writers that include Charles Dickens, Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte, Anne Bronte, George Eliot, Elizabeth Gaskell, Wilkie Collins, and Joseph Conrad, among others.

Sharon Tate, Polanski's wife, read the novel and loved it.  She thought it would make a great movie.  She left it on the nightstand for Polanski to read.  A few days later she was murdered by Charles Manson's "family."  Polanski was shattered.  He kept the book in his heart, deciding to film it one day to honor her.  He made five other movies, and then ten years after her death he came back and made this one.

Our film begins as John Durbeyfield passes Parson Tringham at the Crossroads.

The Crossroads!

Durbeyfield is no Robert Johnson; Parson Tringham is not the devil; the Crossroads are not in Mississippi; and Durbeyfield does not become a great blues guitarist for all his trouble.  In fact, Durbeyfield remains the same drunken sot he was before running into Tringham at the Crossroads.  But something life-changing does come out of this little exchange.

Tringham calls Durbeyfield "Sir John" in passing.  Literally, in passing.  And with that bit of whimsical nonchalance, our Victorian-era determinism will drive the Durbeyfields to their doom.  It seems that Parson Tringham has discovered that the Durbeyfields are descended from the great family d'Urbervilles.  They may be poor as Durbeyfields, but as d'Urbervilles they are--or once were--rich beyond compare.  If only they could reclaim their former glory.

The Parson means no harm.  After all, he is just engaged in small talk.  Genealogy is his hobby.  How would he know that good "Sir John" will take this news and run with it, all the way into the dirt.   How is that online DNA test working out for you?

So the newly dubbed Sir John sends his daughter Tess (played by the beautiful and mysterious Nastassja Kinski) to visit the local d'Urbervilles, led by an elderly woman who owns a poultry farm.  She is sick, so her son Alexander--that's Alec to you--offers to take in Tess.  Alec is dashing and cavalier, full of wit and charm, and he falls for Tess.

But . . .

Later Tess will work at a dairy farm.  She will meet a man named Angel Clare, and she will fall for him.  With her heart.  And he will fall for her.  With his heart.  And everything will be wonderful.

But . . .

This film is about a woman's love.  It is an amazing and mysterious thing.  When you watch Tess on her journey, your heart goes out to her.  She begins innocently, unaware of the cruel, hard world, and she makes choices that are always just and true, at least until the end, but always logical according to the dictates of her heart.  But those choices crash into the walls of fate and misfortune, whether due to the strictures of society or the choices of other people who have more power than her.

There is a moment in the film that captures Tess completely.  When she is still young and single, she is one of a group of girls all of whom have a crush on the handsome bachelor Angel Clare.  One girl, Izz, loves him so much that she would do anything for him.  After he and Tess have married, he is alone.  Izz comes to call upon them.  He tells her Tess is gone and that he will be traveling to Brazil.   
He gets in his buggy and begins to ride.  He is upset.  He has abandoned Tess for reasons that to us seem trivial but in his world of decorum and propriety are insurmountable to him.  It dawns on him how Izz has felt for him all this time.  He stops and calls out to her.  "Izz!'

She turns back.

"If I were to ask you to come with me now, come to Brazil with me, would your answer be yes?"

She answers without a second's hesitation.

"To come with you, I should leave everything this minute."

They live in a proper society, which they both respect.  He is a married man.  She came to call upon the couple properly.  She does not know they are estranged.  He has asked her a direct question about her feelings and she answers him directly.  He presses.

"You know what it would mean in the eyes of society?"

"I wouldn't care."

"Do you love me so much?"

"I've, I've always loved you."

We know this to be true.  We saw how madly she loved him back when they were single and he carried the ladies across a flooded road on their way to church.  She loves him still.  She is willing to give up her standing in society for him.  That might be easy for someone to claim today, but we must remember the cost.  The cost to her would be dear.  To say "I wouldn't care" in 2017 means something.  To say "I wouldn't care" in 1891 meant everything.

Then he asks, "More than Tess?"

She stops cold.

A moment passes.

A moment that feels like a lifetime.

"No.  Not more than her.  Nobody could have loved you more than Tess."

What could be more than what Izz just offered?

"She'd have given her life for you."

Thud.

"I could do no more."

And with that Izz sums up the heart of Tess Durbeyfield Clare.

And we are left floored.

Those Victorians sure did know how to pull at our hearts.

It is fitting that we are watching this 1979 epic pastoral love tragedy the day after we watched a 1978 poetic pastoral love tragedy.  Both films featured vast landscapes in beautiful color with an abundance of animals.  Both were elegant costume period pieces.  Both featured love triangles that ended badly.  Both were capturing the zeitgeist of their day. 

Strangely enough, Days of Heaven is sometimes included with films of the 1970s American New Wave independent movement that included Easy Rider and Five Easy Pieces.  Terrence Malick had established himself in that style with Badlands in 1973, and even though Days of Heaven is set in the wheat fields of an earlier time, it was shot in the new and gritty style of the urban directors, with its natural lighting, unconventional editing, and handheld camera work.

Tess is more classic in its presentation.  It is grand in scope and steadily paced, lasting more than three hours.  Its landscapes are rich and lush.  The dialogue is delicious to the ear.  The acting is superb.  The insert shots are wonderful to see.  Watch, for example, as the camera pans across the cheese house, as curdled milk slowly drips from heart-shaped bags into the barrels below.

Roman Polanski has given us something to behold.  People remember Chinatown.  They remember Rosemary's Baby and The Pianist.

It is time to remember Tess.