I first became interested in Hardy when I had to study Far from the Madding Crowd for O-level back in the 1970s. It’s a book I’ve reread many times over the years since then (and studied for other exams), and I still love it . His world view here is sunnier than in late masterpieces like Tess of the d’Urbervilles or Jude the Obscure, but starting to darken, and the title, quoted from Gray’s Elegy in a Country Churchyard, is definitely ironic. The madding crowd is never very far away from woman farmer Bathsheba Everdene and the three men who court her.
Although the 1967 John Schlesinger movie starring Julie Christie, Terence Stamp and Alan Bates is the most famous adaptation of this novel (I have now reviewed that version too), I think the 1998 ITV mini-series is also a fine production, and it sticks much more closely to the book. It was directed by Nicholas Renton, who also made the excellent BBC mini-series of Elizabeth Gaskell’s Wives and Daughters a year later, and, like that production, has a rich, multi-layered feeling to it, with achingly beautiful landscapes and at times an underlying flavour of melancholy. It’s interesting to see how similar the sleeve of the British DVD of this production is to the sleeve of the Schlesinger version!
For me, Paloma Baeza is perfect as Bathsheba, looking exactly as I’d imagined the character, and giving her just the right blend of confidence and determination with an underlying vulnerability. She makes Bathsheba grow from the lighthearted girl at the start to, by the end, a woman who has suffered and knows life – and who knows what she wants.
Baeza’s portrayal of Hardy’s heroine dominates this production, but the other leads are all well-cast too. Jonathan Firth, younger brother of Colin, plays Sergeant Troy with a dashing, toothy caddishness. I was quite surprised to see that he gives the character a West Country accent – I don’t remember if Terence Stamp has a Dorset accent in the 1967 version, but I don’t think so. However, to me the accent seems right, bringing out the fact that, although Troy might be the son of a nobleman, he is also the son of a servant, and illegitimate. “I’m a bastard”, he tells Bathsheba in a bedroom scene, showing her the gold watch which is all he ever had from his father - one of the moments where his character is made more understandable, without his behaviour being any less appalling. I think it’s one of the strengths of this novel that Troy has far more depth as a character than a later villain like Alec in Tess, and Firth brings out the varying shades of his nature.
After seeing Nathaniel Parker play Rawdon Crawley in the BBC production of Vanity Fair – made the same year as this Hardy adaptation – and the aristocratic hero of the Inspector Lynley Mysteries, at first I was slightly surprised to see him as Gabriel Oak. But his West Country accent seems fine to me (adding that I’m from the East of England so not the best person to judge!) and, like Baeza as Bathsheba, he makes the character grow and deepen through the film.
One thing I’ve always liked about the book is that, interwoven with Troy’s flashy courtship of Bathsheba on the surface, Hardy has also included scenes which show Oak’s deeper love for her unfolding in a less showy style. The famous courtship set-piece scenes are the one where Troy helps Bathsheba to move a swarm of bees and the one where he shows her the sword trick, both beautifully done in this production. Set against them are the darker scenes where Oak struggles to save Bathsheba’s ricks and she tries to help him as a rainstorm approaches – and the one where he saves her sheep after the fight between them. Troy’s scenes might glitter more, but Oak’s scenes are the real moments of farming drama. Gabriel, the good angel, repeatedly “saves” Bathsheba, but her own love of farming and dedication to the life, something she shares with him but not with Troy, also come across.
Parker and Baeza play these scenes out perfectly and Parker gives a feeling of simmering passion he constantly has to restrain, which is especially poignant in the scenes where Oak has to sympathise with Farmer Boldwood about his loss of Bathsheba – without giving any sign that he loves her too. Nigel Terry looks rather older than I’d imagined as Boldwood, who I think is around 40 in the book, but I imagine this casting choice was probably made to make him clearly older and more staid than Parker as Oak. At times I feel as if his character is slightly elbowed out, with a greater focus on Oak and Troy, but then, perhaps that also happens in the book a bit .
Natasha Little, who played Becky Sharp in the BBC Vanity Fair, looks almost unrecognisable as the frail but determined Fanny Robin. Fanny’s story is slightly expanded in this version from her character in the novel, with a bedroom scene between her and Troy and a couple of scenes showing her hard life after they separate, as she works on a farm in the winter trying to conceal her pregnancy. These scenes seem to be borrowed from Tess, but I think they work well here in underlining that, despite all the beautiful scenery, Hardy’s countryside is always a tough place to survive.
The running time of this mini-series, with four 54-minute episodes (all run together as a single movie on the promotional DVD I have) means that far more of the events of the novel can be included than in the Schlesinger movie. Obviously not everything is there, but I didn’t notice any major incidents which were missing. I was also impressed by how much of Hardy’s dialogue has been kept in the screenplay by Philomena McDonagh, with whole conversations very much as I remember them from the novel.
Most of the material which has been added to the novel seems to have the effect of making the story a little earthier – for instance, Troy’s sex scenes with both women, which are not graphic but do bring out his seductive abilities, and some sexy moments with minor characters from the village. The villagers’ chats in the pub might also be a little earthier at times than in the novel.
Watching this series again, I was struck by just how good it is – and wondered if it might be better-known if it had been shown on the BBC rather than ITV.
This is probably one of the many costume dramas which will never make it over to US TV. Since most video stores in the US don’t carry TV mini-series, if I want to see it I must rent from Netflix or buy.
I write to say two things: as I wrote on ECW, I did in the end enjoy and profit much from the long series you sent me called Costume Drama. By sheer time and the many clips and just rote information, the program taught me much. For example, which costume dramas are thought to be remembered, which were important social events, which are thought to have been influential or significant (this was often skewed and unreal as the films chosen were inevitably chosen for popularity not significance).
The other is my old hobby horse: the criteria for praising a film cannot be its fidelity. As a device for comparing what’s there and learning what the film is, there’s nothing better. Like studying a source for a painting. But it’s inadequate to describe the film and what it conveyed. For example, if they put in some scenes from _Tess_ they had a different idea. Also the the similarity of the covers: the same central events of the story were taken by both film adaptations: why? To know that you have to be comparative, not prescriptive.
Ellen :) ever stubborn
Dear Ellen, I’m really seeing this as the first half of a pair of postings – I hope to get hold of the Schlesinger film and look at how the two vary, although I do realise that I am doing them the wrong way round in chronological terms. I have a feeling that they are both very good in different ways and watching them together will shed light on both of them. So I’ll probably be looking at this film again.:)
The thing that struck me most about this version, apart from the fine casting, was how apparently faithful it is to the book, but I do agree that isn’t all there is to it with any adaptation, and that the most apparently ‘faithful’ version isn’t always the best one. Having said that, I do think that with longer mini-series it is often an advantage that they can include more of the book and more of the language than is possible in a single film, as with the leisurely-paced older BBC Austen adaptations, while sometimes a cinema film manages to sum more up in a single scene or a powerful visual moment – though of course this is generalising wildly and mini-series can have those powerful moments too.
I don’t know why it is that the two sleeves of the DVDs are so similar, whether one designer was influenced by the other, and if so which way round. My feeling is that Gabriel is really the hero of this novel and of both adaptations, so I was slightly startled to see that it is Troy, in his military scarlet, dominating both sleeves.
I’m glad you found the ‘Story of the Costume Drama’ series interesting, despite all its irritations – I should probably write a separate blog about it.
I only just caught up with this series and throughly enjoyed it. Far From the Madding Crowd is one of my favourite Hardy novels though it is many years since I last read it.
I found Parker a little hard to accept at first as I watched this immediately after Bleak House but I was soon convinced by his powerful but understated performance. The series gave due attention to the seasonal cycle so central to Hardy’s novel capturing something of the spirit of the novel.
Janette
Thank you very much for visiting and commenting, Janette – great to hear from you. I’m sorry to be a little slow in replying but this has been rather a hectic week. I do really like Nat Parker and want to write about more of his costume drama roles here in the future – “powerful but understated” is just right to describe his performance in this series. I also like your point about the due attention to the seasonal cycle.
I really enjoyed reading your review of this version Judy.
I wondered whether you knew – as I am so excited to hear that David Nicholls is currently working on a new adaptation of ‘Far From the Madding Crowd’ for BBC Films.
Bathsheba Everdene has to be my favourite Hardy heroine, she is such an intriguing and wonderful character, which as an actress I would just love to play!
I also thought Paloma Baeza was perfect as Bathsheba. So who do we think should be chosen to play Bathsheba in the new 2010 adaptation?
Hi Tiffany, and thanks for the kind comments. I’ve heard vague mentions of this and would love to see this new production of one of my favourite Hardy novels go ahead, but am wondering if it will, as sadly the BBC doesn’t seem to be making any 19th-century classic adaptations at the moment – those which Andrew Davies was working on have been put on ice.
The fact that it is BBC Films gives me a bit of hope, as there are still one or two cinema films from the BBC from this period – but I still wouldn’t be surprised to see it put on the back burner, though I hope I’m wrong! Nobody immediately springs to my mind as perfect for Bathsheba… or for Gabriel either, come to that. They might just be my favourite Hardy heroine and hero.