[Hardy-l] Re: Thoughts on 'Tess'

[Keith Wilson]

I think I'm more sceptical about television directors than you may be, Paul, and perhaps unfairly. I suspect that what the director wanted for televisual effect was something more immediate and dramatic and visually clear in a murky night-time scene than the book provided.  But what was lost in the translation was Hardy's very controlled and conscious and careful narrative symbolism.
 
A further suspension-of-disbelief problem for me involved what the mailman was doing with a convenient Prince-dispatching gun so readily to hand. I haven't checked, so could certainly be wrong, but I'd be surprised if as late as the mid-nineteenth century, rural mail-cart postmen were routinely armed in England -- this is the Marlott-Casterbridge run, not Dodge City to Abilene.
 
Best,
 
Keith
 
Paul Neimeyer wrote
 
>One thing I do know is that the director meant SOMETHING by changing the way >Prince dies.  His lingering shot of the smoking gun is a clear indication that the change is not arbitrary.  I'd like to find out what the director meant by the change, and I may err in my attempts to find the answer.
.
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/ms-tnef
Size: 4529 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://coyote.csusm.edu/pipermail/hardy-l/attachments/20090108/bee49d83/attachment.bin