Jude

The adage "a great novel rarely makes a great movie" is not as true as is supposed, but I'm sorry to say it's true here. Director Michael Winterbottom and writer Hossein Amini fail here because they fail to understand the town of Christminster, the town Jude loathes and yet wants to be accepted by so desperately. The town functions almost as a character in the novel, but here you feel nothing from it, and therefore the context for everyone's actions is removed. And except for Sue and Arabella(well played by Kate Winslet and Rachel Griffiths, respectively), the characters are underdeveloped). It looks appropriately dark, and the other actors are good, but I felt at the end like there was something missing.

This pessimistic and rather brutal cinematic production is based on the nineteenth century novel Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy. A bowdlerized and altered version of that novel first appeared in Harper's New Monthly Magazine as a serial beginning in December 1894. Its original title was 'The Simpletons,' a title modern viewers of this movie might find appropriate considering how Jude and Sue round out their lives.

It need hardly be said that any motion picture, and certainly not one running only about two hours, can hope to do justice to Hardy's novel (his last, incidentally) which is about 180,000 words long (about 400 pages of dense text). An earlier TV mini series version made by the BBC that I have not seen, Jude the Obscure (1971), ran for almost four and a half hours in six episodes. But this is a pretty good movie anyway, highlighted by an enthralling performance by Kate Winslet.

The movie starts rather slowly, if picturesquely, until Kate appears and then the movie comes to life. I have seen Winslet in several films, including her first feature film when she was18-years-old, Heavenly Creatures (1994), an interesting film made in New Zealand based on a sensational matricide from the 1950s. She was very good in that film, her budding talent immediately obvious as the spinning, laughing, crazy teen who went off the deep end emotionally. In Jude, Winslet's sharp, confident and commanding style is given greater range and she comes across with a performance that is full of life, effervescent, delightful, witty, sly, clever, and very expressive, and she looks beautiful doing it.

The story itself, a naturalistic tragedy that in some respects anticipates Theodore Dreiser, et al., was considered immoral in its time. 'The Bishop of Wakefield, disgusted with the novel's insolence and indecency, threw it in the fire,' according to Terry Eagleton who wrote the Introduction for the New Wessex Edition of the book. Modern film goers will hardly notice the implied critique of marriage that offended Victorian readers, but they might find the scene where Arabella throws the pig's 'part' at Jude indelicate. Victorian readers found that scene most offensive. As a public service I want to warn any modern viewer who might be offended at seeing Kate Winslet naked to avoid this film. (Just Joking: Kate is quite fetching in the Rubenesque shot.) To be honest, though, this really is a tragedy that still has the power to offend some sensibilities. Certainly you don't want the kids to see it.

Christopher Eccleston plays Jude and does a good job, and Rachel Griffiths in a modest part plays Jude's first wife Arabella. Director Michael Winterbottom stayed spiritually true to Hardy's dark vision while tailoring the tale for modern audiences. There's a nice period piece feel and some charming cinematography. The denouement is well set up and so realistically done that we don't know whether to be horrified or outraged. I think I was both.

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Life and love can be tragic and beautiful. The ways of society and the heart are not simple and can be quiet opposed.

Jude is a masterpiece as a novel and film. Yes, it is quiet the most painful story, but all lives worth living have pain and heartbreak, love and laughter. This is no sugar-coated romance, but a dark, dirty, tragedy. What affects me so is the timelessness of this story. Michael Winterbottom truly made a wonderful film - he did not write the story folks.

Christopher Eccleston is a master actor, he brings such a full-blown sense of the man "Jude". He really knew this character strongly and I feel that he has a level of intelligence and feeling that is rarely used in modern male actors.

Kate Winslet is a stunning actress. Hard to believe that she carried the level of passion and maturity in "Jude" as Sue Bridehead at the ripe age of 20. She is truly one-of-a-kind and deserves all accolades placed upon her shoulders.

I had no problem with the love scenes and nudity in this movie - although that could be because Chris Eccleston is so incredibly attractive. Isn't love-making crucial and appropriate for two people in love? I don't understand how some people commented poorly on that. It seems quite acceptable for me.

Don't look for mushy weepy romance in Jude. You will find power, grief, passion, love, and bravery. Jude and Sue possess more bravery than most people living today, the tragedy is that they risked everything for their love - which destroyed them and the lives of their children.

Masterpiece film making and acting. Bravo!

Set in late 1800's Britain, "Jude" traces the life of the title character (Eccleston), a learned but humble stonemason, who courageously struggles with life's disappointments only to be struck with unspeakable tragedy. A beautifully depressing human drama, "Jude" traverses the highs and lows of life through its dreary tale of one man's steadfast conviction to his beliefs and to the woman he loves. Not for everyone, "Jude" is a film for realists into serious drama which many will likely regard as a "downer". (B+)

There are three common errors made by directors of historical films that Michael Winterbottom neatly avoids in 'Jude', his adaptation of Thomas Hardy's novel. Firstly, he creates a picture of a livable past, not some shallow collage of country houses and Dickensian squalor but a world in which a normality, of sorts, might reign. Secondly, he sets out to explore that normality, instead of simply judging the past by present values. Finally, he is working with a script that is neither archaic and stiff nor laced with modern anachronisms. Add to this strong direction and casting (Christopher Ecclestone is excellent in the title role, and a young Kate Winslett fetchingly appealing as Sue), and the result is a good film; but it lacks something of a dramatic punch.

I haven't read the book, but one senses from the film that it may represent a fierce attack on then-contemporary values, particularly those involving marriage, values which drive the characters to their ultimate misfortune. One senses this, but in the movie this theme is played down, so the story seems merely to tell of the ups and downs of Jude's life, presented as fairly accidental happenings. A terrible tragedy eventually occurs; and, because of what has happened in the past, a second, avoidable, tragedy then follows. The problem, dramatically speaking, is that the second tragedy appears smaller than the first, thus the end of the film serves as an anti-climax. Without a unifying sense of accusation, we, instead of a powerful polemic, are left with only the tale of an unfortunate.

'Jude' is one of the better, and the least sentimental, of historical films. But something of the point has been lost in translation.