Far From the Madding Critics...
I wrote here my views about mr. Peter Bradshaw’s critic to the 2015 film “Far From the Madding Crowd” published in “The Guardian” one year ago.
I’m not a native English speaker, I don’t read the newspaper, and this came to me through my sister, who has a postdoc in Literature and worships Victorian authors, when I told her about the movie I’ve watched on TV a week ago.
I've never seen so much envy, spite, snobbery and xenophobia altogether in one text!
“John Schlesinger’s 1967 adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s Far From the Madding Crowd must be the hardest act to follow in cinema history”. Why? Haven’t you ever heard nothing is irreplaceable, apart from Human lives? I felt asleep after the first hour. The actors were ugly, bad hair & make-up, boring dialogues, dark scenarios… I’ve missed the remains, sorry!
“Thomas Vinterberg and his screenwriter David Nicholls take a fair stab at it in this eccentrically cast film. It is a faintly rushed, crushed version: a quart-in-a-pint-pot account of the novel without the sunlit expansiveness of the earlier, longer movie”. How could a Danish director of obvious little experience and a distasteful success (Oscar nominee for the "The Hunt") have the audacity to adapt a classic of English literature? Only your words are stabs, mr. Bradshaw…
“This role is very important: the vigilant Gabriel is virtually the spiritual centre of the story. But the part has mystifyingly been given to Matthias Schoenaerts, the hunky Belgian star whose Wessex accent has a strong tang of Antwerp. Everything about his demeanour is careful, tentative – and unrelaxed. He looks like he is concentrating on his diction”. Didn’t you, brilliant thinker, noticed that mr. Schoenaerts is the only non-British in the cast? Will he not be necessarily different? Doesn’t denote pride, commitment and talent trying to imitate the pronunciation of Dorset, albeit with a Flemish flavour? Does a shepherd character must have Sir Laurence Olivier’s diction to participate in a film adaptation of a classic of Albion’s literature? (Apparently yes, someone also criticized Michael Fassbender’s accent in Shakespeare’s "Macbeth" latest screen adaptation for the same reason, and I’ll be damned if an Irishman is no longer able to imitate a Scottish than any Englishman...wait! Isn’t mr. Fassbender half-German? Shame on him! )
Who buys tickets, watch movies and acclaims the work of actors/directors is the general audience, not a snobbish critic! In several countries, actors are doubled in the native languages, so no one gives a shit about accents… and let me tell you, mr. Vinterberg’s excentric vision of mr. Hardy’s most romantic novel focus on Bathsheba’s independent and avant la lettre behavior, and appeals to the 21st century women in a very a subtle but effective way: today we have “brains and means”, professional careers and we are independent from men except for sex and childbearing; so if we have to choose a mate for life, we don’t need rich old men drooling over us nor good-looking thugs ruining our lives… we need a “doggedly devoted” man “devoted(ing) his life to taking due care and protection of everything he cares about” – US! As soon as I put my eyes on mr. Schoenaerts’ Gabriel Oak, I thought –THIS IS THE ONE! – devotion, care, protection and a good fuck!
I had never read this novel, and I am not big fan of Thomas Hardy! Despite worrying about the female condition of his time, I dislike his dark writing or the sexist cynicism as he offers his women only the option of tragic fates, because it seems they couldn’t do otherwise! Only Bathsheva escapes (on her second choice…).
I absolutely loved this Gabriel Oak! I only watched the movie because of mr. Schoenaerts! What you said about him was utterly vain and envious…
From the film, I can only remember (besides the “hunky Belgian”….) Carey Mulligan’s performance, she’s very talented; Michael Sheen was ridiculous, I didn’t noticed the perilous Sgt…
My dear mr. Bradshaw, you will probably not even read this. More than one year has been gone, the film was not a blockbuster.
But more importantly, I'm no one of consequence. I am Portuguese, only one P.I.G.let ..., even if my country has the oldest borders in Europe, 873 years of History, and Portuguese is the native language of more than 200 million souls!
If you eventually move your eyes for this text, you will notice the grammatical and spelling errors, which will be a lot ...and honestly I don’t care! I can speak and write 4 languages, how about you? I challenge you to try to write a correct sentence in Portuguese (or Flemish, btw)! I’ll never ask you to speak, because it would kill me from laughing so hard!
Anyway, I dare to advise you to be more polite in your comments in the future, instead of making these asinine statements! #SorryNotSorry
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