CRITERION COLLECTION: TESS [BLU-RAY]

Details

• Release Year: 1979
• Genre: Drama, Romance
• Plot: This multiple-Oscar-winning film by Roman Polanski is an exquisite, richly layered adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles. A strong-willed peasant girl (Nastassja Kinski, in a gorgeous breakthrough) is sent by her father to the estate of some local aristocrats to capitalize on a rumor that their families are from the same line. This fateful visit commences an epic narrative of sex, class, betrayal, and revenge, which Polanski unfolds with deliberation and finesse. With its earthy visual textures, achieved by two world-class cinematographers—Geoffrey Unsworth (Cabaret and Ghislain Cloquet (Au hasard Balthazar)—Tess is a work of great pastoral beauty as well as vivid storytelling.
• Cast: Nastassja Kinski, Peter Firth, Leigh Lawson, John Collin, Rosemary Martin, Carolyn Pickles, Richard Pearson, David Markham, Pascale de Boysson, Caroline Embling, Tony Church, Lesley Dunlop, Sylvia Coleridge, Fred Bryant, Dicken Ashworth, Patsy Rowlands, John Barrett, Brigid Erin Bates, Patsy Smart, Jeanne Biras, John Bett, Tom Chadbon, Géraldine Arzul, Stephanie Treille, Elodie Warnod, Ben Reeks, Marilyne Even, Jean-Jacques Daubin, Jacob Weizbluth, Jacques Mathou, Véronique Alain, Anne Tirard, Josine Comellas, Arielle Dombasle, Gordon Richardson, Reg Dent, Jimmy Gardner, John Gill, Forbes Collins, Keith Buckley, John Moore, Graham Weston, Lina Roxa, Roman Polanski, Thomas Hardy, Gérard Brach, John Brownjohn
• Director: Roman Polanski
• Runtime: 2:51
• Company: Renn Productions, Timothy Burrill Productions, Societé Française de Production (SFP), The Criterion Collection
• Media Format: Movie