Jude (1996)
Directed by Michael Winterbottom
In late 19th-century England, Jude aspires to be an academic, but is hobbled by his blue-collar background. Instead, he works as a stonemason and is trapped in an unloving marriage to a farmer's daughter named Arabella. But when his wife leaves him, Jude sees an opportunity to improve himself. He moves to the city and begins an affair with his married cousin, Sue, courting tragedy every step of the way.
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What critics compared Jude to
Touches, but doesn't overwhelm – unlike recent adaptations of "Tess of the d'Urbervilles" and "Jude," here Hardy's fatalism is lightened by the belief that our lives are ours to shape.
If Vinterberg does not immediately spring to mind as a likely Hardy interpreter, it may be because the author’s countryman, Michael Winterbottom, seemed to hold exclusive Hardy mining rights for most of the past two decades, during which he delivered a superior “Jude,” an India-set “Tess” (“Trishna”) and a massively underrated version of “The Mayor of Casterbridge” (transposed to the American West and retitled “The Claim”).
But though this “Madding Crowd” is a fairly superficial rendering of Hardy, which doesn’t exhibit the same degree of wrestling with the source material that Polanski showed in “Tess” and Michael Winterbottom has repeatedly demonstrated, not only in his underrated “Jude” but in his more innovative takes on “The Claim” (based on “The Mayor of Casterbridge”) and “Trishna” (based on “Tess”), it nonetheless works on that more mundane level.
The screenplay, taken from a 2005 novel by the multi-talented crime writer, poet, and musician James Sallis, was written by Hossein Amini, who is better known for adapting classic tragic novels, including James Hardy’s Jude (directed by Michael Winterbottom in 1996) and Henry James’s The Wings of the Dove (directed by Iain Softley in 1997).
The neatly contrived screenplay is by Iranian-born British writer Hossein Amini (who scripted the screen versions of Wings of the Dove and Jude).
Based on a novel by James Sallis, the screenplay is by Hossein Amini, who’s better known for tony literary adaptations like Jude and The Wings Of The Dove.