Tess

Friday, June 13 - Sunday, June 15, 2014

DCP projection — new 4k restoration

“Roman Polanski’s lush, sympathetic 1979 adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles (1891), a saga of a proud, innocent peasant girl destroyed by Victorian double standards, opens with a reminder of a woman whose life was gruesomely extinguished. ‘[T]o Sharon’ reads the dedication in the first minutes as young women, including the titular heroine, dressed in white gowns for a May Day procession, skip down a path. The dedicatee—actress Sharon Tate, Polanski’s second wife, killed by the Manson Family in 1969—had introduced the director to the novel shortly before her death…

“Made at a time when half the world, it seemed, considered its director a pariah—as many have continued to vilify as champion Polanski in the thirty-five years since the Gailey incident—Tess stands as one of the filmmaker’s gentlest, most sumptuous works. The madness and claustrophobia that had dominated Polanski’s acclaimed ‘apartment trilogy’—concluded in 1976 with The Tenant, in which the director himself plays the unraveling Parisian leaseholder of the title—are here supplanted by landscapes reminiscent of those by John Everett Millais and a protagonist who fiercely refuses to become a victim. Polanski the man will forever remain a divisive figure; Polanski the filmmaker can sometimes bridge that chasm.” – Melissa Anderson, Artforum

• Country France/UK
• Rating PG
• Year 1986
• Running Time 186 minutes
• Director Roman Polanski

IFC Center does not generally provide advisories about subject matter or potentially triggering content in films, as sensitivities vary from person to person. In addition to the synopses, trailers and other links on our website, further information about content and age-appropriateness for specific films can be found on Common Sense Media, IMDb and DoesTheDogDie.com as well as through general internet searches.