dangermousie (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dangermousie) wrote2007-10-27 12:19 am
dangermousie) wrote2007-10-27 12:19 am
Entry tags:
Largely about Jude the Obscure (movie and book)
OhmyGod ohmyGod ohmyGod!
There is an actual ‘Vote Saxon’ webpage:
http://www.votesaxon.co.uk/
I think I have died of glee.
In other news, I recently ended up watching the movie adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s ‘Jude the Obscure’ (the movie abbreviates the title to ‘Jude’) with Christopher Eccleston and Kate Winslet. I love Thomas Hardy. Jude is his last novel and makes Tess of the D’Urbervilles seem light and fluffy but it's just so beautiful and passionate and tragic, and the movie is a great adaptation of the novel.
Plot: The story centers around Jude (Christopher Eccleston) and Sue (Kate Winslet) whose love is enduring but doomed. Jude is a sensitive, intellectual and emotional man trapped in a brutal life (aka a typical Hardy character). He is a stone-mason whose dreams of education go up in smoke, and who ends up married to a loutish woman who tricks him into marriage. His life is bleak until he meets a cousin, Sue (Kate Winslet), free-spirited, intelligent, wonderful. They fall deeply in love, and really are meant for each other, but as they are married to other people, they end up ostracized by society, which has no place for the lovers, their children, or any hopes or dreams of theirs. This leads to unbelievable tragedy by the end.
Wonderful movie, though you keep waiting for doom (I read the book, but you don’t have to, to know it can’t end well), and then it comes. And breaks your heart to little pieces.
Trailer:
The ending is one of the most horrifying, depressing things imaginable. As a reviewer on amazon put it: I felt as though, three-quarters of the way through, without warning, someone had punched me in the gut, and then repeatedly kicked me until I died. Actually, the movie ends with more hope than the book, and that's really saying something. Think about the storyline this way: imagine the worst possible life that fate could lay out for you, and then multiple the pain factor by ten.
Yeah, that about sums it up.
Good movie though. Amazing, actually.
I love this MV of it:
That made me reread the book which is always a bad idea, as there is bawling.
But it's so beautifully written. One of my favorite scenes in all literature is Jude and Sue’s last meeting. Here it is, behind the cut.
A light footstep, which might have been accounted no more than an added drip to the rainfall, sounded in the porch, and he looked round.
"Oh—I didn't think it was you! I didn't—Oh, Jude!" A hysterical catch in her breath ended in a succession of them. He advanced, but she quickly recovered and went back.
"Don't go—don't go!" he implored. "This is my last time! I thought it would be less intrusive than to enter your house. And I shall never come again. Don't then be unmerciful. Sue, Sue! We are acting by the letter; and 'the letter killeth'!"
"I'll stay—I won't be unkind!" she said, her mouth quivering and her tears flowing as she allowed him to come closer. "But why did you come, and do this wrong thing, after doing such a right thing as you have done?"
"What right thing?"
"Marrying Arabella again. It was in the Alfredston paper. She has never been other than yours, Jude—in a proper sense. And therefore you did so well—Oh so well!—in recognizing it—and taking her to you again."
"God above—and is that all I've come to hear? If there is anything more degrading, immoral, unnatural, than another in my life, it is this meretricious contract with Arabella which has been called doing the right thing! And you too—you call yourself Phillotson's wife! His wife! You are mine."
"Don't make me rush away from you—I can't bear much! But on this point I am decided."
"I cannot understand how you did it—how you think it—I cannot!"
"Never mind that. He is a kind husband to me—And I—I've wrestled and struggled, and fasted, and prayed. I have nearly brought my body into complete subjection. And you mustn't—will you—wake—"
"Oh you darling little fool; where is your reason? You seem to have suffered the loss of your faculties! I would argue with you if I didn't know that a woman in your state of feeling is quite beyond all appeals to her brains. Or is it that you are humbugging yourself, as so many women do about these things; and don't actually believe what you pretend to, and only are indulging in the luxury of the emotion raised by an affected belief?"
"Luxury! How can you be so cruel!"
"You dear, sad, soft, most melancholy wreck of a promising human intellect that it has ever been my lot to behold! Where is your scorn of convention gone? I would have died game!"
"You crush, almost insult me, Jude! Go away from me!" She turned off quickly.
"I will. I would never come to see you again, even if I had the strength to come, which I shall not have any more. Sue, Sue, you are not worth a man's love!"
Her bosom began to go up and down. "I can't endure you to say that!" she burst out, and her eye resting on him a moment, she turned back impulsively. "Don't, don't scorn me! Kiss me, oh kiss me lots of times, and say I am not a coward and a contemptible humbug—I can't bear it!" She rushed up to him and, with her mouth on his, continued: "I must tell you—oh I must—my darling Love! It has been—only a church marriage—an apparent marriage I mean! He suggested it at the very first!"
"How?"
"I mean it is a nominal marriage only. It hasn't been more than that at all since I came back to him!"
"Sue!" he said. Pressing her to him in his arms he bruised her lips with kisses: "If misery can know happiness, I have a moment's happiness now! Now, in the name of all you hold holy, tell me the truth, and no lie. You do love me still?"
"I do! You know it too well! … But I mustn't do this! I mustn't kiss you back as I would!"
"But do!"
"And yet you are so dear!—and you look so ill—"
"And so do you! There's one more, in memory of our dead little children—yours and mine!"
The words struck her like a blow, and she bent her head. "I mustn't—I can't go on with this!" she gasped presently. "But there, there, darling; I give you back your kisses; I do, I do! ␎ And now I'll hate myself for ever for my sin!"
"No—let me make my last appeal. Listen to this! We've both remarried out of our senses. I was made drunk to do it. You were the same. I was gin-drunk; you were creed-drunk. Either form of intoxication takes away the nobler vision… Let us then shake off our mistakes, and run away together!"
"No; again no! … Why do you tempt me so far, Jude! It is too merciless! … But I've got over myself now. Don't follow me—don't look at me. Leave me, for pity's sake!"
She ran up the church to the east end, and Jude did as she requested. He did not turn his head, but took up his blanket, which she had not seen, and went straight out. As he passed the end of the church she heard his coughs mingling with the rain on the windows, and in a last instinct of human affection, even now unsubdued by her fetters, she sprang up as if to go and succour him. But she knelt down again, and stopped her ears with her hands till all possible sound of him had passed away.
**
Oh, and Jude’s last moments (Arabella is out, flirting).
As soon as he could speak he murmured, his eyes still closed: "A little water, please."
Nothing but the deserted room received his appeal, and he coughed to exhaustion again—saying still more feebly: "Water—some water—Sue—Arabella!"
The room remained still as before. Presently he gasped again: "Throat—water—Sue—darling—drop of water—please—oh please!"
No water came, and the organ notes, faint as a bee's hum, rolled in as before.
While he remained, his face changing, shouts and hurrahs came from somewhere in the direction of the river.
"Ah—yes! The Remembrance games," he murmured. "And I here. And Sue defiled!"
The hurrahs were repeated, drowning the faint organ notes. Jude's face changed more: he whispered slowly, his parched lips scarcely moving:
"Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man-child conceived."
("Hurrah!")
"Let that day be darkness; let not God regard it from above, neither let the light shine upon it. Lo, let that night be solitary, let no joyful voice come therein."
("Hurrah!")
"Why died I not from the womb? Why did i not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly? … For now should I have lain still and been quiet. I should have slept: then had I been at rest!"
("Hurrah!")
"There the prisoners rest together; they hear not the voice of the oppressor… The small and the great are there; and the servant is free from his master. Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery, and life unto the bitter in soul?"
**
Last words in the book: (about Sue, when laying out Jude)
- "Well—poor little thing, 'tis to be believed she's found forgiveness somewhere! She said she had found peace!”
- "She may swear that on her knees to the holy cross upon her necklace till she's hoarse, but it won't be true!" said Arabella. "She's never found peace since she left his arms, and never will again till she's as he is now!"
I hate you Thomas Hardy. And love you. The novel is in public domain and is available on Gutenberg.net
There is an actual ‘Vote Saxon’ webpage:
http://www.votesaxon.co.uk/
I think I have died of glee.
In other news, I recently ended up watching the movie adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s ‘Jude the Obscure’ (the movie abbreviates the title to ‘Jude’) with Christopher Eccleston and Kate Winslet. I love Thomas Hardy. Jude is his last novel and makes Tess of the D’Urbervilles seem light and fluffy but it's just so beautiful and passionate and tragic, and the movie is a great adaptation of the novel.
Plot: The story centers around Jude (Christopher Eccleston) and Sue (Kate Winslet) whose love is enduring but doomed. Jude is a sensitive, intellectual and emotional man trapped in a brutal life (aka a typical Hardy character). He is a stone-mason whose dreams of education go up in smoke, and who ends up married to a loutish woman who tricks him into marriage. His life is bleak until he meets a cousin, Sue (Kate Winslet), free-spirited, intelligent, wonderful. They fall deeply in love, and really are meant for each other, but as they are married to other people, they end up ostracized by society, which has no place for the lovers, their children, or any hopes or dreams of theirs. This leads to unbelievable tragedy by the end.
Wonderful movie, though you keep waiting for doom (I read the book, but you don’t have to, to know it can’t end well), and then it comes. And breaks your heart to little pieces.
Trailer:
The ending is one of the most horrifying, depressing things imaginable. As a reviewer on amazon put it: I felt as though, three-quarters of the way through, without warning, someone had punched me in the gut, and then repeatedly kicked me until I died. Actually, the movie ends with more hope than the book, and that's really saying something. Think about the storyline this way: imagine the worst possible life that fate could lay out for you, and then multiple the pain factor by ten.
Yeah, that about sums it up.
Good movie though. Amazing, actually.
I love this MV of it:
That made me reread the book which is always a bad idea, as there is bawling.
But it's so beautifully written. One of my favorite scenes in all literature is Jude and Sue’s last meeting. Here it is, behind the cut.
A light footstep, which might have been accounted no more than an added drip to the rainfall, sounded in the porch, and he looked round.
"Oh—I didn't think it was you! I didn't—Oh, Jude!" A hysterical catch in her breath ended in a succession of them. He advanced, but she quickly recovered and went back.
"Don't go—don't go!" he implored. "This is my last time! I thought it would be less intrusive than to enter your house. And I shall never come again. Don't then be unmerciful. Sue, Sue! We are acting by the letter; and 'the letter killeth'!"
"I'll stay—I won't be unkind!" she said, her mouth quivering and her tears flowing as she allowed him to come closer. "But why did you come, and do this wrong thing, after doing such a right thing as you have done?"
"What right thing?"
"Marrying Arabella again. It was in the Alfredston paper. She has never been other than yours, Jude—in a proper sense. And therefore you did so well—Oh so well!—in recognizing it—and taking her to you again."
"God above—and is that all I've come to hear? If there is anything more degrading, immoral, unnatural, than another in my life, it is this meretricious contract with Arabella which has been called doing the right thing! And you too—you call yourself Phillotson's wife! His wife! You are mine."
"Don't make me rush away from you—I can't bear much! But on this point I am decided."
"I cannot understand how you did it—how you think it—I cannot!"
"Never mind that. He is a kind husband to me—And I—I've wrestled and struggled, and fasted, and prayed. I have nearly brought my body into complete subjection. And you mustn't—will you—wake—"
"Oh you darling little fool; where is your reason? You seem to have suffered the loss of your faculties! I would argue with you if I didn't know that a woman in your state of feeling is quite beyond all appeals to her brains. Or is it that you are humbugging yourself, as so many women do about these things; and don't actually believe what you pretend to, and only are indulging in the luxury of the emotion raised by an affected belief?"
"Luxury! How can you be so cruel!"
"You dear, sad, soft, most melancholy wreck of a promising human intellect that it has ever been my lot to behold! Where is your scorn of convention gone? I would have died game!"
"You crush, almost insult me, Jude! Go away from me!" She turned off quickly.
"I will. I would never come to see you again, even if I had the strength to come, which I shall not have any more. Sue, Sue, you are not worth a man's love!"
Her bosom began to go up and down. "I can't endure you to say that!" she burst out, and her eye resting on him a moment, she turned back impulsively. "Don't, don't scorn me! Kiss me, oh kiss me lots of times, and say I am not a coward and a contemptible humbug—I can't bear it!" She rushed up to him and, with her mouth on his, continued: "I must tell you—oh I must—my darling Love! It has been—only a church marriage—an apparent marriage I mean! He suggested it at the very first!"
"How?"
"I mean it is a nominal marriage only. It hasn't been more than that at all since I came back to him!"
"Sue!" he said. Pressing her to him in his arms he bruised her lips with kisses: "If misery can know happiness, I have a moment's happiness now! Now, in the name of all you hold holy, tell me the truth, and no lie. You do love me still?"
"I do! You know it too well! … But I mustn't do this! I mustn't kiss you back as I would!"
"But do!"
"And yet you are so dear!—and you look so ill—"
"And so do you! There's one more, in memory of our dead little children—yours and mine!"
The words struck her like a blow, and she bent her head. "I mustn't—I can't go on with this!" she gasped presently. "But there, there, darling; I give you back your kisses; I do, I do! ␎ And now I'll hate myself for ever for my sin!"
"No—let me make my last appeal. Listen to this! We've both remarried out of our senses. I was made drunk to do it. You were the same. I was gin-drunk; you were creed-drunk. Either form of intoxication takes away the nobler vision… Let us then shake off our mistakes, and run away together!"
"No; again no! … Why do you tempt me so far, Jude! It is too merciless! … But I've got over myself now. Don't follow me—don't look at me. Leave me, for pity's sake!"
She ran up the church to the east end, and Jude did as she requested. He did not turn his head, but took up his blanket, which she had not seen, and went straight out. As he passed the end of the church she heard his coughs mingling with the rain on the windows, and in a last instinct of human affection, even now unsubdued by her fetters, she sprang up as if to go and succour him. But she knelt down again, and stopped her ears with her hands till all possible sound of him had passed away.
**
Oh, and Jude’s last moments (Arabella is out, flirting).
As soon as he could speak he murmured, his eyes still closed: "A little water, please."
Nothing but the deserted room received his appeal, and he coughed to exhaustion again—saying still more feebly: "Water—some water—Sue—Arabella!"
The room remained still as before. Presently he gasped again: "Throat—water—Sue—darling—drop of water—please—oh please!"
No water came, and the organ notes, faint as a bee's hum, rolled in as before.
While he remained, his face changing, shouts and hurrahs came from somewhere in the direction of the river.
"Ah—yes! The Remembrance games," he murmured. "And I here. And Sue defiled!"
The hurrahs were repeated, drowning the faint organ notes. Jude's face changed more: he whispered slowly, his parched lips scarcely moving:
"Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man-child conceived."
("Hurrah!")
"Let that day be darkness; let not God regard it from above, neither let the light shine upon it. Lo, let that night be solitary, let no joyful voice come therein."
("Hurrah!")
"Why died I not from the womb? Why did i not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly? … For now should I have lain still and been quiet. I should have slept: then had I been at rest!"
("Hurrah!")
"There the prisoners rest together; they hear not the voice of the oppressor… The small and the great are there; and the servant is free from his master. Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery, and life unto the bitter in soul?"
**
Last words in the book: (about Sue, when laying out Jude)
- "Well—poor little thing, 'tis to be believed she's found forgiveness somewhere! She said she had found peace!”
- "She may swear that on her knees to the holy cross upon her necklace till she's hoarse, but it won't be true!" said Arabella. "She's never found peace since she left his arms, and never will again till she's as he is now!"
I hate you Thomas Hardy. And love you. The novel is in public domain and is available on Gutenberg.net
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And yet you love it.
Honey, if I may say -- you are so Russian sometimes, it's not even funny.
Except it is. ;)
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Except I don't feel guilty at all.
I just love the possibility for passion, conflict and drama in angsty stories. You don't get that with fluffy happy ones.
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It is so very stereotypically Russian, though -- especially when it comes to taste in literature. Now, that's why so many of the greatest books in the world are Russian... so it's not a bad thing at all.
It's just so funny for me to read so many Russian books, be aware of the Russian style -- dramatic, deep, angst-upon-angst -- and then meet a Russian girl who's all, it's just not fun unless people are suffering*! Just makes me want to cuddle you. ;)
Apropos of nothing, want to chill this week? Watch more Sam Soon, or did you finish that?
*I've been accused of this attitude as well, actually... but you out-angst crave me!
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ETA
Re: ETA
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I thought that Christopher Eccleston did a great job in his role, as did Kate Winslet in hers. They're soo good at portraying the budding hope in a near-miserable situation and then the absolute break-down into full catastrophy. Very powerful work.
And yes, "Because we are too many" is beyond horrifying. It's so completely void of hope, and yet, it's somehow a terribly believable bit of a child's logic in a situation like that. It's the child's absolute conviction that he's the reason of his parents' misery. He is so sure, like small children are sometimes, that the moods of his parents are necessarily dependent on his actions.
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They arw wonderful in it, but that very fact, the fact that you love and root for Jude and Sue, makes it all so horrifying.
And you are right, that is so like a child to think so. Wow.
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David Tennant is also briefly in the movie.
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Hardy is one of my faves, but I seriously need antidepressants after it's over.
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