Product Description

James Purefoy, Jodhi May, Juliet Aubrey, Ciaran Hinds Adapted from the classic novel by Thomas Hardy Travelling the dirt roads of Wessex in search of work, Michael Henchard (CIARAN HINDS) a farm work, auctions his wife Susan (JULIET AUBREY) and baby daughter in a moment of drunken madness at a country fair. Years later, Susan and her daughter Elizabeth-Jane (JODHI MAY) return, seeking Michael in Casterbridge where he has become a rich and respected member of Wessex society. Drive by the need to make amends, he re-marries Susan but in a tragic twist of fate, she dies, but not before leaving a letter containing a shocking revelation. As a romance blossoms between Elizabeth-Jane and the mayor's charismatic business manager Farfrae (JAMES PUREFOY), Henchard becomes convinced that the young man is determined to destroy him and orders Elizabeth-Jane never to see him again, setting a chain of events in motion that will change their lives forever... Special Features Photo Gallery Star Biographies Trailer

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #65371 in DVD
• Released on: 2007-02-19
• Rating: Parental Guidance
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 195 minutes

Synopsis
Ciaran Hinds (PERSUASION, CIRCLE OF FRIENDS) stars as the tormented Michael Henchard in this lavish adaptation of Thomas Hardy's classic novel THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. One day, in a destitute and drunken state, Henchard sells his wife and daughter to a sailor at a county fair. Haunted by the memory of this betrayal, the itinerant farmhand decides to change his ways and in the process becomes a respectable, prosperous man. Twenty years later, his wife and daughter reappear on his doorstep, offering Henchard the choice of redemption or a further descent into the web of deceit and betrayal.

Customer Reviews

Best I've Seen!
I've only recently started watching all the mini-series I've missed over the years. The best one I've seen (and we see quite a few!)-- the best MOVIE I've ever seen-- is The Mayor of Casterbridge.

Ciaran Hinds IS Michael Henchard. He's absolutely amazing and, despite his sad and deeply flawed character, he keeps our empathy. That is a very difficult task, too, since he creates some horrible situations for himself and for others. Yet, he's human and is trying to do what he deems best, though what he deems best at the time is so very very wrong.

His performance kept me riveted throughout the film and kept me thinking about the movie for a long while afterwards, as well.

Every performance in this was outstanding. The cinematography was gorgeous and the music was haunting. I looked for the sheet music to this theme afterwards, but couldn't find it. I'll keep looking.

What a wonderful film. You will absolutely not be disappointed. Definitely one of the most beautiful,touching and bittersweet movies I've ever seen.

You can't get your life bacxk
Drunkenly auctioning off your wife and baby is reason enough to despise someone, but the "Mayor of Casterbridge" gives us plenty of other reasons to despise and pity him. The A&E adaptation of Thomas Hardy's novel is an all-around solid one -- solid scripting, solid directing, solid acting from Ciarán Hinds and Jodhi May.

At a county fair, Michael Henchard (Hinds) gets drunk, and auctions his wife and baby daughter off to a kindly sailor. So he swears off booze for the next twenty-one years, and works hard to become a pillar of the community.

Nineteen years later, the sailor is lost at sea, and the wife Susan (Juliet Aubrey) and grown daughter Elizabeth Jane (Jodhi May) return to Casterbridge, and find that Michael has become the mayor and corporate head of the town. He's also incredibly sorry for what he did, and asks Susan to remarry him quietly so his crime never needs to be known. She does.

But Michael soon feels threatened by his brilliant new manager Donald Farfrae (James Purefoy), who is also falling in love with Elizabeth Jane. Michael's corporate power begins to slip, and when Susan dies he discovers a shocking fact about his daughter -- sending him into a spiral of lies, jealousy and misery.

Basically, it's all about watching someone's life go down the drain. There have been more complete adaptations of the Thomas Hardy novel, but this one is just fast-moving and tense enough to give it a feeling of urgency.

The big lesson: Henchard's life isn't wrecked because of alcohol, or even because he auctionied off his wife -- he ruins his own life with his lies, viciousness, and the ugly flaws that makes him try to control the people around him. It has some cute scenes between Purefoy and May in a rainy barn, but other than that it's a relentlessly dark movie.

The whole thing is set in a picturesque English village in a pretty green countryside. David Thacker doesn't neglect the nastier, grimier side of life, but he peppers the story with beautiful visuals (Elizabeth in the graveyard) and moments of merriment or friendship. Then they get ruined by confrontations with Henchard.

Hinds and May give the best performances here -- Hinds gives us a solid performance, as a man who tries to do the wrong thing, but is led astray by his temper. He can flip from miserable repentence to cold cruelty in a moment. And May gives a wonderfully sensitive performance as a confused young girl whose romance and job are derailed by her "father's" resentment.

"The Mayor of Casterbridge" is an all-around solid miniseries, with two really outstanding performances by May and Hinds. Melancholy and bittersweet.

Better than the book
There are plenty of people around who will tell you that 'the book is always better than the film'. But not always. I can think of a few exceptions and this is one of them. What's more I think Hardy would have agreed with me.
The point is that the Tragedy is far more powerful in this TV version than the book could ever be because the whole thing is concentrated in the space of a couple of hours whereas the book will probably take the average reader a week. Reading it fast would be no solution anyway - it wouldn't go deep enough.
By concentrating the story into the length of the film we almost manage to return to the Aristotelian unities of time, place and action upon which the full effect of Greek Tragedy was ideally meant to rest. When you read the book the tragic effect is weakened and difffused by the very long period of time necessarily covered by the action and by the time it takes to read it. Unity of action is also lost. Hardy of course is well aware of this and always tries to make up for this by emphasising unity of place which he is very good at but he always does this through objective, external description and this is the very thing that contemporary TV films can count as their greatest strength.
The upshot is that when we see the film we can be very deeply affected by Henchard's fate. Speaking for myself, I was as deeply affected as I have been by any Tragedy I have ever seen. On the other hand I can say that I was little moved by the book and rather resented the work I had put into reading it.
I would say the same thing about Polanski's 'Tess' and the TV version 'Tess Of The Durbervilles', both very fine pieces of work to rival any films ever made in the naturalistic style, and again both better than the book for the same reasons.
I believe their status would be much greater among cineasts if they were not based on 19th century novels. It's not 'cool' to adapt a classic novel. After all 'the book is always better'. Isn't it?