Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #359 in DVD
• Released on: 2007-02-19
• Rating: Suitable for 12 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 202 minutes

Synopsis

Nicholas Renton's Far From The Madding Crowd [1998] is an adaptation of Thomas Hardy's novel of the same name. It is a rollicking tale of love, betrayal and the triumph of goodness, blended together to create an extremely entertaining film.

Customer Reviews

What a disappointment
Where's the passion? Where's the drama? Bad casting of leading lady. The love of Bathsheba is something for which two men die. There was no reason for them to do so in this production! The leading me are OK but I'm sure would have come across better had they had acted opposite a better love interest, to bring them out of themselves. The story just plodded along with no feeling of time or events. The scenery and sets are good but all in all not worth watching. Stick to the original film with Julie Christie.

Outstanding, moving adaptation
This is really a great adaptation of the novel - true to not only the plot but as often as possible to Hardy's very conversations. The actors are uniformly excellent, assisted by the subtle, well-paced script, gorgeous scenery and involving plot. I don't think a better version of FFTMC will ever be made and absolutely recommend it to anyone who is a fan of Hardy - or of just sitting in front of an absorbing, fascinating, passionate and sexy costume drama for a few hours!

delightful dramatisation of a wonderful book
I have watched this so many times that my original VHS-format is falling to pieces! One of Hardy's most accessible novels, this story quite daringly (for its time) deals with such issues as love, patience and the -- often devastating -- effects of human sexuality. It is all done, though, with great humanity and even the villain has some redeeming features. There's little black-and-white in Hardy's portraits of the three men all humming around Bathsheba like bees. Nor is she herself a simplistic character.

As with the best of British television costume dramas, this 1998 version features some very well-known and -loved actors, although I believe that Paloma Baeza may not have been so well-known when she was cast as the female lead. Nathaniel Parker is simply stunning -- and irresistible -- as the superb Gabriel Oak (a more appropriate name for his character could not have been devised), and Jonathan Firth is very fine indeed as Sergeant Troy -- this may be his best role yet on the small screen.

The music is charming; the settings and costumes are perfect... Sit back for a few hours, and simply bask in the the warmth of this production. I can't recommend it highly enough.