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Article: Hardy goes West: The Claim, the Western, and The Mayor of Casterbridge.(Movie review)
- Article from:
- Literature-Film Quarterly
- Article date:
- January 1, 2007
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2007 Salisbury State University. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Michael Winterbottom, the British filmmaker who recently outraged some moviegoers by making a movie containing real sex acts (9 Songs, 2004) (1), would not appear at first blush to have much in common with Thomas Hardy, the Victorian novelist. And yet, Winterbottom has directed well-received film adaptations of two Hardy novels--his 1996 Jude, a stark film version of Jude the Obscure (1894-95), and more recently The Claim (2000), inspired by The Mayor of Casterbridge (1885-86). (2) Hardy stirred up a fair share of controversy in his own time, of course, to the point that public criticism of the sex and suicide in Jude the Obscure finally drove him to abandon novel writing ...