Roman Polański
Tess

If you've seen the latest [disgustingly propagandistic] film by Quentin Tarantino, «Once Upon a Time in Hollywood», you might remember a particular sequence where you can titillate your emotions with a wonderful Margot Robbie (the protagonist who plays the iconic Sharon Tate in the late '60s), see her enter a place and there receive the Novel «Tess of the D'Urbervilles» by Thomas Hardy, having fallen in love with it after reading it and, in turn, to share it with the one she loves, make a gift of it to her husband, the less iconic yet not less legendary: - Roman Polanski. Whether this sequence has been romanticized by Tarantino or not, either more or less imagined; arbitrarily or less arbitrarily staged by postmodern Tarantinian revisionism, we cannot say for sure, but no problem ... you can still infer that it deals with something related to reality, considering that Polanski himself has given interviews and various statements which make it known that his Sharon had discussed this extraordinary text (written at the end of the 19th century) and the great novelist who gave it to the world. Certainly among the greatest authors who ever lived. So much so (and perhaps someone must have had chills like me, if not a lump in the throat), when we would thus press the Play button on her DVD or BLURAY player of Tess, Polanski's cinematic masterpiece, we will see appear in the opening sequence of the film a small and sweet caption: «.. to Sharon».

My intention was to review both the masterpiece by Thomas Hardy and the masterpiece by Roman Polanski, together. A bit too ambitious as a project, I realized it too late. Also because I still have to get well acquainted with the dynamics of this site and reason and move with calibrated restraint. So I will invent on the fly a sort of divertissement (to put it in French) between the filmic work and the literary work.

For Me, Thomas Hardy remains in the pantheon of novelists along with Melville (no small thing) who, albeit for very different reasons, the narrative power of these two Noble Savages is still united in a perfect oxymoron in those who possess the gift of the pen; both - Melville and Hardy - pervaded by an incomparable literary religious force. And when I say "religious" I do not mean in a theological sense, but rather philosophical, rather human, where even an atheist conception inserted therein could not escape such dynamics, nor result as contradictory; elements imbued in the concept of Will and well beyond biological protocols, that is when you breathe Life as a total love towards it, even when you find it adverse, unjust, bastard and it comes from ruthlessly inescapable forces. I use and perhaps will use again the term "love" but it is not the precise definition for this discussion, more precisely - for Tess - Amor Fati should be spoken about.

In an era like ours where culture has become distraction packaged for stupid, homogenized, and subservient minds to a mental as well as degradingly political imperialism, here finding oneself minority compared to an idiotic mass, as inevitable should be a choice for those who identify its dangers. Aware that heavily manipulated majorities gobble up fair confrontations and any real experimentation, where we find ourselves drowned out by useless words, useless sounds, invasive images that do not let us think (as the great Goffredo Fofi says) here, we were saying, aware of this and not only, a film like Tess by Polanski places us in the vivid and wonderful condition of being able to experience images, sounds, stories, and characters without a filmic work being constructed to convince, but rather to expose itself, as today's culture does not allow for example and indeed, with its cursed industry of dominance that sterilizes, poisons, and spreads ignorance masquerading as entertainment.

Hardy's work in the novel, like Polanski's in the cinema, posits as a condition: NOT a reflection, NOT an analysis, NOT a denunciation, NOT a historicization, NOT an ideological design, NOT a pretext, NOT a direction, but: - an expression.

What gives us pause is - alas - the miserable realization that with the famous adage of "nowadays" used to any scenographic and scenic possibility in the so-called "seventh art", and in ever more massive and ultra-million investments in and of today's blockbusters, here for an effect that is psychological and perceptive, in my opinion still to be identified, one cannot - without a strict regime of purification - become aware of the absolute love, from the particular to the general, from the general to the particular, that certain works, like that of Polanski, in an incredible mise-en-scène adopt.

The choice of Nastassja Kinski for his Tess is moving. I want to believe Polanski relied on the very words of those who created her from his pen: «And it was precisely that touch of imperfection in a presumed perfection that inspired a poignant tenderness, because it contributed to giving her humanity» this was Tess for Hardy and this will become Tess for Polanski.

I recommend to those who haven't done so, to watch the film and after read the novel. It will not betray. And it could be a very interesting experiment for everyone. I recommend it. And it would not be a contradiction as it might be in other cases between Cinema and Novels. I don't believe such a symbiotic relationship has ever been repeated in the name of a cinematic adaptation, especially when talking about a literary work of such heights and the infinite subtexts it involves. If, in the book, Tess's relationship with Nature is astonishingly infused by Hardy, revealing from nature itself a ruthless, omniscient pantheistic figure, formidable and alive with a will of its own, inexplicable yet intelligible, reaching - up there - the forces of the stars beyond the celestial vault and suspecting their symbolism, but devoid of any infantile ideology; here in the film, the relationship of psychological dynamics that violate us through the eyes of Nastassja Kinski (which would be indescribable on the pages of any book) that torment the soul, could not be better narrated by Hardy as Polanski was instead able to do through the language of cinema.

Polanski's genius for this film ensured that by subtraction a paradoxically superior value was obtained to the sum of all the elements he decided to leave and insert in the adaptation. Herein the difference between great Filmmakers and Masters. One can truly be a great Filmmaker, yet not even come close to the smallest of Masters. And Polanski is not among the smallest.

Tess's adventure, a very young girl prey to a world in full idiosyncrasy between its morals and class differences, will lead us - and without holding our hand - into the most Schopenhauerian of memorable and delicately powerful figures in the history of narration. The purity and innocence of Tess are not those of sanctity, but of a rigorous courageous awareness that she feels in her spirit, towards a destiny whose epilogue will always be perfectly balanced between wanting to love it and fighting to ensure it matches her heart. Of our heart.

The clarification to conclude. The premise at the beginning of this review, which paraphrases a sequence from Tarantino's latest film, was not meant to be an introductory curiosity, but to ensure that once again - and in the most intelligent way possible granted to me - the most emblematic if not Hamletian of questions is raised when we talk about cinema, where everything sublimates into asking fervently and with passionate unease whether it is art imitating life or life imitating art ...

... and so, in a parallel no less heartrending than the beauty of Tess with the heartrending beauty of Sharon Tate: with Polanski, I want to believe that his film is an act of love and an act of uncontainable and humble rage simultaneously, where he bows his head to the forces of the universe, silently weeping his own pain.