Between a Cock and a Hard Head

An innocent young woman is abused by the amoral and the devoutly moral in 1979's Tess. Roman Polanski directed the film ten years after Sharon Tate recommended to him the Thomas Hardy novel on which it's based, Tess of the d'Urbervilles (you can see her buying a copy in Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood). Like Polanski's later film, Pirates, Tess is an astonishingly meticulous and beautiful period film.

Nastassja Kinski stars as Tess, a peasant girl whose drunken father is informed one day by the parson that their family is actually descended from the venerable noble family d'Urberville. Since Tess is well mannered and beautiful, her mother decides to send her to the nearest apparent representative of the respectable branch of the family.

She's swiftly employed by a young cad who purchased the use of the d'Urberville name (Leigh Lawson). A ruthless conman, he falls for Tess and takes advantage of her, emotionally and physically.

Compelled to leave, she next finds herself employed as a milkmaid at a dairy farm where she catches the eye of the handsome Angel Clare (Peter Firth).

Angel seems like a descendant of Romanticism, espousing a love for nature and purity. He also reads Marx, though, so his ideas are influenced by a late 19th century distaste for antiquated systems of hierarchy. Most viewers will catch on pretty early that this guy's a hypocrite and Tess is heading for another disaster. But Polanski weaves such a credible world of peasants and their lords and the ways in which their relationships work that the drama is thoroughly engrossing. Not to mention the film has gorgeous cinematography.

Tess is available on The Criterion Channel.

Twitter Sonnet #1675

A careful piece arranged to buy the board.
Defining time allowed the mind to roam.
With Heaven's help, the songs of Hell were scored.
And now the heart eludes the finest comb.
Before the golden setting sun they fall.
Depraved before the dreams of chicken gods.
To make a patch she knits a ragged ball.
A leaky thatch disturbs the cloning pods.
The morning sun was cowed by burning eyes.
Ascending boots of mud were mute and grey.
Assembled ghosts awaited up the rise.
And thus began the gloomy final day.
Disputes about the tea have changed the grass.
Detectives sought a starlet's perfect ass.