It's no secret now that my knowledge of the really classic classics, as opposed to, well, The Great Gatsby... I suppose by that I mean classics that are super old and, often, super long and dense... is pretty poor. That said, it won't come as a surprise that I have never read a Thomas Hardy novel. Some of his poems, sure, and I'm always partial to a BBC drama here and there, but I've never completed one of his novels. I think perhaps I was scarred by everyone who studied him at GCSE: "Just sheep. Sheep and more sheep," was pretty much the gist.
That said, I was pretty excited to see that Thomas Vinterberg is doing a new adaptation of Far From the Madding Crowd with Carey Mulligan and Matthias Schoenaerts (if you haven't seen Rust and Bone, just do it. He is beautiful. Marion Cotillard is beautiful. The film is just, well, beautiful). The film will also star Michael Sheen, because it seems most films do and he is pretty good..., and Tom Sturridge, who I have to say I was pretty impressed by in On the Road last year. David Nicholls is on board to write the script, who as it happens also adapted the BBC's 2008 adaptation of Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbevilles with Gemma Arterton, and 2012's Great Expectations.
Far From the Madding Crowd, for anyone who doesn't know, follows Bathsheba Everdean who arrives in the village of Weatherbury and manages to capture the heart of three men. There is love but, as with any Hardy novel, there are also consequences.
Apparently this will be the fourth adaptation of the classic for the screen, the most famous starring Julie Christie in 1967, and more recently the novel inspired the comic-strip (and subsequent film), Tamara Drewe.
Right, guess I probably should read it now. We'll see...
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