A drunken Michael Henchard (Alan Bates) auctions off his wife, Susan (Anne Stallybrass) and infant daughter, Elizabeth-Jane to a kindly sailor named Newsomn (Richard Owens). The next day when he sobers up, Henchard realizes the enormity of the evil he has done and takes a "gospel vow" not to touch strong drink again for 21 years. When Susan and a grown up Elizabeth-Jane (Janet Maw) come looking for him nineteen years later, after Newson is lost at sea, they find that Henchard has risen as a merchant to such heights that he serves as the mayor of the town of Casterbridge. When Henchard learns their identities he not only insists on taking care of them but also to life again as husband and wife with Susan. He fully intends to make amends, but regrets confiding the truth to Donald Farfrae (Jack Galloway), his manager. Keeping his dark secret from the public is of prime importance, and he and Susan agree to keep the truth from Elizabeth-Jane.
Henchard's sense of pride and his fear of having his shame made public, drive him throughout this story, but it seems the Fates have it out for him as his shame and secrets become more and more entwined. Every time it looks like Henchard has done something honorable, another twist is unveiled, as in his relationship with Lucetta Templeman (Anna Massey), and he finds another new level of hell on earth to endure. Complicating things are not only Henchard's business dealings with Farfrae but the young man's interest in Elizabeth-Jane. The death of Susan inspires Henchard to tell his daughter the truth, at which point the Fates decided to be truly cruel to the man and reveal that Susan had a dark secret of her own. More importantly, a business gamble begins a period of horrific decline for Henchard that does not end until he dies.
Certain Henchard is as trapped as any Greek tragic hero I have read about given his circumstances and his character as all of his actions inevitably bring disaster and despair. Unfortunately, there were times when I had a hard time understanding what Bates was saying because of his accent, but more importantly I felt his performance was too unsympathetic for most of the seven episodes of the mini-series. There were some brief moments early on and Bates finished strong, but by then I felt it was enough but too late to make the tragedy work as well as it did in the 2003 version starring Ciarán Hinds.
I was looking forward to this earlier mini-series not only because of Bates but also because it was longer and I expected it to provide even more depth to Hardy's narrative. But the pace was considerably slower, which hurt the production, and ended up making it pretty much a wash in terms of having more content. This time I not only knew that Henchard would never find happiness, one of the hallmarks of great tragedy being that you can see the character's tragic fate dead ahead of them, but I was inclined to think he deserved it. Indeed, it is not until the end of story, when he lays out what he believes he deserves in his will, that like Elizabeth-Jane we feel compelled to shed a tear for the man and how far he has fallen having been formerly the Mayor of Casterbridge.
I think selfishness and the unhappiness that it brings are the themes of this movie. The mayor strives to be a good person, but he battles his possessiveness and need to acquire(wealth, love, and happiness) throughout the course of his film. His daughters, wives, and lovers only seem to want him to LOVE them, but the mayor's obsession and pride prevent him from seeing anything else but his own issues.
While I enjoyed "The Mayor of Casterbridge" I was sad by the ending, and felt it had less 'rewatch' value as a result. Still, this is a good film, sure to delight those interested in period drama.
Alan Bates, in one of his better roles as the drunken and penniless Michael Henchard, under the influence of too much rum, sells his wife and daughter at auction at a country fair to a sailor. This terrible act seems reasonably well accepted by the people at the fair. Henchard walks on to Casterbride and quickly becomes successful as a corn and hay merchant who is so well respected by the townspeople that they make him mayor.
Eighteen years later we are told that the sailor, Newson, dies at sea and his impoverished wife and daughter come to look for Henchard. They find him after weeks of searching. Henchard decides to marry his wife for the second time and make reparations for what he did so many years ago. All this takes place as the story begins and it would appear that Henchard is able to undo some of the wrong he did in a drunken fit. By the way, Henchard no longer drinks and appears to be a responsible, stable person.
At this point the screenwriter and director experience some difficulty in establishing effective cause and effect relationships. Henchard's behavior appears to be arbitrary and capricious. The guilt he feels for putting his wife and daughter up for auction and his fear of being discovered by the townspeople for being something less than the honorable mayor work well enough in the novel, but the director has difficulty pulling all the plot strands together in a intellibible and convincing fashion.
Accidents and twists of fate are characteristic of the plot devices Hardy uses in his novels, but even though we are made uncomfortable by the role destiny plays in the lives of his characters, we accept them as a cruel twist of fate that sometimes happens to people. The director of this film is somewhat less effective in convincing us of the inevitability of Henchard's fall and the destruction of his life.
I was reminded of the film version of Les Miserables. Liam Neeson was the mayor who thought he successfully escaped his past as a thief only to be discovered and forced to go into hiding for the rest of his life. The novel was magnificent; the film was second-rate.
The Mayor of Casterbridge is a much better film than Les Miserables, but I think some viewers are going to be a bit confused by the cutting, editing, and direction presented to us. This movie is worth the effort made to put it out as a DVD and I recommend it with the noted reservations.
