Far from the Madding Crowd (1998)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	None
Rating
Year Of Production	1998
Running Time	201:18
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (110:12)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Nicholas Renton
Studio Distributor	Universal Pictures Home Video	Starring	Paloma Baeza Nathaniel Parker Nigel Terry Jonathan Firth Natasha Little
Case	?
RPI	$36.95	Music	John Keane

    No, this is not the 1967 film starring Julie Christie as Bathsheba, Terence Stamp as Troy, Peter Finch as Boldwood, and Alan Bates as Gabriel. This is actually the Granada TV mini-series, helpfully concatenated into one continuously running feature.

    This version of Far From The Madding Crowd is a reasonably faithful adaptation of Thomas Hardy's book of the same name. Although his second novel, it was the first that sold well, and was responsible for him penning a whole set of novels based on the imaginary county of "Wessex" (in reality not too dissimilar from his native Dorset).

    Bathsheba Everdene (Paloma Baeza) is a pretty, strong willed, independent woman. Her only weakness is that she is somewhat vain and susceptible to flattery from men, and men of course are strongly attracted to her self confidence and beauty.

    At the beginning of the film, Bathsheba arrives at Norcombe Hill to stay with her aunt and immediately captures the fancy of a sheep farmer called Gabriel Oak (Nathaniel Parker). Gabriel proposes marriage, but she rejects his offer.

    Soon circumstances change drastically for both of them. Gabriel loses all his sheep due to an inexperienced dog, and is forced to sell everything to pay his debts, leaving him with no money. Bathsheba, on the other hand, suddenly finds herself the mistress of Weatherbury farm after inheriting it from her uncle who has recently died.

    Gabriel manages to get a job working for Bathsheba as a shepherd after he saves her farm from a fire. He still has feelings for her, but puts it aside when he realises she is being wooed by a gentleman who runs a neighbouring farm, Mr. Boldwood (Nigel Terry).

    In the meantime, one of Bathsheba's maids, Fanny Robin (Natasha Little) runs away to be with her lover, Sergeant Frank Troy (Jonathan Firth). However, due to a misunderstanding on their marriage day, Troy abandons Fanny but later regrets his decision and goes in search of her.

    On his travels, he meets with Bathsheba and falls in love with her, and she also seems to be attracted to him, much to the displeasure of both Gabriel and Boldwood.

    What will happen next? Who will Bathsheba marry, if at all, and what will the other two men do?

    This production captures much of the spirit of the novel, including the rustic humour and cheerfulness of the workers at the farm, and the beauty of the surrounding countryside.

Video

    We are presented with a full frame transfer, in what is presumably the intended aspect ratio.

    The transfer is somewhat soft. Given the recent age of the mini-series, I would have expected a sharper transfer but I suspect the softness is due to the series being shot using 16mm film.

    Colours are okay, and occasionally strong and vibrant, perhaps even a little too much so, possibly resulting from some colour/contrast enhancements during the transfer.

    Given the length of the feature, it is to be expected that there will be some compression artefacts. The average bitrate is 5.5 Mb/s, although the transfer varies from as low as 3Mb/s to peaks at 9Mb/s. I can detect persistent low level pixelization, some Gibbs effect ringing and shimmering here and there. Fortunately the overall transfer is still watchable.

    Grain is present due to the 16mm source, but fortunately not at annoying levels.

    Unfortunately there are no subtitle tracks.

    This is a single sided dual layered disc (RSDL). The layer occurs in Chapter 12 at 110:12. Although occurring at a scene change, it does result in a noticeable freeze on screen.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There is only one audio track: English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192kb/s).

    Even though dialog normalization is set at +4dB, the overall sound track appears to be mastered at a very low level and I had to turn up the volume by +3dB. Even then, some of the dialogue appeared indistinct, possibly due to the rural accent and the fact that occasionally some of the characters mumble. I did not encounter any issues with audio synchronization.

    I was surprised to see a caption for "Dolby Surround" during the opening titles and the film does seem to take some care with positioning of foley effects across the front speakers but also to the surround channels (such as rain, thunderstorm, birds, fire crackling and atmospheric sounds). In addition, the background music ambience is also carried by the surround channels.

    The original music is mainly orchestral, composed by John Keane, and is inoffensive.

    I noticed a few minor audio dropouts and screen freezes here and there, most noticeably at 115:33. The disc surface is slightly blemished, so these could be due to a dirty disc, but be warned, just in case these are mastering errors.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    Given the length of the feature, there are no extras on this disc.

Menu

    The menus are full frame and static.

    This title has yet to be released in Region 1.

    Far From The Madding Crowd is a reasonably faithful TV mini series adaptation of the novel by Thomas Hardy.

    The video transfer is soft but acceptable.

    The audio transfer is recorded at a low level but features some usage of the surround channels.

    There are no extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall