Sightlines · reception
How Tess was received
1979 · Roman Polanski · Tess on Sightlines
The arc
A prestige triumph on release — three Oscars (including a posthumous cinematography win for Geoffrey Unsworth, who died mid-production) and the César for Best Film — it's now regarded as perhaps Polanski's most beautiful movie, though watching it has only grown more complicated with time.
What’s debated
The debate is unavoidable: a lyrical film about a young woman destroyed by a predatory older man, made by Polanski immediately after fleeing the US — Letterboxd reviews are half aesthetic rapture, half art-versus-artist reckoning.
Its footprint
The opening dedication — simply 'To Sharon' — is one of the most quietly devastating title cards in cinema, and the strawberry image endures as shorthand for the whole film's mix of lushness and menace.
Where it stands
A canonical literary adaptation and Criterion staple: routinely cited as the most gorgeous Hardy film ever made, and a 'you must see it, but we need to talk' entry in the Polanski filmography.
Did you know? Sharon Tate gave Polanski the Hardy novel shortly before her 1969 murder, telling him it would make a great film — hence the 'To Sharon' dedication; and because Polanski couldn't set foot in Britain after fleeing the US, Thomas Hardy's Dorset was recreated entirely in Normandy and Brittany.