01991cgm a2200337 4500 283111772 TxAuBib 20061003120000.0 061003s1994||||||||||||||||||||||v|eng|u 9781419814501 $15.00 1419814508 $15.00 TxAuBib Dickens, Charles. Hard Times [videorecording (DVD)]. Burbank, CA : BBC Video, 1994. APPROX. 104 Mins : DVD - (1) videodics ; 4 3/4 in. BBC Classics Local MP and schoolmaster Thomas Gradgrind (Bob Peck) raises his children, Louisa and Tom, in the utilitarian fashion, stressing reason and fact and dismissing imagination and emotion. Under his influence, Louisa grows cold while Tom turns to a secret life of drinking and gambling. To be nearer her brother, Louisa accepts an offer of marriage from his boss, the self-made, self-important banker Josiah Bounderby (Alan Bates), though she does not love him. But soon finds herself succumbing to the attentions of the lothario James Harthouse (Richard E. Grant). All the while, Mrs. Sparsit, a former aristocrat who now works for Bounderby, obesessively watches as the drama unfolds, longing for Louisa's downfall. As Louisa faces a life without love and Tom's fate begins to turn even darker will Gradgrind begin to realize the imperfections in his philosophy o rational self-interest? The Inhabitants of Coketown come to vivid life in this extraordinary BBC production of Dicken's dark treatise on capitalism without a conscience - a society in which everything is valued by price. 20061003. Films. Gambling. Capitalism. Greed. Bates, Allan. Peck, Bob. Paterson, Bill. Walter, Harriet. Grant, Richard. BBC Classics.