Darling: A que Amou Demais

To see this 60's landmark film is quite something. In many ways could be considered a period piece and at the same time it could have been conceived yesterday. Julie Christie's performance is the insurance "Darling" has to ensure its powerful sailing through the years into the forever ever. She is extraordinary! Schlesinger lets himself be guided by something other than his British restrain and fear of sentimentality here. He is tough and poetic telling us the story of Diana Scott (could had been Lady Diana Spencer to a T) with understanding and compassion but without trying to make her a sympathetic character. Julie Christie takes care of that in what, time will tell, in fact is already telling us, one of the best performances on film, ever.

"Darling", as it happens with most genuine works of art, it grows, it develops over the years and acquires a sort of clarity that, with the benefit of hindsight I will dare to call it, prophetic, as a social observation of its time. But what matters most is the film as a film. Brilliantly thought, written, directed, photographed and, of course, acted. Julie Christie became a symbol. She, clearly a very intelligent woman, surfed the waves of fame with an apparent detachment that I'm sure it's a sure sign of maturity and of a great respect for her profession and herself. If you think I love Julie Christie, you're right. But my love for her has to do with "Darling" and the age I was when I first saw it. The 60's were already in the past then but I saw them in the future, an immediate future.I can't imagine anyone, from any age, who loves film could be indifferent to this tale of isolation in a world moving fast towards an acceptable cult for celebrity. Not to be missed.

Julie Christie deserved her Oscar. So did the scriptwriters--"Should Popes be ancestors?" And no on-screen sex when the film is considerably about sex!

When the lead character becomes a princess one is reminded of Princess Diana's own life. Both are Dianas. A very unusual, complex work from Schlesinger.

I did not appreciate the film when I saw it in the Sixties; now I do. What a great year for Christie--this and "Dr Zhivago."

The social commentary is hard hitting--young black boys serving snacks and drinks to perverted white adults, the facetious interest of the idle rich in feeding the hungry around the world as the rich gobble food they do not need to eat, of rich princes busy renovating their palace's washing closets.

Julie Christie is "Darling" in this 1965 film directed by John Schlesinger, and also starring Dirk Bogarde and Laurence Harvey. Schlesinger does a beautiful job of showing us '60s London as it was, and yet he managed to make a film that is just as timely now.

Julie Christie is model Diana Scott, a gorgeous, ambitious young woman who moves from man to man without attachment and with the intention of helping her career.

She dumps her first husband and breaks up the marriage of a British journalist (Bogarde) and then moves on to a pleasure-seeking advertising executive (Harvey), and finally, marries an Italian prince.

It's one of those lives that sounds great - she has beauty, money, men, glamour, travels in the circles of the beautiful people. But she has no emotional attachments, no love, and nothing that she has feels right or is anything she wants. All the external trappings of celebrity, but it's a shell.

A really terrific movie, and I have to agree with the posters whose comments I read that Julie Christie is perfection in every way. Bogarde and Harvey give her excellent support. As an aside, Christie's wardrobe is stunning.

None of the characters are very likable, except perhaps Bogarde, who in spite of leaving his wife and family does truly love Diana.

Despite the cold realities of Darling, we're even more obsessed with celebrity today, which makes the film even more interesting. But when you look at a photo, see someone in a magazine or on the screen, you're only dealing with a persona, not the flesh and blood individual. It's a fantasy.

Darling shows the audience what's behind the fantasy - and it's not very pretty.

I find this movie unique. If you have read of, or can remember the mid-1960s, you know that the character Julie Christie plays was absolutely the one adored by everyone- by all who considered themselves "in" and "trendy" and "modern". And she is completely taken apart by this movie.

I can think of only one other movie at any time in any language that so thoroughly demolishes the pretensions of the very people whom the smart set aspired to be at the time the movie was coming out. Amazingly that movie was 'Alfie', that came out about that same year. (A movie like La Dolce Vita is in a different mode - the people are the new meretricious post-war haute bourgeois class - a frequent target through history, and in that way, like The Ice Storm or Interiors or American Beauty as an attack on such values).

Virtually all "serious satires" take on targets that the "chattering classes" consider suspect - the hidebound, the hypocritical, the "authority figures" whom youth wish to overturn. Not this one. Astonishingly, in the midst of mod London, the very middle of the swinging 60s, you get a movie that looks at its non-committal "live for the moment" hedonistic experimentation and blasts its moral character with a cannon.

This just doesn't happen in movies - compare say, "If" or "O Lucky Man" or say, "Network" (to name three I like), and you'll see the targets as the familiar powers that be - from school to television. But Julie Christie's character is what people thought was new and wonderful - and its superficiality is blown to bits.

It's as if a movie now were to look at a poor black woman raising a child alone - and blast her for any behavior that contributed to this state. It just won't be done - the sympathies are all running FOR that character. So were the sympathies for the Julie Christie character in that time - and the movie is very very brave in running so utterly against the current.

I just love the movie - it's a step up from Schlesinger's earlier ones -the script is superb, the performances are excellent without exception. (Lawrence Harvey is particularly good - but of course it's Christie's movie).

Do see it. It's also full of wonderfully imaginative touches - such as the ending scene.