Darling chérie

Darling is known generally as an iconic "Sixties" movie. It is at once a product of its time and a still-born anachronism. Though conceived and shot in 1964-65, there is nary a hint of the Beatles and their ilk, who by the time this film went in front of the cameras were unquestionably the major pop cultural phenomenon on earth, and certainly in Britain where this story takes place. The characters who parade before us in this slickly packaged satire are far more evocative of the earlier "La Dolce Vita" period. Perhaps the newly emerging youthful counterculture is absent because the groupings visited here are, in contrast to the many- millioned teenage Beatles fans, older, more rarefied and further up the social ladder in corporate boardrooms, haute-couture industry gatherings, mainstream television production units, the profit-driven B-movie exploitation industry, and the haunts of continental royalty. Sparkling and memorable as it is, the musical scoring by John Dankworth was also dated by mid-1965 when this film came out.

The satire is often from the finger-pointing, underscoring school. Best example: A portly dowager in furs at a charity function stuffs an hors d'oeuvre into her mouth with a bejeweled hand as a speaker pompously thanks those present for fighting the scourge of hunger in the world.

Screenwriter Frederic Raphael and director John Schlesinger organize their material in semi- documentary fashion with voice-over narration by the title character, Diana Scott (Julie Christie) in order to reveal her hypocrisy as she describes various episodes in her life while the unfolding screen actions ironically contradict her words. She portrays herself verbally as innocent, sensible and basically decent when in fact she's selfish, dishonest and miserable. The underlying causes of her selfishness, dishonesty and misery are neither explained nor explored, but she is presented in a way that encourages us to regard her as a micro-consequence of the crass, materialistic, soulless macro-society around her. The episodes in her bumpy road to despair succeed one another briskly enough to keep us diverted and shaking our heads at the imperfect human types on display. The arc of the story takes Diana higher and higher on the material plane until she can rise no more, only to find emptiness at the top. The point seems to be "looks, money and prestige aren't everything – but look how entertainingly we're presenting that platitude."

This film and Doctor Zhivago, released shortly after, made Julie Christie the most honored and publicized actress in the world for about a year and it's interesting to compare her Diana Scott with her Lara character in David Lean's epic. Lean, a stern and experienced taskmaster, got more solid acting out of her. Schlesinger's grip is looser, resulting in a more uninhibited but less disciplined performance. As one flavor of the media-created "It" girls of the Sixties (Ann Margret, Twiggy, Goldie Hawn being other flavors) she embodied a certain attitude toward life that was in the air in the industrialized world in those days, an informality of demeanor which some would call proletarian or others would call "beatnik"; hers was a looser, more naturalistic look, a beauty outside the parlor. Julie Christie was beautiful without a speck of makeup while the wind was blowing her hair in four different directions and seemed to be an entirely different person depending on which angle she presented to the camera or what kind of light was bouncing off her partly chiseled, partly soft and sensuous features. Her very presence lent a depth that may not have been written into the character. With another actress, one can only wonder how effective this film would have been. Her chief fellow players, Laurence Harvey and Dirk Bogarde, give splendid support, as does the rest of the cast. But the spotlight is definitely on Julie; it is her showcase.

This is a breakthrough film depicting what a female with a fairy tale-like upbringing experiences when she gets into the real world. Julie Christie is magnificent as the free-spirited, swinging role model for women everywhere. She has men falling right and left for her and even promises of wealth beyond imagination. But her unfulfilment is perfectly depicted in this daring and innovative film. She falls for a famous dashing tele-journalist, but realises soon enough that she is no match for his brain. She falls for a slick and smarmy executive, hoping to find her place with the jet set. She sees the shallowness of that existence soon enough! She does eventually find some taste of fame and is swept away to Capri, one of the most romantic and beautiful spots in the world. But there she sees only the shallow reflection of her outer beauty when confronted with the deeper beauty of elderly women praying with grace and humility at a local church. She does also manage to meet a prince who wants to marry her. He gives her wealth, a title, an enormous glamourous estate, a tailor-made family (from a previous marriage) and his deepest admiration. Unfortunately, his admiration is no more deep for her than it might be for his prize horse or Rolls Royce. She has everything but love.

The film has much to say about the illusions of glamour that women are compelled to fulfil. They are compelled to fulfil those illusions because they never had an inkling that there could be anything else. Women could rub shoulders (and other body parts) with men of brilliance, of power, and of wealth, but their own surface existence could never be a match. The film is essentially a tragi-comedy, for beneath the delightful exterior of the film is the harsh reality that a surface life is no match for a life with purpose.

This film is also amazing because it is one of the few films that actually shows characters living in a real world, not just a world that revolves around the characters. Schlesinger fills the screen with a myriad of realities. The man on the street pontificating his views on city life, a famous author, celebrities, bohemians, a gay photographer who is not traumatised about what he is, and even that great symbol of solid innocence - the elderly woman feeding the pigeons at Picadilly Circus, they are all essentially equal in importance. We in fact are mainly introduced to Christie's character as she is plucked out of the street in an indiscriminate interview. She is much a product of the world as anyone else.

The film is still timely today, since there are still so many women who cling to the images and myths of ideal womanhood (ie: an illusion without soul or intelligence). All the performances are smashing. And yes, it is true, that swinging sixties feel is irresistible!

What a delight. Possibly the best of the British New Wave and one of the finest British films of all time. The story follows Julie Christie's rise up the social ladder by a succession of affairs and social posturing – she's infuriating, but you can't resent her behaviour, she is so natural and full of joie de vivre – impossible to keep in a cage. She first appears walking along the street swinging her handbag – the same entrance as she made in "Billy Liar" and surely an indication that we are dealing with essentially the same character. Bogarde, a television journalist, is the first man she takes up with, and is as serious as she is reckless, yet somehow they are well-suited and their relationship, with some painfully familiar ups and downs, is touching.

The emotional core of the film is Bogarde and Christie's visit to an old writer. This, her first step up the social ladder, gives her the thrill of being somewhere, doing something. It is also a gently melancholy and thoughtful scene. Humour and emotion come in equal measure throughout, and every exchange crackles with meaning:

Christie: "You used me!" Bogarde: "You used me. It's a moot point."

Christie really earned her Oscar for this. Her performance is full of humour and irony, but she's mainly being herself and she has a genuine sensitivity and humanity that lifts you and carries you along. Only some slightly flippant scenes with her photographer friend (especially the shoplifting scene which was too much like "Breakfast at Tiffanys") were a little out of alignment. But Schlesinger does special things throughout. Every scene is like a little self-contained story, so sharply done you can almost hear a snap at the beginning and end as it falls into place.

This is a big film, almost as big as "La Dolce Vita" which it sometimes echoes - better, perhaps, on account of the razor sharp script by Frederic Raphael which is so accomplished, smooth, intelligent, witty and ironic that it has an almost poetic quality while still being thoroughly down-to-earth. The ending is unexpectedly downbeat, and doesn't feel like the real end, just a line they had to draw somewhere - which is perhaps what the film really was all about: the lines that we have to draw at certain points in our lives that rule some things in, other things out, that enable us to go on, for better or worse. Really splendid stuff.

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.

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.