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Darling [VHS] [1965]
 
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Darling [VHS] [1965]

VHS ~ Julie Christie
4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)

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Product Description

Amazon.co.uk Review

"It's far too pleased with itself. I wince when I see it now", director John Schlesinger observes of his 1965 film, Darling. You can tell why he's embarrassed. Looking back, his swinging 60s' satire about a model (Julie Christie) so keen to get ahead that she ditches her husband and betrays a succession of boyfriends looks hideously dated. With its self-consciously hip dialogue and unnecessary voice-over, the screenplay by Frederic Raphael (who also wrote Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut) doesn't help. Most of the men Christie encounters, whether Laurence Harvey's slick businessman (who can't pass a mirror without preening himself in it) or Dirk Bogarde's neurotic TV pundit (who has delusions of literary grandeur), are as narcissistic as she is. Although this seems to be a cautionary tale about slick, superficial London media and fashion folk, it's obvious that the filmmakers are half in love with the world they're pretending to lampoon. The visual gags--rich, society matrons at a charity event gorging themselves on food or Christie's poster being plastered over an image of a starving child--are heavy-handed in the extreme. Still, Christie is tremendous in the role which established her as an international star (she won an Oscar). However shallow and selfish her character seems, we can't help but warm to her. --Geoffrey Macnab


Synopsis

Julie Christie won an Oscar for her performance as a professional model who marries an Italian nobleman. Her lust for wealth and success eventually destroy her.

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Customer Reviews

7 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.9 out of 5 stars (7 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars A BLAST FROM THE PAST..., 18 Nov 2002
By Lawyeraau (Balmoral Castle) - See all my reviews
(TOP 10 REVIEWER)   
Winner of the 1965 Oscar for Best Actress, the beautiful and pouty lipped Julie Christie gives a glowing performance as an amoral covergirl, Diana Scott, in the swinging '60s in London.

Diana, who is married, is having an affair with a married television correspondent, Robert Gold, played to perfection by the sexy and world weary, Dirk Bogarde. Eventually, they leave their respective mates and set up house together in swinging London. All is not hunky dory for long, as Julie goes on to have an affair with her agent, Miles, divinely played by Laurence Harvey. When Robert discovers her lies and infidelity, he leaves her.

Diana goes on to party hearty, and she ultimately meets a wealthy and widowed, Italian prince while on location in Italy shooting a commercial. After a perfunctory meeting, she meets up with him again, and he proposes. She thinks about his proposal, and ultimately consents to becoming Princess Diana.

Only after marrying him, a virtual stranger to her, does she realize how lonely she is. She finds herself being left in their palazzo with his seven children, while the prince is away, ostensibly visiting his mother without her. She realizes that she is living in a gilded cage, no more than a trophy wife.

She impulsively contacts Robert and flies to England to meet with him. After they make love, she realizes how much she loved him and declares her feelings for him, only to be rebuffed. He then sends her packing, back to her empty life in Italy. Yet, he does so at great emotional cost to himself, as well.

This film is very representative of the swinging sixties and conveys a real sense of the joie de vivre of the period. It deals with subjects that were formerly taboo. There are subtle and sly references to homosexuality. Abortion and a woman's sexuality are issues in the film and dealt with in a way with which these issues were not ordinarily dealt. While it may seem tame by today's standards, this was very cutting edge in its time and reflective of some of the changes which society, as a whole, was undergoing. This movie is definitely an oldie but a goodie.

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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars social climbing to happiness, 19 Sep 2003
By Alejandra Vernon "artist & illustrator" (Long Beach, California) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)   
This 1965 multi-award winning film is a riveting portrait of a woman who deviously claws her way to the top, in search of "happiness and completion". Julie Christe won an Oscar for her portrayal of Diana Scott, and manages to make this "trivial and shallow" woman interesting.
Frederick Raphael, who also won an Oscar for his work, wrote a story and script that is the basis of what makes this a riveting film to watch. Every scene makes sense, and every phrase has a purpose; there is not a single word that does not belong, or is unnecessary.
It is wonderfully photographed in a very crisp black and white by Ken Higgins, and has an unobtrusive but lovely score by John Dankworth.

Director John Schlesinger brings out the best in even the bit players, and most of all, from Dirk Bogarde, who gives a heartbreaking, brilliant performance as one of Diana's stepping stones. Laurence Harvey plays a vain and vile character with the snakelike coldness he is so good at, and of course, Christie is in her prime, and her beauty and talent shine bright.

Though the atmoshpere of the film is caught in the '60s, the story and characters are timeless; this film deserves to be viewed, for its tremendous performances, and as a portrait of how times change, but much of humanity stays the same, and selfish desires, even when satisfied, are but clanging brass.

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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars "I don't get into taxis with whores!", 20 Oct 2005
By M. J Leonard "MikeonAlpha" (Silver Lake, Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
Director, John Schlesinger perfectly captures the mood of the swinging sixties, brilliantly skewering the generation and decade itself -- innocent and guileless, but ultimately self-destructive. Christie is absolutely radiant as the modern jetsetter for whom beauty is the only ticket to fun and thrills. She's the embodiment of amorality and selfishness, but it is exactly this amorality that leaves her in an existential limbo of her own making.

Schlesinger and screenwriter Frederick Raphael don't exactly condemn Diana making her choices or for taking the route that she does, but they haven't anything positive to say about her either. Christie plays her as a spoilt, petulant little girl, too totally amoral to feel anything honest or meaningful for another person, or for that matter, to elicit a strong feeling from us.

Christie is eminently watchable and her stunning beauty carries the film. In fact, she's so pretty that her flaky character remains always interesting. Dirk Bogarde goes from happy to neurotic to vindictive, and Laurence Harvey maintains a smug winner's superiority that's very off-putting. If there is any downside to Darling, it's that there's ultimately nobody on screen worthy of our sympathy.

But Darling is ultimately a searing indictment of Sixties superficiality, all dressed up to look chic and sophisticated, in which the surface of things is readily available from a deluge of media outlets but nothing is explored in depth. It is indeed a classic film and can be viewed again and again.

By closely studying and scrutinizing Julie Christie's character, Raphael and Schlesinger were able to focus on poster girl, the pretty face we encounter every day on television that seduces us into buying products we neither want nor need. Perhaps the ultimate statement, and the theme of the movie, is that this type of character is as empty as the image itself.

At one moment, as she is caught by a camera from precisely the right angle, Diana Scott displays an almost classic beauty, startling in its intensity; a second later, all sorts of sordid, superficial emotions cross over her face, making her appear cheap and ultimately quite vacuous. Perhaps it's a testament to Ms. Christie's fine performance that she can make these emotions appear so real. Mike Leonard October 05.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars darling with julie christie,dirk bogarde/lawrence harvey
excellent movie and acting. Very real.
Published on 20 Jul 2005 by jabberwocky11

5.0 out of 5 stars Extremely recommendable
Unfortunatley, in our days, "Darling" is not a too well known movie anymore - but Julie Christie sure is a well known actress. Read more
Published on 9 Mar 2004

5.0 out of 5 stars When Christie Was Good, She Was Very Good...
Darling is one of the best films of the 1960's with its sharp direction, even sharper script, atmospheric black and white photography, and three outstanding star performances. Read more
Published on 11 Nov 2003 by Cowboy Buddha

5.0 out of 5 stars One of Christie's many stunning performances
While lacking the full-on parodic intensity of his masterpiece "Midnight Cowboy," which he was to direct five years later, John Schlesinger's "Darling" is in... Read more
Published on 2 Feb 2001

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