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FROM THE LULLING CROWD John Schlesinger’s self-possession is often injurious to his movies. He’s so deliberately controlling in pace and style he’s nearly always in danger of killing off lasting interest audiences may have. This is especially true when he does the classics—like Nathanael West’s The Day of the Locust and Thomas Hardy’s Far From the Madding Crowd. (Not true with the novelesque Sunday Bloody Sunday, but that’s subject matter he’s personally connected to.) With West, he’s a respectful stranger looking in on a Hollywood he seems too poised for. With Hardy, he’s mounting considerable due diligence, he’s closer to the locales of Wessex and the bottled up emotions therein, yet what’s problematic for viewers—despite the strongly appealing cast of Julie Christie, Alan Bates, Terence Stamp and Peter Finch—is he’s a lulling English Lit professor petering out before climax, pumping the blood of the story too slowly to course through the characters. Dared as a roadshow Far From the Madding Crowd is very early Masterpiece Theatre before it became de rigueur; Schlesinger and photographer Nicolas Roeg have colored the movie in earthworn greens (take note of those tree trunks in one scene), browns, dingy whites and grays, not inappropriate, just a bit too dull in 70mm blowup, making us appreciate the weathered if homely faces of the Dorset extras. (The 2015 Blu-ray rejuvenation returns more color, with intentional emphasis on red.) If Christie works hard to avoid the vexing anxieties exhibited in Darling and Doctor Zhivago—she looks and sounds comfortable doing the “big” acting bits, and she handles a ditty surprisingly well—we’re unavoidably immersed in her unambiguous, archetypal 60sness and suggestive mouth to be confidently impressed by what she’s doing. Bates looks like a Leprechaun early on and regrettably becomes one; Stamp is mostly panache as the grenadier (even when kissing a corpse); Finch’s Jamaican tan, sometimes oily, steals his scenes, except the last one of him awaiting his fate. Richard Rodney Bennett’s score Oscar-nominated. National Board of Review: best film—English language, best actor (Finch). 168 minutes. In Panavision. (Opening 1/18/1968 at the Loop, running 5 weeks.) ROLL OVER IMAGE
Text COPYRIGHT © 2003 RALPH BENNER (Revised 11/2023) All Rights Reserved. |
