Far from The Madding Crowd

Director: John  Schlesinger: 1967

Reviewed by: Gail Spencer

There are some scenes in cinema that stay with you forever: when Gabriel Oak (Alan Bates) loses his entire flock over a cliff then shoots the sheep dog responsible, it wrenches guts. This film, rightly and in timely fashion is being rereleased as the remake (with the unremarkable and overrated Carey Mulligan) is on general, theatrical release. The actors in this film are all at their career peaks with some major acting chops collectively under belts by the time this sumptuous and beautiful treat hit the screens. Terry and Julie (Terrance Stamp and Julie Christie) both of them so attractive and alive with 1960s swinging London clout, feel a little out of place. Julie came to this drama, with Darling another JS feature as comparison. 

It is adapted from the novel by Thomas Hardy, and brings to life the nasty love triangle (or quadrangle) with Bathsheba the focus of affections of three very different men, but does so whilst giving us a view of rural life in England. Like The Witchfinder General, the English countryside is as much the unintentional star as the rest of the impossibly good looking players. Peter Finch as the lovesick Lord of the Manor type - a tad scenery chewing in his fits of pique - his outbursts a little hard to believe from someone from that time with evident money and stature. 

It feels often that the characters are caricatures or deliberate cliché with real motive and action elusive. Gabriel, by far and above the best of the three men should be wondering around with a long blade of grass hanging out his mouth, wellies on covered in mud, with white farmers tunic. The interactions between Finch (William Boldwood) and Stamp (Captain Troy) are embarrassing to watch with the deliberate one upmanship looking decidedly like it may turn into a cheesy duel, with one slapping the other in the face with a gauntlet. There is an abundant and inexplicable lack of control in the expression of emotion, which is hardly characteristic of the English.  This lies in stark contrast to the adaptations of say, Jane Austin where the characters are constrained but below the surface lies a bastion of motive frustrated by social mores of the time.

Bathsheba grates as a character. She seems superficially emancipated taking control of a farm and subsequent harvests - dealing with staff and the housekeeping, but the interactions with the men who find her so impossibly beguiling are extremely irritating.  No one in their right mind would send a card with a proposal as a joke, however this woman does and no-one believes she is mad. The playfulness is never fully explained. Captain Troy feels like the character in the song 'Soldier, soldier - will you marry me?' and the choice Bathsheba makes like the character singing it. The best bits by far are those that depict the life of that incidental to the main characters. There is a lovely around the table al fresco sing along with Bathsheba enjoying her workers, drunk on ale - the smell of grass is almost in the air. It's like the barn building sequence in Witness, evocative, pleasing giving us a real sense of collective simple enjoyment of a particular way of life. 

The film is, like the lead characters beautiful to look at and at times deeply atmospheric, but the characterisations lacking depth or explanation of motive.

Available now as a rerelease on DVD

Gail Spencer