Darling - 50th Anniversary Edition *Digitally Restored [Blu-ray] [1965]

I'd never heard of this film and I thought Julie Christie's career was somewhat "provincial" but I'm not surprised that she won an Oscar for Darling. She carries the film throughout, playing Diana, a complicated character. She also looks amazingly fit! It's a complicated film and the nasty repartee of the "smart set" is of its time. Today, remarks like that would get you thrown out (bodily) anywhere but it used to be "quite the thing" to have an arsenal of put-downs as party talk (it kept out the riff-raff) and it throws Diana's different strategy into sharp relief - she does it behind your back and it isn't what she says, it's what she does - all the pain of the indecent woman. Some moments of quite ghoulish (even childish) humour slyly remind the watcher that he/she isn't so pure - one has been "pulled in" to Diana's world and is sharing the ill-gotten fun whilst disgusted with her self-justifying (also childish) narrative and it lightens the darkness somewhat. When the demise comes there's a sadness about it more than triumph - beautiful as she is, Diana becomes tiresome, her own worst enemy; she disappoints everybody. I'll almost certainly re-visit this film.All the cast, soundtrack etc is well "up to it".

A lot has been said about this film, but I failed to see where all this praise was due. The story of a sexually frustrated woman that drops one man after the other and as it is common in such cases she ignores the people that care about her and goes after the ruthless thugs. A film of the mid60s, but even so in this film, everybody and I mean everybody, is a chain-smoker, with a cigarette either in their mouth or in their hand.The restoration is excellent. The black and white image of the film in the blu-ray format is immaculate.

Although crudely cynical from the very start, where a large advertising poster for world famine relief is covered over by one for a woman's magazine featuring a picture of the glamorous Diana (Julie Christie), and although all the main characters are disloyal, and the director would later say that the film was far too pleased with itself, this is, overall, a very beautiful film. Diana is disgraceful and selfish, but tragic. Great beauty gives her no contentment.The film attacks pretentiousness, even while painfully exemplifying it.Although made and set in the sixties, a very similar film could be set in other decades, eg the fifties.

The Christie and Curran characters lost all my sympathy when they drunkenly killed the fish. (Had the film been made in a later era, no doubt there would have been a disclaimer: 'No fish was harmed in the making of this film'.)

Julie Christie in a tale of a girl on the make and what sh's prepared to do to get on, there's a price of course as she finally gets her juste deserts by becoming a princess. but will she be happy? classy old movie with Dirk Bogarde also starring. Christie is a class act, i wonder what became of her?

Bought from Amazon Prime as I have thrown away my dvd player Great script by Frederic RaphaelGreat story line Julie Christie was superb with some eternal truths about human nature along the way

Julie Christie and Dirk Bogarde are both superb in this timepiece of the swinging 60s. It must have been seen as pretty daring and raunchy at the time, of course now it is tame. The end -allusion to Grace Kelly (actress/model marries prince) would have been topical no doubt.

This Blu-ray has stunning picture quality and excellent sound compared with the MGM R1 DVD of many years ago. It was a real pleasure to revisit this movie. Another movie masterpiece from the British New Wave.