Plot intro
Diana Scott (Julie Christie) is a young aspiring actress/model trying to just live her best life in 1960s Swinging London. With sexual liberation and free love all the rage, she leaves one husband and shacks up with a married intellectual TV interviewer Robert Gold (Dirk Bogarde). She cheats on him with wealthy advertising executive Miles Brand (Laurence Harvey) and with Italian royalty Prince Cesare (Jose Luis de Vilallonga). Young, beautiful and carefree, she soon starts to realise that her life is increasingly hollow and directionless…
From the onset of the Hays Code in the early 1930s through to the late 1950s, Hollywood movies didn’t change much. It’s true that production values and technology developed, with the increase in colour movies and big-budget special effects. However, the aesthetic remained quite homogenous. Pseudo-classical sweeping music, linear story-telling, smooth, clear transitions from scene to scene and big statement acting were all the rage, as was an erasure of all references to sex, drugs and rock and roll (we must, in the words of Helen Lovejoy, protect the children, after all).
But the counter-cultural revolution of the '60s changed all of this, and Darling is a great example of this transition. In terms of content, it’s deliciously immoral and sexual. Julie Christie throws a tantrum in an Italian palace and then strips naked; she hangs out with a gaggle of open homosexuals; Dirk Bogarde performs oral sex on her; an older gay man seedily lusts after a visibly underage black serving boy dressed in a Georgian outfit; and couples forsake the sanctity of marriage like nobody’s business. Stylistically, too, it’s a jump in a new direction. The music is jazzy, rocky, chaotic, sometimes discordant with the events on screen, and scene transitions are quick, discombobulating jump cuts that give little indication of the change in place and time.
Has it stood the ultimate test- that of time? In some respects, it is hard to identify with Diana’s self-destructive behaviour. She appears to come from a loving background and despite being a part-time model, she and Robert very easily afford a huge flat in the centre of London. Of course, this was entirely possible in the mid-'60s but to us struggling to buy something more than 700 square feet despite ample privilege and hard work, it’s laughable that she should get bored or unhappy with anything in her life. I would advise going into Darling with a strong awareness of young people’s lives in the '60s. They were raised by parents who assumed that their sons and daughters would settle into whichever class or gender-based role they had been divinely assigned by the time they were 21. Parents who were shocked, confused, sometimes furious when their children decided instead to boogie to The Beatles, go to Woodstock and, most heinous of all, advocate human rights for the LGBT community and people of colour. Diana Scott would never have been told how to live her life as a free young woman with the ability to choose careers, lovers and lifestyles, and as a result she tries everything and gets bored of it all. She has no clear direction and that’s not the fault of '60s counter-culture but rather the fault of the war generation’s inability to prepare their children for such a massive social change.
It’s a hard one to appreciate as narrow-minded millennials but Darling…
I really enjoyed Julie Christie in the role. I was perturbed about whether we’re supposed to admire or condemn her but I think this was purposeful, with the writers presenting a character dissection on which viewers can make their own judgements. Christie is exuberant, energetic and likeable in her adaptability to some of the more to and when her world comes crumbling down I understood her devastation and entrapment, even if I didn’t feel much. Christie’s film debut was in Billy Liar two years beforehand but it was Darling that solidified her dual role as film star and iconic symbol of the Swinging Sixties internationally. She hasn’t acted in much in the last 10 years (possibly her own choice, possibly Hollywood’s aversion towards older women) but younger audiences may recognise her as Gertrude in Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet, Thetis (mother of Achilles, played by Brad Pitt) in Troy and Madam Rosmerta in the Harry Potter film series.
Darling is what I would call an interesting watch. If you’re fascinated by '60s counter-culture in London especially (and it is a fascinating topic) then it is a film intrinsically tied to that time period both commenting on and contributing to the zeitgeist. But it’s probably lost its power and influence over the decades because films just aren’t made in this style anymore, so for me it’s more a relic than a game-changer.
There’s a great scene in which Diana hangs out with a group of indolent, artistic types who play a game in which they dress up as and roast each other. It’s weird and savage and brilliant attack on people who have more money than substance.
The final shot of an old Italian woman randomly singing in Piccadilly Circus. To our eyes it had no connection to anything else in the film other than the subsidiary setting of Italy, and just seemed like one of those clever-clever artistic shots that progressive directors just love.
I didn’t get this film really, but as Paul says that’s because it’s very much a trendy, zeitgeist-created thing which are generally the first to age badly (just look at mullets). We have to understand the culture of the ‘60s in order to appreciate exactly why Diana’s indolent, lavish and empty lifestyle was so fresh and shocking - whereas now it’s more commonplace with influencers pushing the boat out to show lives that are wildly inaccessible to most.
I liked certain elements - there was a sense of 1920s Hollywood in the way the filmmakers are experimenting and trying things out. The sudden jump-cuts to show time passing in a conversation - they walk through the streets and it cuts to them on the tube, still having the same conversation. I also liked certain parts of the story - Diana and her gay photographer friend have a whale of a time, the moment when they somewhat brutally kill her pet fish by throwing their food into the fishbowl was almost Ancient Roman in its representation of opulence.
Julie Christie is very good in an unlikeable role. While the film feels slight and not particularly interesting, she immerses herself in the role and is natural in her wide range of different temperaments and odd scenarios she’s involved in. Diana is desperate to fit in, determined never to be the butt of the joke for long - particularly in the odd scene where drunken partygoers swap clothes and parade around the room in an aggressive conga.
Is it still relevant though? No. The wild excesses in the ‘60s seem a bit tame by today’s standards where Hollywood has pushed the boat out a lot more. Apparently the men semi-dragging up in the party scene was a complete shocker for audiences but looks half-hearted for us today. I think the Hays Code is now such a forgotten period for us - boundaries have been pushed and pushed and pushed.
Ultimately, a slim and forgettable entry but an interesting look into a time when they were beginning to innovate with filmmaking again and pander to a very different audience.
The moments of comedy were terrific and gratefully received. I liked the little jokes about the gay men sunning themselves abroad - you can tell the filmmaker John Schlesinger (of Midnight Cowboy fame) was gay simply by the way it’s never snide or judgemental, but rather lovingly poking fun.
Same as Paul - what on earth was that opera singer??
Mark
5/10
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