DARLING

UK, 1965, 124 minutes, Black and white.
Julie Christie, Dirk Bogarde, Laurence Harvey.
Directed by John Schlesinger.

Darling was John Schlesinger's third feature film (after A Kind of Loving (1962) and Billy Liar (1963)). He directed Julie Christie to an Oscar here after bringing her to attention in Billy Liar. He then went on to direct her in Far From the Madding Crowd (1967).

Darling is probably Julie Christie's best performance still, a remarkable portrait of an ambitious young girl, self-centred and using men to achieve her goals, only to achieve them. Which is where we leave her, at the peak of brittle success and fame, a public darling. We, however, have seen the reality.

Dirk Bogarde is excellent as a journalist who gives up his wife and family for Diana, the darling, only to be disillusioned and betrayed by her. He made this film in the period of The Servant, King and Country and Accident. Schlesinger's even more famous films have been Midnight Cowboy (1969) and Sunday, Bloody Sunday (1971).

Darling is an excellent example of British sombre drama and well worth discussing.

1. The irony of the title. Whose darling was Diana?

2. The effectiveness of the flashback technique; from Diana's achievement back through her past? How truthful was she in telling her story for the magazine?

3. What qualities of Julie Christie's performance deserved her Oscar?

4. How typical of an ambitious girl was Diana? Why was she ambitious? What did she want out of life? Why?

5. Why did she enter into her first marriage? How did she reminisce about it and her husband? Did she try to make it work? Did she give anything of herself?

6. Did the film make Diana's affair with Robert seem plausible - the T.V. interview, studio meeting, subsequent meetings, the interview with the old novelist and his fight?

7. Diana saw Robert at home with wife and children, yet she still went on? Did she love Robert? What did she want from him? Did she get it?

8. What kind of man was Robert - good or bad, how weak, how strong? Why did he deceive his wife (note the phone sequence), leave her and his children? What did he want from Diana? Did he really think he could get it? Did he?

9. How was Diana shrewd in furthering her career?

10. What attracted her to Myles? Did she intend to hurt Robert?

11. What kind of man was Myles ('a man after his own heart')? Did he have any feelings for Diana, any love? How did her career blossom?

12. The trip to Paris and the truth-game at the party - its effect in the film? Her verdict on Myles? His showing her that he did not love her? The verdict by the mimic on her? How did this party change her attitude to life?

13. The importance of her deceiving Robert over the telephone?

14. The effect of the betrayal on Robert? What had Diana done to his life?

15. Why did Diana take up with the photographer? The importance of their holiday. The waiter? A different kind of relationship with the photographer? What did she learn from it?

16. Why did she refuse to marry the Principe?

17. The importance of the sequence of her party and Myles' behaviour? Of Robert's coming to let her know that the novelist was dead?

18. Why did she decide to marry the Principe? (The sequence of her praying, looking sincere, and then the coldness of her calculated marriage plans)?

19. The irony of the isolated grandeur of her married life - her walking in and out of doors, dinner alone in magnificence? The point made about happiness? The irony of the newsreel?

20. Her visit to Robert and his final cutting away from her? For whom did you feel sorry? Why?

21. She carried off the sequence with photographers at the airport; what future did she have? Was the success worth it?

22. How did John Schlesinger use his black and white photography, realistic locations to make the film seem authentic? The use of small detail and cuttingly ironic wit? The musical score?