Far From the Madding Crowd
Far From the Madding Crowd
Directed by John Schlesinger
1967, 171 minutes, United Kingdom
Warner Home Video
Adapted by Frederick Raphael from Thomas Hardy"s fourth yet first commercially successful novel (1874), Schlesinger"s lavishly sweeping epic arrives on DVD for the first time, extended by three minutes to include the film"s Overture, Entr"Acte, and a PETA-unfriendly cockfighting scene that was cut from the original American release. In her third outing with Schlesinger after Billy Liar and Darling, a perhaps never-lovelier Julie Christie headlines as Bathsheba Everdene, a strong-willed country heiress who coyly underestimates her power over men after becoming the sunny nexus of an orbiting love-quadrangle. Over the course of three hours, the seasons seamlessly change under the spectacular (and impeccably lit) Panavision lensing of director-to-be Nicolas Roeg, Malcolm Cooke"s poppy editing, Richard Macdonald"s classy production design, and Richard Rodney Bennett"s folksy score, all evoking the rural feel and pace of 19th century Dorset without the typically modernized tranquility of most Hollywood period epics.