The movie focuses on willful, flirtatious Bathsheba Everdene, a beautiful young woman who inherits a picturesque farm from her uncle and is romantically pursued by three very different men.
With the emphasis on plot rather than character only Julie Christie finds a part she can turn round in, suggesting convincingly Bathsheba's curious combination of coquetry with integrity.
It's maybe not up there in the pantheon of British classics, but there's something highly relaxing and radical about the fact that Schlesinger articulates this classical story with breathy longeurs ...
[VIDEO ESSAY] Visually lush, and powerfully acted by a quartet of England's finest actors, John Schlesinger's "Far From the Madding Crowd" is admirable in spite of its imprecise narrative focus and flaws in its direction.
