A willful passionate girl and… the three men who want her! -Tagline

Making this film may have proved to be one of the last chances to film rural England as it looked in the middle of the 19th century. -Richard MacDonald (Production Designer)

Bathsheba is a young woman dealing w/ 3 different men, though NOT knowing what love really is; the audience is caught in the middle of her personal choice and their own thoughts of who’d be her right man. She ignores the shepherd next door, Gabriel Oak (Alan Bates), saying she’s NOT in love w/ him. He gave a good speech re: why she should marry him (and gifted her a baby lamb). Gabriel decides NOT to pursue things further, yet coincidence (common in Thomas Hardy’s works) brings him to the farm she soon inherites. The gentleman farmer, William Boldwood (Peter Finch), seems like a safe choice; he’s rich and devoted. The housemaid, Liddy, tells Bathsheba that Mr. Boldwood has been courted by “sixes and sevens” (a condition of confusion and disarray). He is NOT discouraged, even after Bathsheba tells him “no,” then to wait for her decision. As for the military man, Sgt. Troy (Terence Stamp), their attraction is more about lust than love.

The director (John Schlesinger) created a somewhat (unbalanced) movie. Many viewers (over the decades) commented that they wanted to see more of the Bathsheba/Gabriel’s (slow burn) interactions; however, Schlesinger chose to focus the bulk of the time on the Bathsheba/Troy (love-bombing) relationship. Some felt that Christie was miscast for this role; she didn’t show nuance or exhibit any changes in this role. If you’re near my age (Gen X/Y), you may know Bates as the landlord/patriarch in Gosford Park; Stamp was the villain (Emperor Zod) in Superman II. You may know Christie from Doctor Zhivago and as Gertrude in Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet. All three actors ended up having prolific careers.

[1] I personally really liked it, though I can see why people might not. It does have a couple of cliché moments and the film is overlong. On the other hand, the film looks gorgeous, the scenery is evocative and the cinematography positively shimmers. The music is hauntingly beautiful, the script is literate and thoughtful and the complex story unfolds slowly and deliberately, is faithful in detail and spirit to the book.

[2] The film is stolen for me though by Peter Finch, who begins a hat trick of devastating performances, here, in The Trials of Oscar Wilde and Sunday Bloody Sunday. His Boldwood is a remarkable creation, so eligible, so tragic, so lost and helpless. […]

The Boldwood plot has a darker outcome here than in the book, which I’m sure Hardy would have approved of.

[3] I just couldn’t believe that Julie Christie was this headstrong 19th century maiden. She looks far too contemporary for me; as she is just the perfect 60s icon in costume (same as in Doctor Zhivago). […]

I felt that Bathsheba didn’t evolve through the film. Julie Christie played the same way from start to finish, in spite of the ordeal she had to go through.

-Excerpts from IMDb reviews