Darling

Film to Table dinner follows

Homecoming Weekend: Plan ahead
With the Cal Football game at 11:30 AM, expect increased traffic and limited parking.

featuring

Julie Christie, Dirk Bogarde, Laurence Harvey, Roland Curram,

After the screening, enjoy a Film to Table dinner at Babette, the cafe at BAMPFA. Join an intimate group of fellow filmgoers for a four-course, prix-fixe meal in a convivial, dinner-party atmosphere. Purchase dinner tickets in advance at babettecafe.com (film tickets must be purchased separately).

“What are you ashamed of in Britain today?” asks tweedy TV commentator Dirk Bogarde, interviewing the average man-on-the-street. Well, for starters . . . John Schlesinger’s bitter, stylish answer is framed as the autobiography of Diana (Julie Christie), a media darling telling/selling “My Story” to Ideal Woman magazine. Her blandly self-justifying narration is undercut by the images as she leaves an unglamorous marriage for liaisons with Bogarde, representative of a BBC-bookish world; oily adman Laurence Harvey; and finally an Italian principe, with stops along the way for hypocritical upper-crust fundraisers, exploitation films, Parisian art parties, an abortion, and a spot of shoplifting at Fortnum & Mason’s. Tracing Diana’s progress from lowly bra model to “Happiness Girl” to the ultimate emptiness as Princess Diana, Schlesinger offers a critique of a striving consumer society in the form of a critique of a woman. Bogarde, in summary: “You’re a whore, baby.”

Juliet Clark
FILM DETAILS 
Screenwriter
  • Frederic Raphael
Cinematographer
  • Ken Higgins
Print Info
  • B&W
  • DCP
  • 127 mins
Source
  • Rialto Pictures