This adaptation of the Thomas Hardy novel condenses the source material into a mostly sedate, contemplative panorama of mid-19th century English rural life. Of the two hours and forty minutes it takes to unspool, one hour and twenty minutes are occupied with sweeping landscape shots (frequently from the sky so that the human subjects below are reduced to specks), varied views of daily farm labor, the bustle of a town market, an extensive tour of a traveling circus, a cockfight, a summer storm; we take the time to follow a little boy as he walks across a meadow repeating parts of his school assignment; we witness the procedure whereby sheep are saved from bloat; the plot pauses at three separate moments to allow various characters to sing folk songs that last several minutes each. Scattered amidst these atmospheric bits and the full measure of big-budget and authentic-looking production values we get, in measured doses, a love story, but with plot mechanics replaced by a pileup of fatalistic occurrences. A stolid shepherd (Alan Bates) declares his love for a beautiful girl (Julie Christie); she spurns him politely. Suddenly and unexpectedly she inherits a farm and he loses his sheep when his herd dog chases the flock over a cliff. She impulsively teases a neighboring landowner (Peter Finch) into thinking she may be interested in marrying him. When he proposes, she apologizes for her bad behavior and politely turns him down. While making her nighttime rounds of the farm, she suddenly and unexpectedly encounters a dashing soldier (Terence Stamp) when her dress catches on his spur. She quickly falls in love with him and marries him. Things go badly from there.
After Bates nobly saves the hay stacks from the rain by covering them with tarps, the thunder cracks, the wind effects expand, the music swells and "intermission" is declared, at which point it feels as if the makers of the film are trying to overinflate this essentially intimate, quiet and meandering tale to the dimensions of a grand blockbuster like "Gone with the Wind" or "Doctor Zhivago," and in fact, this was precisely the wrongheaded advertising hook used to promote the film, and it failed disastrously with the 1967 movie- going public. But its good points count for much, from the exceptionally watchable lead actors to a gallery of extraordinary supporting players, (many of whom look like time- machine transplants from the 1860s), to the stunning evocation of the era via costumes, settings and the very accents of the rural folk. Period music is also used with intelligence.
After Bates nobly saves the hay stacks from the rain by covering them with tarps, the thunder cracks, the wind effects expand, the music swells and "intermission" is declared, at which point it feels as if the makers of the film are trying to overinflate this essentially intimate, quiet and meandering tale to the dimensions of a grand blockbuster like "Gone with the Wind" or "Doctor Zhivago," and in fact, this was precisely the wrongheaded advertising hook used to promote the film, and it failed disastrously with the 1967 movie- going public. But its good points count for much, from the exceptionally watchable lead actors to a gallery of extraordinary supporting players, (many of whom look like time- machine transplants from the 1860s), to the stunning evocation of the era via costumes, settings and the very accents of the rural folk. Period music is also used with intelligence.