Far from the Madding Crowd – 1967 | 168mins | Drama | Colour

Plot Synopsis

John Schlesinger seems much at home with this Thomas Hardy tale of Wessex folk, and his direction is enhanced by Nicolas Roeg’s seductive camerawork and Frederic Raphael’s script.

Set in late rural Victorian England, Julie Christie (then the archetypal modern miss) plays Bathsheba Everdene, Christie is a little out of place in this period costume drama as a headstrong young woman who inherits her dead uncle’s farm. The ambitious Bathsheba is torn between three very different men, dashing Sgt. Troy (Terence Stamp), wealthy landowner William Boldwood (Peter Finch) and poor Gabriel Oaks’ (Alan Bates) rude rustic. Troy, a soldier, finally wins her love.