The local and familial contexts in which the hero of the traditional Bildungsroman struggles to mature are vacated in Darling and, like Diana Scott, Joe Buck must make his way in a national environment. Madame Sousatzka, the story of a young piano prodigy and one of Schlesinger's most poignant films, proves once again that the Bildung tradition retains its meaning even in a globalizing city like London. It was Schlesinger's last British film and final contribution to the genre of coming of age. Over sixty years old when he made it, he brought to the screenplay and visual language of the film the wealth of his knowledge of the youthful process of maturation together with his long experience as an artist living in a commercial age. “I think that what drew me to the story was, in a sense, what I was going through,” said Schlesinger, “Opportunity, commercialism, and the perhaps rather oldfashioned approach of the music teacher, Sousatzka, who won't let her pupil perform before he's absolutely ready. It's about artistry, and I took that very seriously” (Buruma 2006, 157– 58). “Sousaztka was very close to my heart and my experience, so it was largely a labour of love” (Mann 2005, 515).

As one would expect, Schlesinger's meticulous evocation of the London music scene of the eighties, as experienced by a young and gifted outsider trying to compete, is completely convincing in the way it captures the interconnections among the teachers, promoters and well-known London venues. Yet much of what gives the film its power is an archaic subtext, for the young artist, who is nurtured by his sensual mother, taught piano by an older and wiser teacher and sexually initiated by an enchanting young woman, is born of the Triple Goddess: maiden, mother and krone. Oscar Wilde once said that if a man wants to enter society, he needs women behind him, and that is certainly true of the young artist in Madame Sousatzka, in more than a social sense. The knowledge that the artist gains from the three women, each of whom symbolizes a stage in the female life cycle, is rooted in bodily life.