#76/#603: LEAN, David: Brief Encounter (1945)
LEAN, David (United Kingdom)
Brief Encounter [1945]
Spine #76/#603
DVD/Blu-ray
After a chance meeting on a train platform, a married doctor (Trevor Howard) and a suburban housewife (Celia Johnson) enter into a muted but passionate, and ultimately doomed, love affair. With its evocatively fog-enshrouded settings, swooning Rachmaninoff score, and pair of remarkable performances (Johnson was nominated for an Oscar), David Lean's film of Noël Coward's play Still Life deftly explores the thrill, pain, and tenderness of an illicit romance, and has influenced many a cinematic brief encounter since its release.
86 minutes
Black & White
Black & White
Monaural
1:37:1 aspect ratio
Criterion Release 2000/2012
Director/Writers
Based on the play Still Life by Noël Coward.
Written by Coward, David Lean, and Anthony Havelock-Allan.
Lean was 37 when he directed Brief Encounter.
The Film
Other Lean films in the Collection:
#605: This Happy Breed (1944)
#606: Blithe Spirit (1945)
#31: Great Expectations (1946)
#32: Oliver Twist (1948)
#461: Hobson's Choice (1954)
#605: This Happy Breed (1944)
#606: Blithe Spirit (1945)
#31: Great Expectations (1946)
#32: Oliver Twist (1948)
#461: Hobson's Choice (1954)
The Film
It easy to see why Lean wanted to break away from Coward and theatre; here he is developing a certain style that would lead him to great some of the greatest masterpieces in cinema within a few decades.
Laura (Celia Johnson) and Fred Jesson (Cyril Raymond) are happily married with two children. They seem to lead a comfortable — if somewhat routine — existence; he doing the crossword puzzle, and she knitting, describing her day filled with shopping, tea, and trains …
That is until she meets Dr. Alec Harvey (Trevor Howard, in his very first film role) … she didn’t mean to; but she’s fallen in love.
Curiously, Lean decides to start things off with their final meeting after they’ve decided to break things off. How unlucky for Laura, that the gossipy Dolly Messier (a fast-talking Everley Gregg) sits herself down at the lovers’ table and starts gabbing away. Dr. Harvey has to catch his train and can no more than put a hand on Laura’s shoulder and he leaves for the last time.
Why did Lean feel it necessary to put this in front of the film — leaving the rest to flashbacks? It nearly ruins the film.
Not to mention the Rachmaninoff Second Piano Concerto.
Laura and Dolly share a train compartment, as Laura narrates the events of the past. It all started when Laura gets a speck of dirt in her eye while watching the express go by. Alec drops into the tea room at just that moment, and removes the offending speck.
The rest of the film narrates the events of their love story.
Film Rating (0-60):
The Booklet
#76: Six-page wraparound featuring an essay by Adrian Turner.
55
The ExtrasThe Booklet
#76: Six-page wraparound featuring an essay by Adrian Turner.
“‘You’ve been a long way away,’ says Laura’s husband at the end. And she has. ‘I believe we should all behave quite differently in a warm climate,’ she says to Alec after he announces his intended move to Africa. Condemning Laura to a life of conformity and emotional suppression, Lean sets his own course towards the far horizon, where the English go out in the midday sun. Brief Encounter is not only Lean’s finest statement on the suffocating world into which he was born; it is also his train ticket out. Seen today, Brief Encounter is perhaps, quite literally, a dream of England long ago. And if aspects of it have entered the mythology and cliché of the British cinema, more than enough remains in this complex film to move and fascinate us still. Indeed, one famous British columnist and wit, Cyril Connolly, suggested that Alec was not a doctor at all but a mental patient who, allowed out hospital once a week, preyed on solitary women. Now there’s a thought!”
#603: Forty-two page booklet featuring an essay by Kevin Brownlow.
“Thus began the career of a classic, one of the most celebrated and fondly remembered of all British films. Brief Encounter had been transformed from a clever but minor play into a fine, cinematic film. Lean had acquired so much self-confidence that he was keen to break away from Coward, must as he loved and admired him … ‘when David left Noël,’ said Kay Walsh, ‘Noël was magnificent. He could have said, “I’ve done all this for you and put you on the map.” He did no such thing. He understood that this was a man who didn’t want to put the camera in the stalls’ — he wanted to break out on his own, and away from the theater. ‘David more or less indicated that he was trapped, and he was right. Noël set him free.’”
Commentary
#76/#603: By film historian Bruce Eder.
Bruce’s usual perfectly crafted commentary.
Lots of biographical info … his main point is how this film marks the point where Lean’s career took off and Coward’s began a slow nosedive.
#76 only: Restoration demonstration
#603 only:
#76 only: Restoration demonstration
#603 only:
Day is always informative.
A Profile of Brief Encounter
A short documentary from 2000 on the making of the film.
A short documentary from 2000 on the making of the film.
Getting out of the studio and shooting on location. And trains.
David Lean: A Self Portrait
A 1971 television documentary on Lean’s career.
A 1971 television documentary on Lean’s career.
A fascinating look at Lean — interviewed from an editing bay, the cinematic specialty, which gave Lean his opportunity to direct, and to which he is the undisputed master.
A look at most of his films, an honest and forthright assessment, and some amusing stories he tells on himself.
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