Brief Encounter

[Smeraldina Rima]

This was one of my dad's favourite films (apparently also one of Robert Bresson's favourite films) and I remember watching it with him (Bresson not my dad) but I hadn't seen it since then. I liked the armchair arriving before the rest of the room in this awakening:





...and when Laura fantasises a detailed recent past with Alec through the train window and you see two different looking expressions at the same time, one side entranced and one side consternated. I also just think it's a good unusual idea that she imagines their established past instead of stuff they might do now.




Alec's whimsical praise of Donald Duck - 'The stars can change in their courses, the universe go up in flames, and the world crash around us, but there'll always be Donald Duck.' - seemed like something he had planned to say before going on the date. Laura's quick reply gives a really good sense of her character's feelings: 'I do love him so - his dreadful energy and his blind frustrated rages.' I also liked her conflicted inner monologue in the carriage scene with the close up of the mouth talking fast like in Not I:

I knew a girl once years ago who went to Africa. Her husband was something to do with engineering. She had the most dreadful time. She caught some awful germ through going out on a picnic, and she was ill for months.

Laura: I wish you'd stop talking. I wish you'd stop prying, trying to find things out. I wish she were dead. No, I don't mean that. That was silly and unkind, but I wish you'd stop talking.

Copying that out it's a bit odd how she first addresses the aquaintance opposite then talks about her rather than saying I wish you were dead. The whole monologue shifts around a lot addressing the audience through the idea of wanting to tell the story to her husband (who is the only person who would understand her affair). The bit above when she comes back from miles away into their frighteningly cosy room with the husband holding the crossword looks a bit like she's undergoing psychoanalysis.

Wasn't quite sure what Alec was going for when he ended up falling in the water, it really looked like that was his aim.

[The Ombudsman]

This was my mothers favourite film. I've 'seen' it many, many times but never gave it much attention. I'll have to watch it now as an adult.

[Keebleman]

I love it.  It's emotional kick is real and thoroughly earned.  Coward I think should take most of the credit, because much of the impact comes from the ingenious way the script sets up something utterly innocuous that is later revealed to have massive resonance, but it is wholly cinematic too.  Plus there is lot of fascinating incidental detail of suburban life in pre-war Britain.  (And it is pre-war: no blackouts, and WWII is never mentioned.  Though I suppose it could be set in some other 1945 in which Hitler had never happened.)

[Virgo76]

You see the boring woman going on at them early on.
Then you see the same conversation again later and there's a real emotional punch to it this time as you realise she's ruined their last precious moments together.

[Rizla]

Amazing film. Leslie Halliwell gave it his rare 4 stars -

"An outstanding example of good middle-class cinema turned by sheer professional craft into a masterpiece; even those bored by the theme must be riveted by the treatment, especially the use of a dismal railway station and its trains. And whilst you don't actually get to see it going in and out, you know that they have done it, and it remains an excellent film."

[Virgo76]

I don't rate Halliwell at all. But he was right there.

[PlanktonSideburns]

Amazing film. Leslie Halliwell gave it his rare 4 stars -

"An outstanding example of good middle-class cinema turned by sheer professional craft into a masterpiece; even those bored by the theme must be riveted by the treatment, especially the use of a dismal railway station and its trains. And whilst you don't actually get to see it going in and out, you know that they have done it, and it remains an excellent film."

They talking about cocks here?

[Keebleman]

You see the boring woman going on at them early on.
Then you see the same conversation again later and there's a real emotional punch to it this time as you realise she's ruined their last precious moments together.

Just what I said, except I was careful to avoid spoilers.

[Keebleman]

" And whilst you don't actually get to see it going in and out, you know that they have done it..."

 "Leslie" "Halliwell" is quite wrong there, the relationship isn't consumated. Trevor Howard had a real problem with that. "This is a fucking awful scene," he said to David Lean about the time they meet in that guy's flat. "Why doesn't he just fuck her?"

[Virgo76]

Halliwell only really liked old films. He hated Alien, for example. He wasn't reliable but he was a pioneer of those big thick film guides which I used to enjoy flicking through in the days before the internet.

[Menu]

Amazing film. Leslie Halliwell gave it his rare 4 stars -

" And whilst you don't actually get to see it going in and out, you know that they have done it"

Er.....is this a joke? I mean, obviously he's factually wrong but does he really put it in these terms? That's brilliant.

[jamiefairlie]

Amazing film. Leslie Halliwell gave it his rare 4 stars -

"An outstanding example of good middle-class cinema turned by sheer professional craft into a masterpiece; even those bored by the theme must be riveted by the treatment, especially the use of a dismal railway station and its trains. And whilst you don't actually get to see it going in and out, you know that they have done it, and it remains an excellent film."

ha ha ha, you got me there, bravo!

[jamiefairlie]

Halliwell only really liked old films. He hated Alien, for example. He wasn't reliable but he was a pioneer of those big thick film guides which I used to enjoy flicking through in the days before the internet.

A classic Sunday afternoon book wasn't it?

[the science eel]

I think the latest film he awarded four stars to was A Hard Day's Night

[Keebleman]

No, it was Bonnie and Clyde.  A Hard Day's Night did get four though, as did A Man For All Seasons from 1966.  By the late 80s if a film got even one star - such as Robocop - you knew it must be special.

[Keebleman]

Here's a Halliwell-centric thread.

https://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=71326.0

[Rizla]

"Leslie" "Halliwell" is quite wrong there, the relationship isn't consumated. Trevor Howard had a real problem with that. "This is a fucking awful scene," he said to David Lean about the time they meet in that guy's flat. "Why doesn't he just fuck her?"

Les was talking about the game-as-fuck tearoom MILF and the lusty, horny-handed old ticket man.

[Virgo76]

No, it was Bonnie and Clyde.  A Hard Day's Night did get four though, as did A Man For All Seasons from 1966.  By the late 80s if a film got even one star - such as Robocop - you knew it must be special.

How did his rating system actually work?

[Keebleman]

How did his rating system actually work?

"In a word, the stars reflect how much interest a film has."  I'm not sure if that is the exact quote but it was something like that.

[David Pielingtonburygrot]

Amazing film. Leslie Halliwell gave it his rare 4 stars -

"An outstanding example of good middle-class cinema turned by sheer professional craft into a masterpiece; even those bored by the theme must be riveted by the treatment, especially the use of a dismal railway station and its trains. And whilst you don't actually get to see it going in and out, you know that they have done it, and it remains an excellent film."

He had predictably conservative tastes and only ever had time for films from the Golden Age of cinema. Never gave any post-70s scat movie more than 3 stars

[Glebe]

Only watched it once years ago, free DVD with a newspaper. Enjoyed it as I recall, it's certainly due a rewatch at some point.

Isn't that Dad's Army episode with Mainwaring falling for Carmen Silvera influenced by it? I'm sure it's inspired lots of other movies/homages and such.

Halliwell only really liked old films. He hated Alien, for example. He wasn't reliable but he was a pioneer of those big thick film guides which I used to enjoy flicking through in the days before the internet.

And he slated Close Encounters, the absolute arse!

[the science eel]

I remember he said (about Taxi Driver) 'unfortunately the film in its latter stages makes absolutely no sense'

he was right

and he was a big L&H fan and gave Laughing Gravy three stars and I got hold of a VHS because of that - and it's ok, not their best short. The dog is a total babe tho

[Virgo76]

I remember he said (about Taxi Driver) 'unfortunately the film in its latter stages makes absolutely no sense'

he was right

and he was a big L&H fan and gave Laughing Gravy three stars and I got hold of a VHS because of that - and it's ok, not their best short. The dog is a total babe tho

I suppose the end of Taxi Driver was a bit odd.

Spoiler alert

How on earth did Travis go from being a depraved gun-toting psycho to being hailed as a local hero? Yes, I know the US has massive gun problems even now, but it must have been an interesting conversation with the police.

[close]

It's still a great film though and so much of what Halliwell wrote was absolute BS that I'm reluctant to give him credit for anythimg.
Perhaps we need a new thread for this though as I'm clearly not discussing Brief Encounter any more am I?

[Virgo76]

Just what I said, except I was careful to avoid spoilers.

Brief Encounter is 77 years old. That was hardly a spoiler anyway. It would mean little to anyone who hadn't seen it.

[Keebleman]

"Leslie" "Halliwell" is quite wrong there, the relationship isn't consumated. Trevor Howard had a real problem with that. "This is a fucking awful scene," he said to David Lean about the time they meet in that guy's flat. "Why doesn't he just fuck her?"

Here's the full story of this, as told in Kevin Brownlow's brilliant biography of Lean.

We did a rehearsal of this and Trevor came over to me and said, "David, will you please explain this to me.  It's a fucking awful scene."

I said, "What's fucking awful about it?"

He said, "They know jolly well this chap's borrowed a flat, they know exactly why she's coming back to him, why doesn't he fuck her?  All this talk about the wood being damp and that sort of stuff."

I said, "Look, Trevor, have you ever been out with a girl, ever been on a dance floor with her, and you know that you're going to make love, whether it's her place or your place, but you know it is going to happen?  And then when you get there and the door is shut and you're alone, everything's changed and there's a kind of embarrassment that you hadn't got when you were surrounded by people?"

He looked at me and said, "Oh God, you are a funny chap."

I said, "Funny chap or not, that's the way we're doing the scene, now come on."

And that's the way we did it, and he just thought I was mad.  He was so insensitive he didn't know what we were doing half the time.  He later became a wonderful actor, but oh dear, there were a lot of things that went straight over his head.

Also in the book there is confirmation that it is indeed set pre-war.  Celia Johnson's hat is apparently a style that was quite fashionable in the mid-30s, but by the end of the decade was typically worn by suburban housewives.

[Lost Oliver]

I cried. Fantastic film.

[Blinder Data]

I watched it last Christmas. Maybe the best British film ever. It tells you so much of life back then, and yet it also feels strikingly modern: characters with complex motivations; mental health issues; little moralising.

That squeeze. Ooft.

[sevendaughters]

Halliwell's Guides got me into cinema as a thing. I require gatekeepers to show the way and then 10 years later I realise what toot they were and then 20 years later I realise that the discovery was the joy.

Brief Encounter is magical. David Lean is a genuine talent. Between him and Powell/Pressburger, broadly conceived of as 'conservative cinema of England', their understanding of the romantic and self-sacrifice and strange psychic mechanics is so far away from what I mentally imagine conservative England to be.

[zomgmouse]

Here's the full story of this, as told in Kevin Brownlow's brilliant biography of Lean.

fantastic anecdote, thank you for posting