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 Brief Encounter (1945) Directed by David Lean Starring Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard Director David Lean is most remembered these days for several epic feature films that had lengthy run times, critical and popular acclaim, and Alec Guinness, sometimes as a minority. Earlier in his career, however, he directed several smaller pictures, starting a few based on the work of English playwright Noël Coward and which have been collected in a box set by the Criterion Collection. Brief Encounter, expanded from Coward's one act play Still Life, was the final collaboration, and won wide acclaim. Brief Encounter is the story of a love affair between Laura, an English suburban housewife (Celia Johnson) and Alec, a married doctor (Trevor Howard), predicated on her and his weekly train trips into town for shopping and a movie, and consulting at the local hospital, respectively. Things start innocently enough with a meet cute, but to their surprise, delight, and dismay, their relationship quickly deepens.  This was actually the first film of Lean's I managed to see, chosen at the library based solely on knowing his name, knowing said name was associated with pictures that seemed much larger in scope, and it being a Criterion disc because yeah, sometimes I'm That Guy. It completely took me by surprise. The story is told from the point of view of Laura, with quite a bit of voice-over narration from her, and thus much of it rests on the shoulders of Celia Johnson. She completely knocks it out of the park and delivers one of the screen performances that will stick with me for the rest of my life, aided in no small part by her good fortune in having been born with Those Eyes.  Through that face, Laura's ache is palpable. Aside from Johnson's acting and the story itself, there's some lovely cinematography to enjoy, some of it involving trains and thus tying Brief Encounter to some of Lean's most popular work.  It's one of my favorites, and if you haven't seen it yet I hope it becomes one of yours. If you HAVE seen it and want to see it again now, welcome, friend. I saw that it was on TCM once while looking at the channel guide and I tuned in for "just a bit" that became watching the whole thing again. Oh, and one scene provided Billy Wilder with the inspiration for The Apartment, so there's that. The Complete Movie of the Month Listing: 1776 | 2001: A Space Odyssey | 24 Hour Party People | 8 1/2 | The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension | Aguirre: The Wrath of God | All That Jazz | American Movie | Baraka | The Battle of Algiers | Being There | Beyond the Valley of the Dolls | Bicycle Thief | Black Hawk Down | Blade | Branded to Kill | The Brave Little Toaster | Breaking Away | The Bridge on the River Kwai | Bullet in the Head | Charade | Chitty Chitty Bang Bang | Close-Up | The Conversation | The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover | Day For Night | The Court Jester | Death Race 2000 | Dead Man | Darkman | Detour | Devils on the Doorstep | Double Indemnity | Downfall | Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde | El Topo | Falling Down | A Face In The Crowd | Fanny and Alexander | Fat City | Funny Bones | Galaxy Quest | Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai | Glengarry Glen Ross | Gremlins 2: The New Batch | Horor of Dracula | La Haine | The Ice Storm | The Intruder | It's a Wonderful Life | Judgement at Nuremberg | Jumanji | The King of Comedy | Last Train From Gun Hill | The Leopard | The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp | Little Shop of Horrors | Living in Oblivion | The Long Goodbye | Love & Death | M | Masculin Féminin | Man on Fire | The Man Who Would Be King | Modern Times | | The Monster Squad | Mousehunt | Mulholland Drive | My Best Friend's Wedding | My Darling Clementine | My Own Private Idaho | Naked | Outland | The Panic in Needle Park | Peeping Tom | Planes, Trains, and Automobiles | Play Time | The Proposition | Punishment Park | The Pusher Trilogy | Rififi/Rashômon | The Ref | Rock 'n' Roll High School | Ronin | The Rules of the Game | Safe | Schizopolis | Son of Frankenstein | The Squid and the Whale | Stop Making Sense | The Super Inframan | Sunset Boulevard | Surviving The Game | The Sweet Hereafter | The Third Man | Titicut Follies | Vampyr | The Vanishing | Videodrome | The Wild Bunch | Wit | Withnail & I | The Young Girls of Rochefort | Zardoz
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Jan 7, 2015 04:56
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| # ? Apr 26, 2024 20:01 |
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Nice write-up. Pal Matt Dessem wrote a very cool essay about this movie. I really enjoyed this movie the first time I saw it and am due for a rewatch. I'm a complete sucker for "could-have-been" love stories like this, In the Mood for Love, or The Age of Innocence.
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Jan 13, 2015 05:20
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This thread inspired me to (finally) get around to watching this flick — it will be in my weekend viewing. Speaking of Billy Wilder, for some reason I keep getting this movie and "The Lost Weekend" (a film I have also not seen) confused.
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Jan 15, 2015 08:31
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I didn't find the romance engaging at all for some reason but it had good use of narration and I felt like I really got inside the psyche of Laura Jesson. You see her loneliness with her current husband, the fear of connecting with someone (while married herself) and her loss at the end.Discount Viscount posted:The story is told from the point of view of Laura, with quite a bit of voice-over narration from her, and thus much of it rests on the shoulders of Celia Johnson. That's what stuck out to me a lot.
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Jan 16, 2015 22:47
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I really enjoyed this. Between the screenplay and Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard's wonderful chemistry together, I was completely sucked into their romance. I liked how the film played off the power of coincidence, from things such as the main romance of the movie, to the one-off gag about the lady cellist. The cinematography is great as well, with excellent use of lighting and train steam. The early parts of the film don't set you up for the emotional gut punch at the end, and it works wonderfully. A great MotM choice.
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Jan 18, 2015 17:33
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| # ? Apr 26, 2024 20:01 |
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Yeah, the scene where it catches back up to the beginning is a real kick in the gut, followed by the only bit where superfluous narration weakens things a bit IMO (the famous Dutch angle moment.)Zogo posted:I didn't find the romance engaging at all for some reason but it had good use of narration and I felt like I really got inside the psyche of Laura Jesson. You see her loneliness with her current husband, the fear of connecting with someone (while married herself) and her loss at the end. The romance does feel a bit underdeveloped in the beginning, perhaps because it's only told from one perspective and so we're almost as surprised as Laura at the moment Alec pushes the point. But damned if I'm not sold on it by the end of it. The two big socially mandated changes from the play [namely the apartment scene having a concrete resolution, and the very end with her husband], while perhaps removing a little edge, don't really affect or undermine the emotional journey, which must be some kind of testament to its strength.
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Jan 19, 2015 07:24
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