Using Our Libraries
Collections
Lindsay Anderson - in his own words
Programme notes for Brief Encounter written for screenings of the film by The Oxford University Film Society in December 1947 (LA 6/3/4/15).
'When I saw all the others so placid, and Paul mad with terror, in case I said the wrong thing, I felt for a moment that the whole Wilcox family was a fraud, just a wall of newspapers and motor cars and golf clubs, and that, if it fell, I should find nothing behind it but panic and emptiness.'
So E. M. Forster, in Howard's End , expressed the hideous and pitiable limitations of the English upper class. Against its distorted values (elsewhere he writes of 'the undeveloped heart'), he and many other English artists have fought a long battle. Against them are the idols of the readers of Punch: Angela Thirkell, James Hilton, Terence Rattigan. Brief Encounter is of this party. Laura Jesson's abortive love affair is sympathetically and realistically observed; but the observation is not deep, and its scope very limited. This, in fact, is Mrs. Jesson's film - not just about her, but by her: the artist or the conglomeration of craftsmen behind it do not merely sympathise, they identify themselves with her. This is emphasised by her commentary, and by a revoltingly smug ending which sentimentalised and betrays an essentially tragic theme. At its best Brief Encounter is a middlebrow Madame Bovary .
Some of it is bad even by its own standards: the comic business in the station buffet, Irene Handl's two appearances. The construction is here and there dishonest - Trevor Howard is conveniently offered a job in South Africa; his friend arrives opportunely to claim his flat before the lovers can actually do anything.
The direction is discreet and sensitive, but never transforms the second-rate material; it is fettered by the irritating and unnecessary commentary. The music is sentimental. Celia Johnson (especially) and Trevor Howard are excellent. If Brief Encounter had been a novel, with the same merits and the same imaginative limitations, no serious critic would have thought it worth a review, and none of us (I hope) would have read it.
Anderson's piece is followed by a note which states:
Brief Encounter is so well known that it hardly needs the orthodox programme note; for once this is stimulation rather than information.
© University of Stirling 2004
