esrosedotblog

TODAY'S MOVIE

BRIEF ENCOUNTER (1945): NYTimes1176BestFilms: David Lean directs Noel Coward's short play Still Life which was part of a dozen written as vehicles for Gertrude Lawrence. They were bundled in threes and presented as Tonight At 8:30. It is pretty good and a bit edge of the seat. Forbidden Love. Married people meet in a train station, fall in love, carry on a series of unconsummated romantic liaisons; then give it up. It is said that Coward wrote all his plays from the viewpoint of a closeted homosexual, which he was, so therefore he did. The question is, did he include specific subtexts for other homos to find or for later scholars to argue about.

I can say that the entire enterprise is fully applicable to the gay world or to married gay men. I speak from first hand experience having been both and, as a matter of fact, having lived out aspects of this story. Here, the story is told by the woman who has a husband who stays home, worries about dinner, takes care of the kids and works the crosswords while she goes into town, shops, and sees a lot of movies. What could be more gay than that? And more wifely than that? Role reversal. And, a neat twist on the standard hetero arrangement at that time. Gotta be a flag on that one.

On the other hand, the theme is universal and beyond orientation. We cannot have our cake and eat it too. You must stay on the paths you have chosen. And so on. Actually, the dilemma for this couple is rather deep in that they love their families; he loves and is married to his work. The relationship is pretty much impossible.

It is also veddy veddy British and repressed in that sense as well. Home and hearth. But, just in the background, less bourgeois types than our couple are having at it with abandon so.......hmmmm. Coward and Lean do show us the contrasts. The lower classes are not that attractive however. Sordid and crass in their sexual by-play and sparring.

Now that I have beaten that one nearly to death, I can say that we enjoyed the film a great deal. The black and white work is just gorgeous and there is a lot of play of light in an active sense; when the mood brightens so do the lights. It is not that obvious really; just enough to notice it. I will give it a 3 out of Netflix5.