Brief Encounter is a 1945 British romantic drama film directed by David Lean about British suburban life on the eve of World War 2, centring on Laura, a married woman with children, whose conventional life becomes increasingly complicated because of a chance meeting at a railway station with a married stranger, Alec. They fall in love, bringing about unexpected consequences.
Brief Encounter | |
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Theatrical release poster | |
Directed by | David Lean |
Produced by |
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Written by |
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Based on | Still Life 1936 play by Noël Coward |
Starring |
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Music by | Sergei Rachmaninoff |
Cinematography | Robert Krasker |
Edited by | Jack Harris |
Distributed by | Eagle-Lion Distributors |
Release date | 13 November 1945 (Premiere, London) 26 November 1945 (UK) |
Running time | 86 minutes |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Budget | $1 million |
The film stars Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard, Stanley Holloway and Joyce Carey. The screenplay is by Noël Coward, based on his 1936 one-act play Still Life. The soundtrack prominently features the Piano Concerto No. 2 by Sergei Rachmaninoff, played by Eileen Joyce.
Brief Encounter was met with wide praise from critics upon its release, and is today considered to be among Lean's finest works. It has been credited as an important early work of realist cinema for its small scale and the lack of big-name stars in its cast. In 1999, the British Film Institute voted Brief Encounter the second greatest British film of all time. In 2017 a poll of 150 actors, directors, writers, producers and critics for Time Out magazine saw it ranked the twelfth best British film ever.
Screenplay
In the latter months of 1938, Laura Jesson, a respectable middle-class British woman in an affectionate but rather dull marriage, tells her story while sitting at home with her husband, imagining that she is confessing her affair to him.
Laura, like many women of her class at the time, goes to a nearby town every Thursday for shopping and to the cinema for a matinée. Returning from one such excursion to Milford, while waiting in the railway station's refreshment room, she is helped by another passenger, who solicitously removes a piece of grit from her eye. The man is Alec Harvey, an idealistic doctor who also works one day a week as a consultant at the local hospital. Both are in their late thirties or early forties, married and with children.
Enjoying each other's company, the two arrange to meet again. They are soon troubled to find their innocent and casual relationship quickly developing into something deeper, approaching infidelity.
For a while, they meet openly, until they run into friends of Laura and the perceived need to lie arises. The second lie comes more easily. They eventually go to a flat belonging to Stephen, a friend of Alec's and a fellow doctor, but are interrupted by Stephen's unexpected and judgmental return. Laura, humiliated and ashamed, runs down the back stairs and into the streets. She walks for hours, sits on a bench and smokes, and is confronted by a police officer, with the implication that she could be perceived as a "streetwalker."
The recent turn of events informs the couple that both an affair and a future together are impossible. Realizing the danger and not wishing to hurt their families, they agree to part. Alec has been offered a job in Johannesburg, South Africa, where his brother lives.
Their final meeting occurs in the railway station refreshment room, now seen for a second time with the poignant perspective of their story. As they await a heart-rending final parting, Dolly Messiter, a talkative acquaintance of Laura, invites herself to join them and begins chattering away, oblivious to the couple's inner misery.
As they realize that they have been robbed of the chance for a final goodbye, Alec's train arrives. With Dolly still chattering, Alec departs with a last look at Laura but without the passionate farewell for which they both long. After shaking Messiter's hand, he discreetly squeezes Laura on the shoulder and leaves. Laura waits for a moment, anxiously hoping that Alec will walk back into the refreshment room, but he does not. As the train is heard pulling away, Laura is galvanized by emotion and, hearing an approaching express train, suddenly dashes out to the platform. The lights of the train flash across her face as she conquers a suicidal impulse. She then returns home to her family.
Laura's kind and patient husband, Fred, suddenly shows not only that he has noticed her distance in the past few weeks but that he has perhaps even guessed the reason. He thanks her for coming back to him. She cries in his embrace.
- Celia Johnson as Laura Jesson
- Trevor Howard as Dr Alec Harvey
- Stanley Holloway as Albert Godby
- Joyce Carey as Myrtle Bagot
- Cyril Raymond as Fred Jesson
- Everley Gregg as Dolly Messiter
- Margaret Barton as Beryl Walters, tea-room assistant
- Marjorie Mars as Mary Norton
- Alfie Bass (uncredited) as the waiter at the Royal
- Wallace Bosco (uncredited) as the doctor at Bobbie's accident
- Sydney Bromley (uncredited) as Johnnie, second soldier
- Valentine Dyall (uncredited) as Stephen Lynn, Alec's friend
- Irene Handl (uncredited) as cellist and organist
The film is based on Noël Coward's one-act play Still Life (1936), one of ten short plays in the cycle Tonight at 8:30, designed for Gertrude Lawrence and Coward himself, and to be performed in various combinations as triple bills. All scenes in Still Life are set in the refreshment room of a railway station (the fictional Milford Junction).
As is common in films based on stage plays, the film depicts places only referred to in the play: Dr. Lynn's flat, Laura's home, a cinema, a restaurant and a branch of Boots the Chemist. In addition, a number of scenes have been added which are not in the play: a scene on a lake in a rowing boat where Dr. Harvey gets his feet wet; Laura wandering alone in the dark, sitting down on a park bench, smoking in public and being confronted by a police officer; and a drive in the country in a borrowed car.
Some scenes are made less ambiguous and more dramatic in the film. The scene in which the two lovers are about to commit adultery is toned down: in the play it is left for the audience to decide whether they actually consummate their relationship; in the film it is intimated that they do not. In the film, Laura has only just arrived at Dr. Lynn's flat when the owner returns and is immediately led out by Dr. Harvey via the kitchen service door. Later, when Laura seems to want to throw herself in front of an express train, the film makes the intention clearer by means of voice-over narration. Also, in the play, the characters at the Milford station—Mrs. Baggot, Mr. Godby, Beryl, and Stanley—are very much aware of the growing relationship between Laura and Alec and sometimes mention it in an offhand manner, whereas in the film, they barely take any notice of them or what they are doing, either showing them respect for their privacy or just being oblivious. The final scene of the film showing Laura embracing her husband after he shows that he has noticed her distance in the past few weeks and perhaps even guessed the reason is not in the original Coward play.
There are two editions of Coward's original screenplay for the film adaptation, both listed in the bibliography.
Much of the film version was shot at Carnforth railway station in Lancashire, then a junction on the London, Midland and Scottish Railway. As well as a busy station being necessary for the plot, it was located far enough away from major cities to avoid the blackout for film purposes, shooting taking place in early 1945 before the Second World War had finished. At two points in the film the station location is indicated by platform signs referring to local destinations including, Leeds, Bradford, Morecambe and Lancaster. Noël Coward makes the station announcements in the film. The station refreshment room was a studio recreation. Carnforth Station still retains many of the period features present at the time of filming and remains a place of pilgrimage for fans of the film. However, some of the urban scenes were shot in London or at Denham or Beaconsfield near Denham Studios where the film was made.
The poem that Fred asks Laura to assist him with is by John Keats: "When I have Fears that I may Cease to Be". The quote Fred recites is, "When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face, Huge cloudy symbols of a high Romance...."
In addition to the verbal reference to Keats, there is a visual reference to an Arabic love poem. In Stephen Lynn's apartment, a wall hanging is prominently displayed twice. When Laura enters, there is a shot of it over the dining table. Later, when Stephen confronts Alec, it is seen over Alec's left shoulder.
Excerpts from Sergei Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 recur throughout the film, played by Eileen Joyce. There is also a scene in a tea room where a salon orchestra plays the Spanish Dance No. 5 (Bolero) by Moritz Moszkowski.
Box office
According to trade papers, the film was a "notable box office attraction". It was the 21st most popular film at the British box office in 1946.
Awards
The film shared the 1946 Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival. At the 19th Academy Awards, Celia Johnson was nominated for Best Actress while David Lean was nominated for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay along with Anthony Havelock-Allan and Ronald Neame.
Critical reception
Brief Encounter was acclaimed upon its release, although there were doubts that it would be "generally popular". It was voted one of the 10 greatest films ever made in two separate 1952 critics' polls. In 1999 the film was given the #2 slot on the British Film Institute's BFI Top 100 British films.
Today, the film is widely praised for its black-and-white photography and the mood created by the steam-age railway setting, both of which were particular to the original David Lean version. The film was a great success in the UK and such a hit in the US that Celia Johnson was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress.
In her book Noël Coward (1987), Frances Gray says that Brief Encounter is, after the major comedies, the one work of Coward that almost everybody knows and has probably seen; it has featured frequently on television and its viewing figures are invariably high.
"Its story is that of an unconsummated affair between two married people Coward is keeping his lovers in check because he cannot handle the energies of a less inhibited love in a setting shorn of the wit and exotic flavour of his best comedies To look at the script, shorn of David Lean's beautiful camera work, deprived of an audience who would automatically approve of the final sacrifice, is to find oneself asking awkward questions" (p. 64–67).
Brief Encounter holds an 89% "fresh" rating at review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. In 1999 it came second in a British Film Institute poll of the top 100 British films. In 2004, the magazine Total Film named it the 44th greatest British film of all time. Derek Malcolm included the film in his 2000 column The Century of Films. The British historian Thomas Dixon notes that Brief Encounter "has become a classic example of a very modern and very British phenomenon - weeping over the Stiff upper lip, crying at people not crying. The audiences for these wartime weepies could, through their own tears, provide something that was lacking in their own lives as well as those of the on-screen stoics they admired."
The British play and film The History Boys features two of the main characters reciting a passage of the film. (The scene portrayed, with Posner playing Celia Johnson and Scripps as Cyril Raymond, is in the closing minutes of the film where Laura begins, "I really meant to do it.")
Kathryn Altman, wife of director Robert Altman said, "One day, years and years ago, just after the war, had nothing to do and he went to a theater in the middle of the
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