Brief Encounter Totally Explained

Everything about Brief Encounter totally explained

ť For the album by Marillion, see Brief Encounter (Marillion album)

Brief Encounter is a 1945 British film about the mores of British suburban life, centering on a housewife for whom real love (as opposed to the polite arrangement of her marriage) was an unexpectedly "violent" thing. It was directed by David Lean and stars Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard. The screenplay is by Noel Coward, and is 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.

Plot

Laura Jesson (Johnson), a suburban housewife, tells her story in the first person whilst at home with her husband, imagining that she's confessing her affair to him.
   Laura ventures into the nearby town of Milford once a week for shopping and a matinée movie. Returning home from one of her weekly excursions, at the station she gets a piece of grit in her eye which is removed by another passenger, a doctor called Alec Harvey (Howard). Both are in early middle-age, married, and both have two children. The doctor is a general practitioner who also works one day a week as a consultant at the local hospital, but his passion is for preventive medicine, such as addressing the causes of respiratory illness in miners.
   Enjoying one another's company, the two arrange to meet again. They are soon troubled to find their innocent and casual relationship quickly developing into love.
   For a while, they meet furtively, constantly fearing chance meetings with friends. After several meetings, they go to a room belonging to a friend (Valentine Dyall) of the doctor, but they're interrupted by the friend's unexpected return. This exemplifies that a future together is impossible and, wishing not to hurt their families, they agree to part. The doctor is soon to leave for Johannesburg, South Africa.
   Their final meeting at the railway station refreshment room which we see for the second time with the poignant perspective of their story. As they await a sad and final parting, Dolly Messiter, a talkative friend of Laura, invites herself to join them and is soon chattering away, totally oblivious to the couple's inner misery.
   As they realize that they've 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 they both long for. As the train is heard pulling away, Laura suddenly dashes out onto the platform. The lights of a passing express train flash across her face as she conquers her impulse to commit suicide; she then returns home to her family.
   In a final scene, not appearing in the original Coward play, Laura's husband Fred suddenly shows that he hadn't been completely oblivious to her distress in the past weeks, and saying "Thank you for coming back to me" takes her in his arms - with the film thus ending on a tribute to the institutions of marriage and duty.
   The film doesn't mention the Second World War or any of the hardships that accompany it. While no character refers to a specific time, the fictional film within a film Laura and Alec see, Flames of Passion, which is newly released, displays a copyright date of 1938. When Laura returns home following the first (and last) scene, her daughter wishes to see a pantomime, suggesting a time in the weeks before Christmas. We can also tell that the film is set in winter because at one point a scene appears to be set at night except that people greet each other with "good afternoon". This probably means that in fact the scene was set at around four or perhaps even five in the afternoon in mid to late December, which fits very well in with the Pantomime theory.

Adaptation

The film is based on Coward's one-act play Still Life (1936), one of a group of ten short plays entitled, designed for Gertrude Lawrence and Coward himself to be performed in various combinations as triple bills. All scenes of Still Life are set in the refreshment room of a railway station (the fictional Milford Junction).
   As is normal in films based on stage plays, the film depicts places that are only referred to in the play: Dr. Lynn's flat, Laura's home, a cinema, a restaurant and a branch of Boots the Chemists. Additionally, 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 and smoking in public; 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's left for the audience to decide whether they actually consummate their relationship. 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 fire escape. Later, when Laura wants to throw herself in front of an express train, the film makes this intention clear by means of voice-over narration.
   There are two editions of Noel Coward's original screenplay for the film adaptation, both listed in the bibliography below.

Production

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 London to avoid the blackout for film purposes, shooting taking place in early 1945 before the War had finished. Noel Coward makes the station announcements in the film. The station buffet 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.

Music

As well as Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 which recurs throughout the film, there's a scene in a tea room where a salon orchestra plays the Spanish Dance No 5 (Bolero) by Moritz Moszkowski.

Reception

Awards

The film shared the 1946 Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Celia Johnson was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress in the 1947 awards. In 1999 Brief Encounter came 2nd 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.

Criticism

In her book Noël Coward (1987), Frances Gray says that Brief Encounter is, ť after the major comedies, the one work of Coward that almost everybody knows of 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 can't 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. A disastrous attempt in 1975 to remake the film in a more up-to-date setting, with Richard Burton and Sophia Loren as Alec and Laura, made this plain. (pp.64-67).

Gray acknowledges a common criticism of the play: why do the characters not consummate the affair? Gray argues that their problem is class consciousness: the working classes can act in a vulgar way, and the upper class can be silly; but the middle class is or at least considers itself the moral backbone of society - a notion whose validity Coward didn't really want to question or jeopardize as they were Coward's principal audience.
   However, Laura in her narration stresses that what holds her back is her horror at the thought of betraying her husband and her settled moral values, tempted although she's by the force of a love affair. Indeed, it's this very tension which has made the film such an enduring favourite and it rather misses the point to suggest that this is a weakness rather than its most important feature.
   The values which Laura precariously, but ultimately successfully, clings to were widely shared and respected (if not always observed) at the time of the film's original setting (the status of a divorced woman, for example, remained sufficiently scandalous in the UK to cause the King to abdicate in 1936). Updating the story left those values behind and with them vanished the credibility of the plot, which may be why the remake couldn't compete.
   The film is widely admired for the beauty of its black and white photography and the atmosphere created by the steam-age railway setting, both of which were particular to the original David Lean version.
   Another reason for the film's continued admiration is the brilliant performances by the cast. Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard, Stanley Holloway, and Joyce Carey were excellent. The film was an amazing success in the UK and such a hit in the US that Celia Johnson was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress.
   The film was released amid the social and cultural context of the Second World War when 'brief encounters' were commonplace and women had far greater sexual and economic freedom than previously. In British National Cinema (1997), Sarah Street argues that "Brief Encounter thus articulated a range of feelings about infidelity which invited easy identification, whether it involved one's husband, lover, children or country" (p. 55). In this context, feminist critics read the film as an attempt at stabilising relationships to return to the status quo. Meanwhile, in his 1993 BFI book on the film, Richard Dyer notes that owing to the rise of homosexual law reform, gay men also viewed the plight of the characters as comparable to their own social constraint in the formation and maintenance of relationships. Sean O'Connor considers the film to be an "allegorical representation of forbidden love" informed by Noel Coward's experiences as a closeted homosexual (p. 157).
   A made-for-TV version starring Richard Burton and Sophia Loren was made in 1974, and is - as noted above - generally considered inferior.
   The British play and film, The History Boys features two of the main characters reciting a passage of the film, thereby cementing the film's place in the cultural lexicon of the 21st century. (The scene portrayed, with Posner playing Celia Johnson and Scripps as Cyril Raymond, is the closing minutes of the film where character Laura begins, "I really meant to do it.")
   The Channel 4 British drama series Shameless has a plot based on Brief Encounter in its fifth series. Similarities include the main character, Frank Gallagher getting grit in his eye from a bus, being caught by a friend of his wife, and the tearful departure. Frank's wife, Monica even thanks Frank for coming back.
   In another nod to Brief Encounter, the 2006 romantic comedy film The Holiday portrays Miles (Jack Black) removing dust from the eye of Amanda (Cameron Diaz), leading the new acquaintances into a romantic relationship.

Theatre Adaptations

To date the most successful theatre adaptation of Brief Encounter is the acclaimed UK company Kneehigh Theatre production. It toured the UK before opening in February 2008 at the Haymarket Cinema (specially coverted into a theatre for the performances), London and as of April 2008 extended its run until October 2008. It was adapted for the stage by Emma Rice and is a mixture of the 1946 film and the Noel Coward stage play .It stars Naomi Frederick as Laura and Tristan Sturrock as Alec and has received glowing reviews. Director Emma Rice will guest star as Myrtle in the play for four weeks from July 21 until August 18.
Full Cast
Naomi Frederick- Laura
Tamzin Griffin - Myrtle
Amanda Lawrence- Beryl
Stuart McCoughlin- Stanley
Jess Murphy- Ensemble
Adam Pleeth- The musician
Adam Randall- Bill/ The musician
Ian Ross- the musician
Tristan Sturrock- Alec
Andy Williams- Fred/Albert

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