An endearing romance classic about a doomed love affair. “Brief Encounter” is filmmaker David Lean’s film adaptation of Noel Coward’s play “Still Life” and their final collaboration together. Featuring great performances by Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard, “Brief Encounter” is indeed the highlight of the “David Lean Directs Noel Coward” DVD Box Set!
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TITLE: Brief Encounter – THE CRITERION COLLECTION #76 (as part of the David Lean Directs Noel Coward DVD Box Set)
FILM RELEASE DATE: 1945
DURATION: 86 Minutes
DVD INFORMATION: Black and White, Monaural , 1:37:1 Aspect Ratio
COMPANY: Janus Films/The Criterion Collection
RELEASED: March 27, 2012
Based on the play “Still Life” by Noel Coward
Directed by David Lean
Produced by Noel Coward
Cinematography by Robert Krasker
Edited by Jack Harris
Art Direction by Lawrence P. Williams
Starring:
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
Marjorie Mars as Mary Norton
Margaret Barton as Beryl Walters, tea room assistant
From Noel Coward’s play “Still Life”, legendary filmmaker David Lean deftly explores the thrill, pain, and tenderness of an illicit romance in the dour, gray Britain of 1945. From a chance meeting on a train platform, a middle-aged married doctor (Trevor Howard) and a suburban housewife (Celia Johnson) enter into a quietly passionate, ultimately doomed love affair, set to a swirling Rachmaninoff score.
For four straight years, filmmaker and David Lean have had a wonderful collaboration in British cinema. In celebration of this unique collaboration, the Criterion Collection will be releasing the four films that they have worked together on: “In Which We Serve” (1942), “This Happy Breed” (1944), “Blithe Spirit” (1945) and “Brief Encounter” (1945).
For their final collaboration, “Brief Encounter” would be a major accomplishment for both men as it would win the “Grand Prize” at the 1945 Cannes Film Festival. The film would also earn Celia Johnson an Academy Award nomination for “Best Actress” in 1947.
Needless to say, this film would bring recognition to David Lean’s work as he would go on to work on two Charles Dickens film adaptations afterward and continue to work on many award winning films in the future (such as “Hobson’s Choice”, “Summertime”, “The Bridge on the River Kwai”, “Lawrence of Arabia”, “Doctor Zhivago”, “A Passage to India” to name a few) and cement his status as one of the greatest filmmakers of all time.
As for English playwright Sir Noel Coward, he would go on to continuing what he had done all along. Working on a plays, musicals, cabaret shows, theater and eventually returning to film with hits such as “Around the World in 80 Days”, “Our Man in Havana”, “Bunny Lake is Missing” and the “Italian Job”.
Both men would benefit from working together and boosting their careers.
“Brief Encounter” is a film adaptation of “Still Life” by Sir Noel Coward and directed by David Lean. The film was originally released on DVD courtesy of the Criterion Collection back in 2000 but has been re-released on Blu-ray and DVD utilizing a new high definition transfer from the BFI National Archive’s 2008 restoration.
The film revolves around a suburban housewife named Laura Jesson (played by Celia Johnson,”The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie”, “Believe in You”, “Play for Today” who says goodbye to a man in a tea house who leaves by train, as the two are having a conversation, Laura is interrupted by an old friend and for some reason, we see the anguish in her face. A sense of desperation as she returns home with such sadness. We see Laura return to her husband but it is then she tells us her story. She is a woman who has had an affair with another man.
We learn from Laura that she was an ordinary woman, with an ordinary life. Happily married with two children, she goes on with her daily life riding the train into town and checking out a book to read at a local store, going to lunch with friends and enjoying a picture.
While she goes to the tea house at the train station, while waiting for a train one evening, some grit gets into her eyes. That is when she meets Dr. Alec Harvey (played by Trevor Howard, “Ghandi”, “To Catch a Spy”, “Battle of Britain” who helps remove the grit from her eye.
It started off quite innocently as the two would see each other while she was on her way to some engagement and Alec, a general practitioner going to his work at the hospital. But one day, while she is eating alone at a restaurant, Alec joins her (since the restaurant was full of people and had no open seats). The two have a great discussion and we learn that Alec is happily married with children. Laura showing her kindness for helping her with removing the grit in her eye, the two go to catch an event at the Palladium.
But the two start to realize they enjoy each other’s company. They would meet with each other, while she would lie and call her husband that she was out with a girlfriend. But both start to realize that they are falling in love with each other and know what they are doing are wrong but their hearts tell them not to deny their love and spend time with each other in secret.
But for Laura, emotionally it is so difficult because she is married with children and knows it is wrong. But to make things worse, her female friends start to see her having lunch with another man, making Laura feel guilty and stressed that they are talking about her being with another man.
Both know that they can’t keep this fling hidden but now is the time that they must decide whether or not to follow their hearts and stay in love with each other or to say goodbye and go on with their own lives.
VIDEO & AUDIO:
“Brief Encounter” was previously released on DVD back in 2000 by the Criterion Collection. But this transfer is brand new as it is the new high-definition digital transfer of the BFI National Archive’s 2008 restoration.
With that being said, because this film has been restored, if you want the best version of this film to date, you definitely want to pick up the Blu-ray release of the “David Lean Directs Noel Coward” box set.
As for the DVD, “Brief Encounter” is featured in black and white (1:37:1 aspect ratio) and for a film that was created back in 1946, this 66-year-old film looks absolutely fantastic on DVD.
Compared to the 2000 DVD edition, the restoration has a good amount of grain which is intact, back then, quite a bit of DNR was used but the grain is noticeable. The contrast is wonderful. Black levels are nice and deep, whites/grays are vibrant and clear but I can only imagine how much sharper and pronounced the quality is in HD via Blu-ray. Also, there is less flickering in this DVD version compared to the 2000 DVD release.
It helps that the cinematography and the shots and camera positioning was well-done and captured the various mood of Laura. May it be her making a phone call to Alec or running through the rain, cinematographer Robert Krasker (“Romeo and Juliet”, “Alexander the Great”, “The Running Man”) did a wonderful job in capturing the emotion of this film.
As for the picture quality, according to Criterion, the picture has been slightly windowboxed (for the DVD version) to ensure the maximum image is visible on all monitors. The new restoration was created in 4K resolution on Spirit Datacine at Cineimage, London, from the best surviving duplicate safety negatives. Pixel Farm’s PFClean was used for flicker correction.
As for the audio, the audio is presented in Monaural and dialogue is Dolby Digital 1.0 and the Rachmaninoff score is center channel driven.
According to the Criterion Collection, the monaural soundtrack was restored from a sound print made from the original nitrate track negative. Click, thumps, hiss and hum were manually removed using Pro Tools HD. Crackle was attenuated using AudioCube’s integrated workstation.
English subtitles are presented in English SDH.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
“Brief Encounter” comes with the following special features:
- Audio Commentary – Featuring the original 2000 Criterion Collection audio commentary by film historian Bruce Elder who discusses the film and also the career of David Lean, Joyce Carey, Celia Johnson and Stanley Holloway. Also, the adaptation of”Still Life” to cinema. There is one section and this relates to Elder talking about a scene with Dr. Alec Harvey and his colleague which I totally agree with him and how that scene was a bit abrupt to the film. Interesting enough, how this abruptness was an inspiration for director Billy Wilder for his film “The Apartment”. But for the most part, an informative commentary track.
- Barry Day – (16:14) Featuring an October 2011 interview with Barry Day, author of “Coward on Film: The Cinema of Noel Coward” discussing “Brief Encounter”.
- A Profile of “Brief Encounter” – (24:14) A short documentary produced in London in 200 for Carlton International Media featuring interviews with screenwriter/producer Ronald Neame, actress Margaret Barlon and actress Celia Johnson’s daughter Kate Fleming and more.
- “David Lean: A Self Portrait” – (57:56) Featuring the 1971 documentary “David Lean: A Self Portrait” by Thomas Craven featuring an extensive interview with Lean about his work and approach to filmmaking.
- Theatrical Trailer – (3:01) The original theatrical trailer.
EXTRAS:
- 46-Page booklet – “David Lean Directs Noel Coward” comes with a 46-page booklet with essays for each film. For the “Brief Encounter” portion, the essays are all brand new. Included are “Riskiest Thing I Ever Did” (Notes on “Brief Encounter” by Kevin Brownlow.
An endearing romance classic about a doomed love affair. “Brief Encounter” is filmmaker David Lean’s film adaptation of Noel Coward’s play “Still Life” and their final collaboration together.
It’s quite interesting to watch a film such as “Brief Encounter” because we see extra-marital affairs in film as common place in cinema. But we don’t really see a film that focuses on the actual affair and how one deals with it emotionally. In this case, through the eyes of Laura Jesson as she takes the viewer from the beginning of the relationship and seeing how it matured, to talking about the female friends that she has and just the emotional turmoil she goes through of knowing she has a family but knowing that she loves Alec so much.
Both know they love each other but they have significant others and children and they are behaving inappropriately that it starts to take its toll on her. For Alec, he could care less that he’s very much in love with Laura but for Laura, it’s the lying and hiding that starts to break her each and every day. She knows its wrong but her heart continues to tell her to go for love and she is torn between her conflicting emotions.
It’s also important to emphasize that back in the mid-1940’s, extra-marital affairs was not as significant as they are today. Sure, divorce rate is high now, extra-marital affairs seem to be commonplace in cinema and people tend to go for personal happiness while family was emphasized heavily during that time.
But Laura’s life was mundane and like many housewives, a common routine of taking care of the husband and children and it was a repetition of the same things over and over again. She was an ordinary woman that did not expect this to happen to her.
We definitely get two different perspectives of the wife and her obligation to family with Noel Coward’s “Brief Encounter” and “Easy Virtue”.
Both female leads are torn with what they should do with their situation as married wives but with Laura, there is nothing to gain by pursuing personal happiness. For Laura, it is a different time, a different era and she has more to lose.
Both Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard provide a fantastic performance. I enjoyed the cinematography and the use of “Piano Concerto no. 2” by Sergei Rachmaninoff (played by Eileen Joyce) throughout the film.
As mentioned earlier, if you want the best version of “Brief Encounter” or any of the David Lean/Noel Coward films, I highly recommend going with the Blu-ray version of this set. Otherwise, if you are only interested in DVD, this set is simply worth owning.
The biggest question asked is if one owns the original 2000 Criterion Collection release of “Brief Encounter” and they plan to purchase this 2012 box set, “Should they get rid of their original 2000 Criterion Collection DVD release?”. Coming from the collector’s perspective, it depends. The 2000 DVD release featured a two-page insert and an essay written by British Film critic Adrian Turner and the special features had the restoration demo and color bars.
Otherwise, that’s about it. If those features are important to you, then keep it. The audio commentary by film historian Bruce Elder from the 2000 DVD release is included in the 2012 release and you get more special features and a much better HD transfer with this newer release.
Overall, “Brief Encounter” is an enjoyable film that keeps things simple. No need to stretch the film past its 86 minutes and despite one scene that the historian Bruce Eder points out in the commentary, for the most part this film is very well done.
A romantic film showing us how love can happen unexpectedly but how love can easily be lost. “Brief Encounter” is definitely worth watching.
