From Noël 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.—The Criterion Collection
Director, writer, and producer David Lean, grew up in a strict religious background in which movies were forbidden, to become one of the world’s most celebrated filmmakers. Beginning as a tea boy in the mid-‘20s, he was lucky enough to move into editing just as sound films were coming on the scene. By the mid-’30s, he was regarded as one of the top in his field. Lean turned down several chances to make low-budget films, and got his first directing opportunity (unofficially) on Major Barbara (1941), one of the most celebrated movies of the early ‘40s. Noel Coward hired Lean as his directorial collaborator on his war classic In Which We Serve (1943), and, after that, Lean’s career was made. For the next 15 years, he became known throughout the world for his close, intimate, serious film dramas. Some (This Happy Breed 1944, Blithe Spirit 1945, and Brief Encounter 1945) were based upon Coward’s… read more
Alec: I love you. I love your wide eyes, the way you smile, your shyness, and the way you laugh at my jokes. // Laura: Please don't. // Alec: I love you. I love you. You love me too. It's no use pretending it hasn't happened cause it has.
I've fallen in love. I'm an ordinary woman. I didn't think such violents things could happen to ordinary people.
I've only seen two Berthold Viertel films and already I'm obsessed. The Passing of the Third Floor Back mesmerized me, and now 1934's Little
Brief Encounter represents a kind of lyrical realism, a very British variation on the more earthly Italian or poetic French variants. David Lean, in his 4th collaboration with Uber-brit Noel Coward… read review
A lot of people think of Brief Encounter as a comment on stuffy middle-class suburban culture and its restrained attitudes towards love, and while I’d be a complete douche not to see this, I… read review
Well before Adrian Lyne’s morality tales about adultery came this David Lean non-epic that didn’t burst, early into the film, with sexual aggression. Rather, that subtle pain of nervous tension, between… read review
This is what a great movie is! Simple story, simply and efficiently told, lean, quick. This is the kind of movie that makes a person rethink the claim that every story worth telling has been told and… read review