I think Losey’s great. I really want to see more of his films. The Servant is the one I’m most familiar with, and it is so creepy. But James Fox plays “idle rich” so well you almost don’t feel that sorry for him. It’s one of those films where a certain problem or dynamic is worked out with relentless rigor and certainty, and yet it’s also totally satisfying because of the juicy way it’s worked out. I’m not sure how to put it. But I am sure that the pacing owes as much to Losey as to Pinter and Fox, Bogarde, et al.
I’m glad to see you mention The Go-Between. That is a very fine film and I think it criminal that it is forgotten. There is a prime candidate for a Criterion treatment if there ever was! Margaret Leighton’s performance alone is worth any price. Splendid.
I’m also a fan of Accident. Whatever the connection Losey had with Dirk Bogarde is certainly something to celebrate. There are always these cool, calculated plots in perfect Anglican settings and moods that have a boiler underneath waiting to explode. Losey may be an acquired taste, i don’t know, but I’ve always felt in some sense he and Resnais are cinematic blood-brothers.
Interesting trivia — Losey, not British but American, attended the same high school as Nicholas Ray in LaCrosse, Wisconsin!
Very interesting life & career. His films ran the gamut. Accident, The Go-Between and especially The Servant are masterworks. Then he also directed the really odd Secret Ceremony (which I liked), Figures in a Landscape and Boom!, which has become a legendary bad movie, although it’s very enjoyable and has beautiful photography of Sardinia.
To give the film some coherence it has to be viewed as a film about the assassin. Delon’s character is no Stalinist, just a guy with some demons who can be recruited.
Basically a remake of “I Shot Jesse James” and Losey seems disorganized.
I had the same problem with Mr. Klein and The Servant. The premises were interesting but too broad to be effective.
“To give the film some coherence it has to be viewed as a film about the assassin. Delon’s character is no Stalinist, just a guy with some demons who can be recruited.”
Good point Doinel, but I don’t think Losey made that clear. I’m not sure if he felt he should focus on Burton (he was great friends with L. Taylor, who asked him to help get Burton’s career back on track, this film didn’t do it).
Jasper she got hooked up with Delon because she’s Romy Schnieder!
Perfect casting, as Losey utilizes the tensions of their off-screen relationship as material for on-screen drama. This is a very underrated Losey, and some of the best acting Delon has ever done. Also one of my very favorite endings as Delon, playing (as usual) a psychopath who has spent the entire movie trying to find out who he is suddenly relaizes “I killed Trotsky!”
Perfect as a double feature with “Stavisky. . .”
I want to see Stavisky! and Borsalino….why aren’t these things available?!
David, that’s a great description of Delon.
Joseph Losey in early 70’s was my favorite film maker—The Assassination of Trotsky was one of his best—to that best list I would add The Go Between, The Servant, Mr Klein, Accident, and Modesty Blaise with Monica Vitti and Terence Stamp—he is one of the masters film goers don’t acknowledge much any more!
Losey did that? Wow. It’s got quite a reputation as a very BAD movie.
Unfortunately, you’re right, Francisco—good to hear from you.
I remember when it came out! Im getting old ;)
I saw Assassination of Trotsky recently after getting into Losey watching The Prowler and The Servant, two films a friend recommended. As off-mark and mildly incongruent it may be called, I think the core subject matter is very, very ‘Losey-ian.’
Using The Prowler and The Servant as touchstones, he is studying the character of the voyeur, the home-invader, the underminer…Ramón Mercader serves to these well. Not only is he invading Trotsky’s home and confidants, but he is being invaded psychologically by his own mind and outside influences.
Plus, 32 years after the actual event happened, what good is the suspense: we already know Richard Burton (whose acting is done well in this film) will get an ice pick to the head; we know Trotsky is an enemy of the Soviet Union; we know why they’re in Mexico. I disagree that this is a film about the leftist-leanings too. Its not what’s penetrating Burton’s/Trotsky’s head, but what is penetrating Mercader’s/Delon’s.
Jaspar Lamar Crabb
I really like Joseph Losey’s films. His work with Harold Pinter produced some really great movies. I think his film of The Go-Between is beautiful. In 1972, he directed The Assassination of Trotsky. On the surface (given Losey’s famous leftist views) one would have thought this would have been a match made in cinema heaven…it’s not. The movie is not terrible, but it suffers from incoherence. Losey tosses history to the wind in favor of an underdeveloped story that introduces a lot of characters but doesn’t say who they are or why they’re in Mexico. Characters just keep meeting in the half ruins of Mexico City. It’s beautifully photographed but has a heavily edited feel to it. Many scenes end very abruptly.
As the assassin, Alain Delon pouts a lot and wears sunglasses. Romy Schneider plays a character that was, at least historically, a disillusioned Trotskyite from Brooklyn! Schneider is stunning but not very well utilized here. And for some reason, she shouts every other line. It’s never explained why or how she got hooked up with Delon, but it’s just as well…the script offers no motivation for any character. As Trotsky, Richard Burton dons a very fake looking van dyke mustache and round glasses and spouts revolutionary thought into a Dictaphone. Classy Valentina Cortese has virtually no lines as Mrs. Trotsky so why she was cast is anyone’s guess.
There’s probably a truly compelling story to be told about the last days of Trotsky, but this isn’t it.
Thoughts on this or anything in the Losey filmography??