This is one of three business cards that Joseph Losey and renowned playwright Harold Pinter produced together (the other two being The Servant in 1963 and The Accident in 1967). It is very distinctive in the use of film language and techniques. Although the film describes the love story between a wealthy lady and a "country wild man", the whole film does not directly show the scenes of lovers' rendezvous and pouring out their hearts. Their feelings are expressed through private eye exchanges, through the exchange of letters. The film also successfully uses the means of expressing the scene to create an atmosphere that induces eroticism through the hot summer heat and the buzzing of flies, so that the audience can feel the strong love between the hero and heroine. Through this tortuous way of expression, the director meaningfully shows that this relationship is completely contrary to social reality. It is suppressed and cannot be expressed publicly. This is an example of form serving content.
Losey has carefully and meticulously created two contrasting environments, two worlds: the nobility and orderliness of the estate and the natural world of Ted's farm. Manor life is a microcosm of the British hierarchy. Everything is so orderly. Before breakfast, the master and servant must kneel and pray; afternoon tea is held in the garden. The cleanliness of the tableware and the careful decoration of the surrounding natural environment show the living atmosphere of the upper class society. There is also an eerie feel to the manor's appearance and setting. When Leo came to the manor, the audience saw the grand staircase of the mansion with him. It gives a strong sense of hierarchy. In this manor house, not only are the masters and servants different, men and women are different, the upper floor and the lower floor are different, even in the same family, there is an indescribable estrangement between people. The room is spacious and the atmosphere is serious: the breakfast room looks like a chapel, and the main dining room is extraordinarily luxurious. Mrs. Maudsley, the hostess of the manor, sits at the top of the table every day, and her authority cannot be challenged by anyone. She gave orders to everyone, and she rarely talked to her husband, who was sitting across the table. In this mansion, everyone has his own room, his own fixed table, and his own lawn. Marianne's hammock seemed to be her own little world.
The atmosphere at Ted's farm was quite different: the farmhouse rooms were small and shabby; the dining table was made of rough wood. The chirping of livestock means freedom and the vitality of nature. Ted dives into the river for a swim. He works in the field all the time, and is so in tune and harmony with nature. He is the image of a son of nature. Marian, who grew up in a strict environment, loves him, and the director is very intentional. When Leo and Ted first met, Losey used a more open, fluid camera movement than the formal scenes of the manor. The push-pull and long shots that track the pair as they pass through the field create a sense of space expansion. The audience can feel Leo's excitement and joy at the moment, and feel his "liberation" from the shackles of the manor.
It is in such a comparison that the director expresses his denunciation of the manor's pretentious life and the praise of the farmer's life, and it also indicates that the love between the wealthy lady and the peasant man will be a tragedy in the real society with strict hierarchy.
In addition to the careful conception of the visual effects, the director also uses the music to give the film a unique rhythm, structure and impetus. From the beginning of the film to the final climax, the role of music is always important and obvious. Losey uses strong, romantic music to enhance the atmosphere of Leo's journey from the manor to the open fields of the farm; the intermittent, incoherent rhythm of the main theme of the music represents the movement of the messenger's pace, and also expresses a hasty urgency. Feeling. For example, when Leo learned from Marcus that Marian and the divorce had been decided, and Marian still asked him to secretly send a letter to Ted, he said that he would not do it again. Apparently Leo has a good relationship with all three of Marian, Hugh and Ted. According to his understanding of the world, he was unwilling to betray any of the three. But at this point Marianne claimed that Hugh had nothing to do with the messenger, and dismissed Leo's hesitation over the messenger as ungrateful, and even asked him how much he needed. You can see the pressure, pain, and grievances that the young man was suffering from at this time. When he finally had no choice but to grab the letter and turned to the field, Losey used the technique of being silent first and then the music playing late. During the journey, the audience can hear the music changing from fast to slow; just before reaching the farm, the director once again used the technique of abruptly stopping the music. This wonderful counterpoint between the image and the music fully expresses the special atmosphere at that time.
When bringing the original work to the screen, the director showed a unique style in the handling of the past and present. The novel begins with a prologue, in which the elderly Leo discovers a diary he had written as a boy. The main part of the novel is the retelling of that unfortunate summer at Brandham Manor. The novel ends with an afterword, from which readers learn about the story's tragic ending and its disastrous effect on Leo. The novel ends with Leo returning to that village in Norfolk. The film deletes the prologue and afterword, and adopts a double time period counterpoint: one time period is the events that happened in the summer of 1900; grandson and Marianne herself. The film begins with the memories of the elderly Leo, and in the middle of the story, scenes of Leo returning to the village "now" begin to appear from time to time. These scenes have longer and longer inserts, first showing him driving to the village, then meeting with Marianne's grandson, and finally showing how Marianne asked him to be her messenger again: let old Leo go and tell her Grandson, how she used to love Ted privately in the past... With this jump in time between past and present and the apparent absence of certain episodes, the audience is at first abrupt: Who is that gray-haired old man? What is the new car driving to this village for? After thinking about it, the audience will guess that he is the old Leo. In this way, when the audience learns of the tragic end of the love, they also gradually become aware of the serious consequences of this incident on Leo's life - and his dazed, dead face answers this. Once the audience understands the time labyrinth designed by Losey, they will realize the tragedy of the incident - how many people's happiness has been ruined by the British feudal hierarchy! Victims include not only direct clients like Ted and Marianne, but innocents like Leo and Marianne's grandson.
The film ends with Marianne asking her grandson to be bold and proud of her grandparents, who defied feudal stereotypes and dared to love freely. On the one hand, it shows Marianne's rebellious spirit for 50 years, and on the other hand, it reflects the changes of the times. Young people living today no longer have to suppress their emotions and bury their love like their ancestors did. This echoes the old Leo's voice-over at the beginning of the film, "It used to be like a foreign country, and people did things differently then." It is not difficult for the audience to draw their own conclusions.
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