Brief Encounter (David Lean)

[pro-bassoonist]

Brief Encounter Blu-ray
Brief Encounter Blu-ray Review



ITV-Granada are set to release David Lean's classic Brief Encounter (1945) on February 9th in the United Kingdom.

BBC:

Forget what you've heard. "Brief Encounter" is an extremely violent film. In fact, it is a violence that no Tarantino or Guy Ritchie could ever come close to. Celia Johnson, as its heroine, Laura, says as much herself: "I've fallen in love. I'm an ordinary woman. I didn't think such violent things could happen to ordinary people."

One of the first British films to have praise heaped on it abroad, it is shot in noirish black and white to the music of Rachmaninov. David Lean ably directed Noel Coward's script for this intensely passionate film in which almost nothing happens. In short, Laura gets a piece of grit in her eye (those beastly trains!) and falls desperately in love with the kind stranger (Trevor Howard) who removes it. Romance follows over a series of chance, then planned, meetings all given drama by the emphasis on their brevity.

It is told in flashback in an imaginary confession to her husband (Cyril Raymond) whom she dares not tell out of profound compassion. Without the insight her narration gives we would perhaps see nothing at all in the railway station buffet where both Stanley Holloway and Joyce Carey remind us of the invasive triviality of the everyday with a suspicious intimation that the lower classes have no emotional life.

If you can stomach this and the excruciatingly affected portrayal of the English middle classes, you'll have, at the very least, a lump in your throat. Less cynical souls will weep buckets.

Pro-B

[McCrutchy]

Any info on region coding?

Didn't ITV/Granada do Black Narcissus and Great Expectations on Blu? Those features were region-free (and bonuses in PAL).

[Midnightsailor]

Sweet.

[pro-bassoonist]

Originally Posted by McCrutchy

Any info on region coding?

Didn't ITV/Granada do Black Narcissus and Great Expectations on Blu? Those features were region-free (and bonuses in PAL).

Correct, they did. And their releases have been Region-Free. Some of the features on their discs are in PAL, others are in HD.

Pro-B

[WNind]

Fantastic. Probably my favourite old film. What surprised when I first watched it was how much humour there was in it. Truly a film you can fall in love with.

Any idea if it has had a restoration done on it? The copy I've got is in really quite rough shape with a really flickering and damaged source.

[pro-bassoonist]

Unfortunately, I don't have any preliminary info to share with you. Judging by ITV's treatments on <i>Black Narcissus</i> and <i>Great Expectations</i> we should be in for a treat

Pro-B

[WNind]

I've just done a bit of Googling and found this article on the BFI's website. Apparently Brief Encounter had a full restoration along with 11 other Lean films earlier this year as a joint effort between the BFI, Studio Canal & Granada. Looks like we are going to be in for a treat. How exciting.