Whenever I've asked the question, "if we are both sat in silence, who is the onus on to start the conversation or to be interesting?" Every time I get a strange look and the person says it's equally on us. However the reality of the matter is almost always different, and it's because of things like class, physical attractiveness, financial swag, a whole host of invisibles, some of which may never have been seriously identified or described by those who dedicate themselves to the social sciences.
Losey and Pinter as a superorganism, or cross-media holobiont, seem to have a strong understanding of those invisibles, and that is why it's such a joy for me to watch their collaborations (Pinter plus Friedkin, and Pinter plus Clive Donner plus Nic Roeg have also worked well). Almost everything we say to one another seems in some form or another to be a deceit, a great example in the film is when Oxford tutor Stephen tells him pupil some sanctimonious line about having as his first responsibility to protect his new tutee from "male lust". In reality both of them are angling after the same woman. This seems banal until you realize Stephen was lying not just to William but also to himself (despite some level of knowingness in the delivery); another positive balancing factor is that Dirk Bogarde has activated his A game for this scene. The high-falutin' folks of Oxford become more visible under the lens of primatology.
Some might also question why I am raising class, when all of the scrimmage of characters are "upper class" by today's public understanding. Well, a key to unlock the film is that William and Anna are not in the same social class as the two dons. These youngsters are from noble families, the Dons are of the yeomanry. Between the two Dons there is, for the time, an emergent class distinction, one has graduated to being a public intellectual on the tellybox (a hubristic and poisonous role), whilst the other is still dreaming of being invited to that panel. In reality even the seven class system in current vogue in the UK (which produces two "established middle classes" and two "elites" from our group) is a simplifcation of an exceptionally complicated ever-evolving class lattice.
The appearance of a quadrangle goat through the window in an early scene is a foreshadowing of essentially a scapegoating later in the movie. One of the four ends up the victim of machinations of the other three (not a spoiler and the "Accident" of the title). So this is a bitter film essentially, although the languidness of the images and the score lull one into a peaceful doped up state.
It was redolent to be British, an Oxford graduate and forty-something whilst watching this movie. The two dons are both fellow quadragenarians and developing sensitivities about their bodies and the world, no long can I or they pretend to be of the ilk of a spritely bouncing Breathless-era Belmondo. It's the age when young men test boundaries with you, more primatology. A key scene is the rugby like game played at William's patrlineal seat, in the Palladian theatre, site of ancient thrustings, a visual metaphor of the popularity contest called life, they all but bare their arses to one another.
This brings me to that wonderfully self-applicable word shibboleth. A biblical word, the pronunciation of which is a matter of life or death. We can note that our class systems involve many alternative pronunications and word usages intended to segregate us in the hierarchy. Note that I deliberately used education-demonstrating words in this reviews that you might not know, also words from different high and lows of the lattice to demonstrate cultural capital. Just when you think you're doing something neutral like reading my review, an invisible becomes visible. Oxford is the home of strange cliquish words: Hebdomadal Council, encaenia, battels, torpids, one of the fun ones that comes up in the movie is Provost. Because all the colleges can't do the same things, three of them are led by a "Provost", others are led by Deans, Principals, Masters, Presidents, Rectors and Wardens.
Many people may watch the film and say, "so what?". The so what is that it's just not easy to be this observant and to etch the results onto celluloid, and then into engrams that expire only when the mind itself can no longer hold grip of anything.
Losey and Pinter as a superorganism, or cross-media holobiont, seem to have a strong understanding of those invisibles, and that is why it's such a joy for me to watch their collaborations (Pinter plus Friedkin, and Pinter plus Clive Donner plus Nic Roeg have also worked well). Almost everything we say to one another seems in some form or another to be a deceit, a great example in the film is when Oxford tutor Stephen tells him pupil some sanctimonious line about having as his first responsibility to protect his new tutee from "male lust". In reality both of them are angling after the same woman. This seems banal until you realize Stephen was lying not just to William but also to himself (despite some level of knowingness in the delivery); another positive balancing factor is that Dirk Bogarde has activated his A game for this scene. The high-falutin' folks of Oxford become more visible under the lens of primatology.
Some might also question why I am raising class, when all of the scrimmage of characters are "upper class" by today's public understanding. Well, a key to unlock the film is that William and Anna are not in the same social class as the two dons. These youngsters are from noble families, the Dons are of the yeomanry. Between the two Dons there is, for the time, an emergent class distinction, one has graduated to being a public intellectual on the tellybox (a hubristic and poisonous role), whilst the other is still dreaming of being invited to that panel. In reality even the seven class system in current vogue in the UK (which produces two "established middle classes" and two "elites" from our group) is a simplifcation of an exceptionally complicated ever-evolving class lattice.
The appearance of a quadrangle goat through the window in an early scene is a foreshadowing of essentially a scapegoating later in the movie. One of the four ends up the victim of machinations of the other three (not a spoiler and the "Accident" of the title). So this is a bitter film essentially, although the languidness of the images and the score lull one into a peaceful doped up state.
It was redolent to be British, an Oxford graduate and forty-something whilst watching this movie. The two dons are both fellow quadragenarians and developing sensitivities about their bodies and the world, no long can I or they pretend to be of the ilk of a spritely bouncing Breathless-era Belmondo. It's the age when young men test boundaries with you, more primatology. A key scene is the rugby like game played at William's patrlineal seat, in the Palladian theatre, site of ancient thrustings, a visual metaphor of the popularity contest called life, they all but bare their arses to one another.
This brings me to that wonderfully self-applicable word shibboleth. A biblical word, the pronunciation of which is a matter of life or death. We can note that our class systems involve many alternative pronunications and word usages intended to segregate us in the hierarchy. Note that I deliberately used education-demonstrating words in this reviews that you might not know, also words from different high and lows of the lattice to demonstrate cultural capital. Just when you think you're doing something neutral like reading my review, an invisible becomes visible. Oxford is the home of strange cliquish words: Hebdomadal Council, encaenia, battels, torpids, one of the fun ones that comes up in the movie is Provost. Because all the colleges can't do the same things, three of them are led by a "Provost", others are led by Deans, Principals, Masters, Presidents, Rectors and Wardens.
Many people may watch the film and say, "so what?". The so what is that it's just not easy to be this observant and to etch the results onto celluloid, and then into engrams that expire only when the mind itself can no longer hold grip of anything.