Stephen is a professor at Oxford University who is caught in a rut and feels trapped by his life in both academia and marriage. One of his students, William, is engaged to the beautiful Anna, and Stephen becomes enamored of the younger woman. These three people become linked together by a horrible car crash, with flashbacks providing details into the lives of each person and their connection to the others in this brooding English drama.
Direction
Losey's framing turns Oxford into a suffocating cage.
Writing
Pinter's dialogue: everything unsaid screams.
Acting
Bogarde's eyes contain multitudes of repression.
Director
Joseph Losey
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Pinter and Losey hated the original novel; they stripped 80% of the dialogue to create their signature silences.
The famous long take of the accident was filmed with an invisible cut—Losey refused to show the actual crash, making absence the horror.
GB
