Brief Encounter: Special Edition (Blu-ray) (1946)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Featurette-A Profile of Brief Encounter (24.06) Featurette-Restoration Featurette (3.28) Theatrical Trailer-(2.35) Gallery-Photo-(17 Images)
Rating
Year Of Production	1946
Running Time	86:00
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	David Lean
Studio Distributor	Beyond Home Entertainment	Starring	Celia Johnson Trevor Howard Stanley Holloway Joyce Carey Cyril Raymond Everley Gregg Marjorie Mars Margaret Barton
Case	?
RPI	?	Music	Sergei Rachmaninov

    Mention the name David Lean and it is the spectacles that come immediately to mind - the grand, mad heroic gestures of Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago. It is hard to reconcile the oeuvre of this big scale artist with one of his most enduring works: the intimate, romantic Brief Encounter. Rightly regarded as a classic now, the film was a box-office failure upon release in 1945. Lean (nominated for an Oscar for his direction) was philosophical putting the flop down to the presence of middle aged actors, the lack of recognizable stars and the downbeat tone which contrasted with the desire of the post-war movie going audience to embrace expressions of optimism and not "real life". It couldn't have helped that the theme of infidelity was a little scandalous for the times.

Brief Encounter was based on the play Still Life by Noel Coward. The play is regarded as a One Act play although it is reasonably lengthy to perform (it runs not much less than the short running time of the film). The play takes place in one location, a refreshment parlour at a railway station. To make the film Lean opened the play up a little, transferring a number of the moments talked about in the play into the outside world, but didn't mess with the central idea of an affair initiated and progressed in the stolen moments waiting for a train to arrive.

The story of Brief Encounter is simple to tell. In a crowded refreshment parlour at Milford Railway Station Laura Jesson (Celia Johnson) is deep in conversation with Dr Alec Harvey (Trevor Howard). The conversation isn't going very well and both look miserable. They are interrupted by the overbearing Dolly, a friend of Laura, and their moment together is lost. Deeply distressed Laura returns to her home with much on her mind. Sitting in the parlour with her dull but earnest husband Fred she recalls the joy and sadness of the last few weeks ...

In one of the legendary scenes in cinema Alec is on hand to remove a piece of grit from Laura's eye, thrown up by the passing train. That tender gesture is the start of a friendship between the two. Both are happily married and have children. Each Thursday, when as fate would have it they are both in Milford, they meet and talk, lunch and go to the cinema. It is all harmless fun but when Laura tells her first lie to Fred, and their meetings become at once more charged with passion and tinged with sadness and desperation, both realise that they have fallen in love. But for a pair of middle-class Brits living in well established social boundaries can love such as this ever succeed?

Essentially a two-hander, Coward and Lean break up the action, provide light relief and social contrast by the use of the characters in the refreshment room. The wonderfully named Myrtle Bagot (Joyce Cary) is the proprietor of the establishment and adopts the high-minded posh tone and accent of the upper class (think, if you want, of Mrs Slocombe from Are You Being Served?). Her banter with the reliable Stanley Holloway, playing the Station Guard, is peppered with euphemisms. So too is the frank desire of Stanley and Myrtle's assistant Beryl (Margaret Waters). Although their young flirtatious love is cut down from the play both relationships are a stark contrast to the furtive affair of Laura and Alec. Although the class differences have been the subject of criticism in the past - is it the job of the middle-class to "do the right thing or suffer?" - the effect is to show us real freedom to love and make the affair of these two potential adulterers sadder and almost doomed by social convention.

In Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard, Lean and Coward made two perfect choices. Johnson is perfect as the middle aged housewife who is happily married yet yearns for real love and romance. Johnson had worked with both before in In Which We Serve and This Happy Breed. She was first and foremost a stage actress although her run of films in the 40s coincided with a desire to raise her family against the backdrop of a short filming schedule rather than extended play engagements. She was 37 at the time of filming Brief Encounter. With her wide luminous eyes, Johnson was able to emote the desperate sadness at the heart of her character, even describing in a letter that the film really required a silent actress.

Trevor Howard had only been seen in small roles before Lean took a chance on him and cast him as Alec Harvey. He is perfect as the idealistic doctor devoted to his patients and impossibly entranced by Laura.

The film is memorable and notable for a few things other than the script and the leads. The cinematography by Perth born Robert Krasker is superbly realised - noirish rain drenched streets and inky blackness, with deep shadows abounding. Then there is the music. Brief Encounter popularised Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto as played by Australian pianist Eileen Joyce. The music is a sad and moving accompaniment to the film, heard throughout almost as another character.

Aspects of Brief Encounter have dated. The diction of the middle classes seems impossibly proper and the social mores have changed to make the prospect of infidelity seem a better fate than death. Despite this it remains one of the great tragic romance stories and an essential purchase on Blu-ray.

Video

    Brief Encounter was shot in black and white and projected at the Academy Flat ratio of 1.33:1. The Blu-ray obviously maintains this ratio and is not 16x9 enhanced.

Buying classic films on Blu-ray can be a hit'n'miss affair. It is expensive and time consuming to carry out a frame by frame restoration of the original film. Far easier to just digitally scan the film at a higher resolution.

It is an unbridled joy to report that this film has undergone a superb restoration. According to the featurette which accompanies the film the restoration was frame by frame. My old memories of the film as a crackly, artefact ridden mess are forever banished. It looks superb. There are no artefacts to be seen and the most minimal of flickering. The film was regraded which has led to a consistent level of black white and grey throughout. The noirish shadows on the dark London streets are as sharp as the cut of Alec Harvey's suit. Subtle differences in lighting can be observed, most noticeably in the final scenes.

The film has been placed on a single layer Blu-ray but the lack of extra room has proved no impediment to quality.

The grain level is light and there are no problems with compression. Those who prefer more grain in their 40s movies might scan the print closely for signs of overuse of Digital Noise Reduction but I found it true to life.

Check out any of the many scenes with trains passing through the station, belching smoke, to marvel at the sharpness of the Blu-ray transfer.

There are subtitles in English which give a good account of the on-screen dialogue.

Video Ratings Summary

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Audio

    Brief Encounter has a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack running at 256 Kb/s.

Those with Blu-ray players are used to High Definition multi-channel sound formats. This limited track may seem to be a disappointment. However, in the listening it is perfect. The banes of old movie soundtracks - hiss and murky dialogue are completely absent. The soundtrack sounds perfectly clean, clear and crisp. Dialogue can be heard without difficulty. The music of Rachmaninoff is also clear and well mixed.

Audio sync is perfect.

No one hearing the track could be disappointed at the results.

Audio Ratings Summary

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A Profile of Brief Encounter (24.06)

All the major players from Brief Encounter have now left this planet. Rather than delve into the archives to try to find some material from the cast and creative players this featurette looks to the living for comment. Two of the producers provide their memories as does Margaret Waters, now aged, who played the young Beryl. Lucy Fleming, daughter of Celia Johnson and writer Peter (brother of Ian) Fleming reads letter extracts from a biography of her mother. There are some nice moments and a bit of information here and there. But comparing this and the extras on the recent Diary of Anne Frank Blu-ray is a chalk and cheese exercise.

Brief Encounter Restoration Featurette (3.28)

The restorers did a marvellous job with this film and the evidence is here to be seen in this short featurette. Using wipes between old standard definition footage and the new high definition footage we are able to see the tremendous increase in clarity and detail.

Theatrical Trailer(2.35)

Worth a watch if only to see how bad the film has looked in the past compared to the Blu-ray transfer.

Stills Gallery

Seventeen images from the film.

    This is a Region B Blu-ray. It is currently the only Blu-ray of the film available. Interestingly, I have seen some screen grabs of the Blu-ray release online which don't match the image quality I observed on my equipment.

  Anyone who has The Notebook or any similar doomed romance story in their collection should rush out and buy Brief Encounter. I have seen copies of it floating around for under $14.00 which makes it a double bargain. The Blu-ray looks and sounds superb but skimps somewhat on the extras.

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