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Brief Encounter (The Criterion Collection) [DVD]

Celia Johnson (Actor), Trevor Howard (Actor), David Lean (Director, Writer) Rated:
Unrated
Format: DVD
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 1,480 ratings
IMDb8.0/10.0
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April 26, 2016
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Genre Drama
Format Black & White, DVD, NTSC, Closed-captioned
Contributor Stanley Holloway, Margaret Barton, David Lean, Trevor Howard, Alfie Bass, Joyce Carey, Marjorie Mars, Noel Coward, Anthony Havelock-Allan, Celia Johnson, Ronald Neame, Wilfred Babbage, Wallace Bosco, Sydney Bromley, Everley Gregg, Cyril Raymond See more
Language English, Italian
Runtime 1 hour and 26 minutes
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Product Description

Product Description

From Noël Coward's play Still Life, legendary filmmaker David Lean deftly explores the thrill, pain, and tenderness of an illicit romance in the dour, gray Britain of 1945. From a chance meeting on a train platform, a middle-aged married doctor (Trevor Howard) and a suburban housewife (Celia Johnson) enter into a quietly passionate, ultimately doomed love affair, set to a swirling Rachmaninoff score. Criterion is proud to present Lean's award-winning masterpiece a beautifully restored digital transfer.

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To many, Brief Encounter may seem like a relic of more proper times--or, specifically, more properly British times--when the pressures of marital decorum and fidelity were perhaps more keenly felt. In truth, David Lean's fourth film remains a timeless study of true love (or, rather, the promise of it), and the aching desire for intimate connection that is often subdued by the obligations of marriage. And so it is that ordinary Londoners Alec (Trevor Howard), a married doctor, and contented housewife Laura (Celia Johnson) meet by chance one day in a train station, when he volunteers to remove a fleck of ash from her eye (a romantic gesture that, perhaps, inspired Robert Towne's "flaw in the iris" scene in Chinatown).

It so happens that their schedules coincide at the train station every Thursday, and their casual attraction grows, through quiet conversation and longing expressions, into the desperate recognition of mutual love. From this point forward, Lean turns this utterly precise, 85-minute film into a bracing study of romantic suspense, leading inevitably, and with the paranoid, furtive glances of a spy thriller, to the moment when this brief encounter must be consummated or abandoned altogether. Decades later, the outcome of this affair--both agonizing and rapturous--is subtle and yet powerful enough to draw tears from the numbest of souls, and spark debate regarding the tragedy or virtue of the choices made. A truly universal film, with meticulously controlled emotions revealed through the flawless performances of Howard and Johnson, and an enduring masterpiece that continued Lean on his course to cinematic greatness. --Jeff Shannon

Product details

  • Aspect Ratio ‏ : ‎ 1.33:1
  • Is Discontinued By Manufacturer ‏ : ‎ No
  • MPAA rating ‏ : ‎ Unrated (Not Rated)
  • Product Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.5 x 5.25 x 0.25 inches; 3.52 ounces
  • Director ‏ : ‎ David Lean
  • Media Format ‏ : ‎ Black & White, DVD, NTSC, Closed-captioned
  • Run time ‏ : ‎ 1 hour and 26 minutes
  • Release date ‏ : ‎ June 27, 2000
  • Actors ‏ : ‎ Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard, Stanley Holloway, Joyce Carey, Cyril Raymond
  • Subtitles: ‏ : ‎ English
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono), Italian (Dolby Digital 1.0)
  • Studio ‏ : ‎ Criterion
  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0780023420
  • Writers ‏ : ‎ Anthony Havelock-Allan, David Lean, Noel Coward, Ronald Neame
  • Number of discs ‏ : ‎ 1
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 1,480 ratings

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5 out of 5
1,480 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Kat Mandu
5.0 out of 5 stars They will never successfully remake this because they cannot
Reviewed in the United States on July 3, 2023
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I've read and heard about "Brief Encounter" for decades, aware of its stellar reputation, but it was a movie that I never felt compelled to watch. Until today. I took the plunge "just because." No particular reason.

Now I understand the accolades. And why it sparked an entire sub-genre of romance movies (aptly known as "brief encounter" films) without ever being surpassed. It's a perfect little gem of a movie, as focused and driven in its storytelling as "High Noon." (Here is where you envision gravel-voiced Jack Palance in his cowboy hat, cigarette dangling: "You know what the secret of moviemaking is?" Holds up his gloved finger. "One thing. Just one thing.")

What is remarkable to me about "Brief Encounter" is how uninfected by the wretchedness of contemporary movies the story and storytelling are. Which is why I stated that they will never successfully remake this film. The abysmal 1974 attempt is Exhibit A, and it was so awful that it has dissuaded potential dunderheads from cranking out an Exhibit B.

Much of the impact in "Brief Encounter" is because of its earnestness, its willingness to lay emotions bare without arch self-referential commentary or cynicism or attempts at cool sophistication that would undercut the "one thing" thing. Nope. It doesn't do anything hip or exotic. The characters are ordinary people. The settings are prosaic, and the affair takes place stitched in between chapters of the utterly familiar (what was familiar in 1945, at any rate). Neither of the lead actors is overly glamorous. (If Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh had been the leads, we would have had a completely different movie even if every line of dialogue were the same.) The modesty of this approach to storytelling and filmmaking in "Brief Encounter" -- the everyman/woman quality of it, the non-soapy way the love affair plays out (none of the gimmicks and catastrophe of "An Affair to Remember") -- make it extraordinary in its ordinariness. Keenly, sadly, true to life in ways that more elaborately plotted movies in the sub-genre cannot be.

The filmmakers eschewed giving us a laundry list of "reasons" why this particular couple falls into forbidden love. They just do. From a writing standpoint, this seems like it might baffle -- that the audience would not be willing to follow the journey of these two characters without knowing WHY this is all happening. And yet ... the no-reasons approach works. Unadorned and unexplained. Love doesn't make sense. The heart wants what it wants. Another true-to-life touch. And a choice that streamlines the pace because we don't get caught up in details that ultimately would not have altered anything.

This is meat & potatoes filmmaking -- writing, acting, directing, camera work, score, all solid, confident and accomplished. Nothing flashy. (The Batman angle near the end, right before she almost pulls an Anna Karenina, is unconventional and the closest this movie comes to calling attention to its own moviemaking devices. But it's not flashy, not by Orson Welles standards and certainly not by 2023 standards.) All of which is fine. "Brief Encounter" doesn't need flashy. It held my attention from beginning to end. Like the film itself, the ending is succinct, unshowy and utterly bang on. Her husband gets the last line, and it is exactly what needed to be said in that moment.

I think I know why we can't seem to make movies like this anymore, and the reasons don't seem to speak well of either the industry or the audience. Out of curiosity, I went and watched the original trailer for this movie and found that's the only downside to "Brief Encounter" -- it can't be cut in a way that makes for a trailer that would be shown in movie theaters today. Lacks spectacle. Lacks the zinger lines that get excerpted for trailer dialogue. Lacks high-concept and galaxy-bending stakes. Stanley Holloway and Joyce Carey's comedy bits are weird when removed from how they play in the movie. Which may go a ways towards explaining why it took me more than 30 years to get around to watching "Brief Encounter." It doesn't easily reduce to bite-sized bits, which is how films are made and packaged these days. This isn't, of course, a fault of the movie, but of what making, selling and viewing films has become -- so little patience, so little room for the simply human.

Go watch "Brief Encounter" if you haven't already seen it. It is unpretentious and beautiful.
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Ancient Bookworm
5.0 out of 5 stars A minority opinion
Reviewed in the United States on February 4, 2014
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On first seeing this movie, I found myself startled that it did not seem to be the tenderly romantic film I had so often heard of. Yes, Celia Johnson does a perfect job of portraying an older woman, married and with children, who falls hopelessly in love with a doctor she meets by chance. Yes, the movie itself is superbly written and filmed, with brilliant music and cinematic effects. Yes, it deserves five stars. But . . .

The problem for me was that Trevor Howard's part did not seem to be that of a romantic hero, but rather of a man suffering from what used to be called "character disorder." Some men with this disorder get their kicks from physically seducing women, but some, as in this case, simply are addicted to the sense of power that comes from making women fall in love with them. A refreshment room in a British suburban railroad station is a perfect place for a predatory man to meet women so innocent that they are not even aware they are looking for romance, so Dr. Alec Harvey checks this one out. I do not believe in the "coincidental" meetings that follow. Rather, Alec is stalking Laura.

As she relives her scenes with Alec, Laura says to herself, "I didn't think such violent things could happen to ordinary people." "Violent" is the crucial word. Alec is doing emotional violence to her, as she half-realizes when she remembers how "The first awful feeling of danger swept over me." Alec ACTS the part of the nervous, shy lover, but it is only a much-rehearsed and perfected act. His intentions are shown by his effect on Laura. She shares a nasty laugh with him at the pathetic cellist, learns with dazzling speed how to tell the "most appalling domestic lie[s]," is rude to her husband Fred ("Do shut up." "Leave me in peace,"), and she even wishes the talkative Dolly was dead. These happenings do not indicate that Alec is a good influence on her, to say the least.

At first I doubted that Alec was a doctor at all, since nothing about him suggests any kind of professionalism except that of a womaniser, but David Lean and his fellow scene-writers were careful to put in the scene after Laura leaves the borrowed apartment (a scene otherwise hard to explain because our narrator Laura was not there), where Alec's creepy colleague affirms that Alec is a doctor. The colleague is particularly disgusted by Alec's behavior because because he thinks (or at least says) that Laura may have been Alec's patient. (Actually, she might have been. When Alec took the cinder out of her eye with a highly unsterile handkerchief, technically she might have become his patient.) My many parentheses indicate that in this movie there are puzzles within puzzles,and complexities within complexities. Among other questions, I wondered whether Alec was really married, whether he was really going to Africa, and who would be his next victim. People with "character disorder" are accomplished liars, and they feel great pride when their lies are believed.

Sadly for romantic viewers, Trevor Howard himself has let us know that Alec is not a tender, sensitive man. Gene Phillips, in his book THE LIFE & FILMS OF DAVID LEAN, reports that Howard, while rehearsing the apartment scene, "could not comprehend why Alec delayed making advances to Laura by attempting to build a fire in the grate. He thought the small talk was a waste of time." Howard continued his complaint to Lean by asking him a question about Alec's relationship to Laura sufficiently crude to disprove any view we might have of Alec as a romantic hero.

Nevertheless, this is a truly great movie! It just belongs in a different genre: perhaps Film Noir with a happy ending. The true hero is, of course, Fred. With what Laura calls his "wisdom and gentleness," he is just the right man to carry her through
the dangers of this brief encounter with an emotionally barren man who enacts the perfect lover. One could say Fred is a father to three children, but his and Laura's embrace at the end of the film suggests that she is ready to grow up, perhaps even ready to live without gondolas and tropical beaches.

Incidentally, the film is set in the mid 1930s, not after WWII. In the 1940s no refreshment room could have had milk poured out so lavishly or such stacks of sweet buns. Rationing!

Did David Lean realize what kind of movie he was really making? Probably not. Many great works of art come from the hidden depths.
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Tracey
5.0 out of 5 stars Great movie!
Reviewed in Canada on September 24, 2023
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I actually wanted this movie for my collection as it was one of my Mum’s favourites, back in the day. It really is worth the watch. Brilliant acting and a nice little story. Would recommend 👍🏻👍🏻
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Loselumbo
5.0 out of 5 stars Eine der traurigsten Romanzen der Filmgeschichte
Reviewed in Germany on November 18, 2021
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Eine Hausfrau trifft Ende der 1930er Jahre in einer englischen Kleinstadt eines Tages zufällig einen verheirateten Arzt. Die beiden fühlen sich magisch voneinander angezogen und verlieben sich nach mehreren Begegnungen unsterblich ineinander. Doch die mit Rachmaninoffs 2. Klavierkonzert stimmungsvoll unterlegte Romanze scheitert an den Skrupeln der beiden. Die anrührend und unsentimental erzählte Geschichte (Vorlage war ein Noel Coward-Theatereinakter!) endet banal und tragisch zugleich in einer Bahnhofskneipe. Celia Johnson trägt mit ihrer starken emotionalen Kraft und ihren großen, traurigen Augen den Film, während Trevor Howard Schwung in die Geschichte bringt.
Trotz der vielen Jahrzehnte, die der Film auf dem Buckel hat, ist die Geschichte zeitlos: Zwar trennen sich Menschen im 21. Jahrhundert schneller und binden sich neu als in der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts, der Grundkonflikt der beiden bleibt aber akuell: Soll man eine an sich funktionierende Beziehung mit einem angenehmen Partner brutal und rücksichtslos beenden, Familie und alle Freunde verlassen, und sich stattdessen in eine große Liebe stürzen, obwohl offen ist, ob sie nach dem Abflauen der ersten Leidenschaft besteht?
Der Film war seinerzeit ein großer Erfolg, allerdings kam vor allem aus Frankreich heftige Kritik: Es sei völlig unverständlich, warum die beiden Liebenden nicht zusammen schlafen, sobald sie sich einander erklärt und die Gelegenheit dazu haben. Das schaffen nur Engländer, lästerten die französischen Filmkritiker. Doch auch der englische Hauptdarsteller bemängelte während der Dreharbeiten, dass er diese Zurückhaltung nicht nachvollziehen könne.
Aus dem Umfeld des Regisseurs David Lean heißt es, dass dadurch die tadellose Moral des englischen Mittelstands, Rückgrat der Gesellschaft, zum Ausdruck kommen sollte. Das traf den Nerv des Publikums. Ein Film, der Bestand haben wird!
Die englisch-sprachige Blu-ray (nur mit engl. UT) ist hervorragend restauriert.
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piettre
5.0 out of 5 stars de longs sentiments
Reviewed in France on April 6, 2018
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la brève rencontre est une des plus belles histoires d'amour accomplie dans un changement : deux quais de gare, et une cafétéria, un temps d'attente entre deux trains et un grain de sable. david jean accompli le bonheur de traiter de l'amour comme d'un événement minuté, et cependant éternel. bravo pour la rapidité d'envoi. et la qualité.
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マチェック
5.0 out of 5 stars 独白による心理ドラマ
Reviewed in Japan on May 4, 2020
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メロドラマの秀作、というよりも恋愛映画史上に残る傑作。英国を代表する劇作家ノエルカワードの30分ほどの一幕劇、静物画の内容を膨らませて映画化した。
ドラマの大部分が主役ローラの独白で進んでいくという特異な作品でもある。駅、列車という人生を連想させるモチーフを巧みに利用したリーンの演出の妙。第三の男にも匹敵する陰影の効果。許されぬ恋に呻吟する主人公の心の内を繊細に表現したセリアジョンソンの卓越した演技力。ラフマニノフのピアノ協奏曲第2番がドラマを盛り上げる見事な作用。すべてがここに揃った名作である。
ノエルカワードについてもう少し。稀代のダンディで、ショーンコネリーがボンド役に決まった際、カワードを訪ねファッションのアドバイスを乞うたという逸話もある。役者でもあり、オードリーのパリで一緒に、にも出演している。プールサイドで美女に囲まれポーカーに興じる、ピンクのバスローブを粋に着こなす老人がその人である。
クランクインの際、カワードは撮影現場におらず、ストーリーに関しては一切口を出さなかったが、音楽だけはラフマニノフを決して譲らなかったそうである。カワードのディレッタンティズムが窺えるエピソードと言えるだろう。
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Pietro Parodi
5.0 out of 5 stars Brief Encounter
Reviewed in Italy on May 9, 2015
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Brief Encounter is one of the most beautiful sad and desperate love movies of the last century.
The characters are so well acted as quiet, ordinary people, who happen to live a story greater than themselves but act and suffer with poignant decency.
Excellent representation of post war England in an almost perfectly restored black and white.
Required viewing
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