Close Encounters of the 40s Kind

There are films that a lot of people think they know, but have never really seen. David Lean’s ‘Brief Encounter’ is certainly a good example. Most people can tell you the plot, a doomed romance conducted at a railway station. Others will tell you there’s a bit when the train’s moving off and someone’s running to keep up (there, er, isn’t). Some people can even tell you that Noel Coward wrote it. It’s one of those films like Citizen Kane, where you can feel that the critics have watched it just so that you don’t have to.

Once in there, he begins some cheery banter with the manager. Just as this is becoming irredeemably dull, the camera pulls out to reveal a middle-aged couple, sat at a table looking glum. They instantly become the focus of our attention, although we will not be introduced to them properly for some time.

In this film of manners gone mad, where a man and a woman can only disclose their passion in maddeningly tiny increments, how do we really know what’s important and what isn’t? Through sly filmmaker skill, our eye is directed throughout. Variations in lighting levels and careful positioning of objects in front of the camera can draw the audience’s attention without them even realising. It’s a subtle subliminal approach that Lean takes – it just doesn’t happen in major films now, with contemporary film-makers more likely to convey significance through editing and dialogue. Each approach is equally valid really, but Brief Encounter’s method just feels more sophisticated and respectful to the audience, somehow, although in reality it’s hugely manipulative.

But there’s a problem, as always. To modern eyes, the film looks like a museum piece. Steam trains, telephones the size of computers and everyone speaks as though they’ve just run out of finishing school. With ancient cars and organ players in the cinema auditorium, it’s clear that we are looking at a different age.

Yes, the middle classes are coming in for another pounding. While Laura and Alec are being terribly stoic about their doomed affair, still the working classes are enjoying themselves in uncomplicated fashion, as shown by the burgeoning relationship between the station master and the lady who runs the cafe. Laura and Alec feel ever so special as a doomed romance, but really they’re being terribly melodramatic and self-important. The parallel relationship highlights the relativity of moral values, but mostly it pokes fun at the pretension of the two leads, Laura is constantly terrified that her relationship will be exposed, but they’re constantly being spotted by Laura’s friends, who simply don’t care what she’s up to.

Brief Encounter, for all its occasional quaintness, is a deeply engaging character study as well as a doomed romance. It pokes gentle fun at middle-class obsessions with decorum and discretion, while celebrating the very British habit of articulating the most powerful and passionate emotions through mundane comments about train timetables and the weather. Much more than just another footnote classic in cinema history.