Joseph Losey's (and Harold Pinter's, for that matter) masterpiece never ceases to give me a thrill but only recently has it stopped making my skin crawl; (it is an insidiously decadent film). You know it's probably bad for you, (you want its 'villian' to make mince-meat of its wan, effete 'hero'), but you're addicted. From its opening frame it draws you in and it never, never lets you go. It's almost too easy, too blasé to say it's about corruption or even that it's about evil. (Is Barrett evil because he destroys Tony and latterly Susan?). Rather, I think, it's a movie about need, the need too be desired or wanted or simply loved, (though if it's a love story you might say it's a very peculiar one; it's the one emotion that appears to be peculiarly absent). It's based on a novel by Robin Maugham but it's a vast improvement on the book. A good novel can create space where our imagination can roam free. Even a densely plotted novel will leave room for us to fill in the blanks. Films tend not to do this. What appears on the screen is often literally what is intended. (Some movies deliberately leave things out; some movies make us work hard for our enjoyment). The film of "The Servant" is both literal and elusive. Losey's mise-en-scene is very deliberate. The pleasures a movie affords like decor, crisp (and 'intelligent') imagery, the use of music to heighten a mood or an emotion are all there. The acting is flawless, (but more of that later). The elusiveness comes from Harold Pinter's script. Here his famous 'pregnant pauses' become 'gaps' in what drives the characters. We think we know them but really we don't. People are not what they seem. (As if to stress the point he gives us a scene in a restaurant where we eavesdrop on the conversations of diners where one character says something that is misunderstood by another or simply by us, the audience). In particular, he makes ambiguous the sexuality of the principals. This may have been dictated by censorship though, to be honest, the ambiguity is slight; the mutual attraction and the master/slave relationship which develops seems to me to be clearly homosexual. This is heightened by the extraordinarily fine performances of Dirk Bogarde (Barrett) and James Fox (Tony). Barrett is a prissy old queen and Tony is the ever so slightly effeminate younger man in thrall of him. But Barrett can be 'butch' as well as 'nancy' when he has to be. (It's a part Bogarde probably played only too well in real life). He doesn't quite let you get a handle on him. Fox was new to movies but you would never know it. This is a remarkably mature reading of an immature young man. You can see that Fox can see the shadings in the character that Pinter provides in the script and he gets under Tony's skin completely. There are two other two other superb performances in the film. As Vera, the sluttish maid brought into the house to seduce Tony, Sarah Miles exudes sexuality and vulnerability in equal measure, (she, too, was new to movies and wasn't encumbered with the mannerisms of more seasoned performers), while Wendy Craig is icy-cold, aloof and oddly sympathetic as Susan, the rich girl engaged to Tony. I have seen this film many times and each time it comes up fresh but now I have warmed to its insidious charms or maybe I've just become more jaded through my exposure to it. Handle with care.
Review of The Servant
