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Summary: One of the greatest love stories ever filmed
Review: This has to be one of my favourite films of all times. The script is superb, the acting unrivalled and the atmosphere electric. Everything about it is just wonderful. Everything that is except this DVD. Is it just me, or has anyone else found that the transfer to DVD is simply appalling? I have bought 3 copies of this disc from 3 different suppliers, only to find on each one that the picture continually washes from light to almost pitch black every few seconds throughout the film. None of the other reviews here mention this fact, but I can't believe it's just been my bad luck. What a shame. I've been waiting for this movie for on DVD for a long time, but it's a waste of time.
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Summary: A great rainy day movie :)
Review: This is a classic tearjerker. I first saw this movie late one night when I was in college on my local PBS station. I knew from the moment it started it was a title that I must add to my video collection.It is a simple tale that makes whole the saying, "It is better to have loved and lost then not to love at all." The characters are two "common" people (doctor and housewife, respectively) that find in one another what they lack in their individual married lives (we really don't have much of a clue as to what these are -- but it really doesn't matter -- the story is about them). This movie was adapted from the play originally from Noel Coward; so particularly the train station scenes are obviously stagy; but what David Lean did (which I found out from the commentary) was open up the film with exterior shots of the couple "in town." Overall it is lovely telling picture that I highly recommend. Criterion has yet again done a magnificent job with the digital transfer making you feel like you are back in the Cineplex of the mid-late 1940's experiencing this film. Of course, this is without the big-screen. So curl onto your couch with a bowl of popcorn and enjoy while the rain hits the window . . .
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Summary: Another outstanding older movie
Review: This is a wonderful movie - love having it on DVD - again shows how much more effective many of the older films are over the newer ones. All low key - no violence or overt sex - all done by a look, a brief touch, a few words. Wonderful actors - brought the entire range of emotions to this "never to be completed" very brief love affair. The ending was a real heart breaker.
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Summary: Brief Encounter Goes the Distance
Review: This is my favorite movie in the world. I have seen it many times over the years and it never disappoints. Watching the DVD is an especially delightful experience on my 22" Apple LCD monitor because I have the opportunity to see shadow detail, characters, and all kinds of other surprise elements that were never visible in a theater or with a VCR viewed on a soft television screen. The story is beautiful, the acting wonderful, the writing brilliant. Celia Johnson will break your heart, Trevor Howard will too.
The film takes place in England in a sweet, simpler time. Love however, is never simple. Noel Coward's marvelous sceenplay, David Lean's spectacular directorial debut, the marvelous Eileen Joyce playing the Rachmaninoff score throughout. You will not be disappointed in this treasure.
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Summary: One of the most passionate movies ever made
Review: This is not merely my favorite David Lean film; it is one of my favorite films, period. For those who are used to David Lean from the Epic phase of his career-BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI, LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, and DOCTOR ZHIVAGO-this movie will be nothing short of a revelation. Instead of epic, the tone is intimate. Instead of a world-historical event, he focuses on a love affair that never quite comes to fruition. Personally, he makes me regret profoundly that he focused on casts of thousands, instead of casts of only a few. The story of the film is paradoxical. Deeply passionate, yet no sex. Love between two people married to others, but no adultery. An eternal love, but forever unfulfilled. The story of the unexpected and unintended love between two people who do not want to violate or hurt their loved ones is a story of moral and personal heroism as it is of love. The film is one of the most unique I know. The opening scene is shot twice. The first time you see the characters, hear dialog, but are completely unequipped to understand its significance. The second time, after the entire background has been supplied, it comes across as one of the most passion filled, and profoundly tragic scenes in all of cinema. I dare anyone not to cry a little during the second version of that scene. Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard were both impeccable in their roles. Like in so many great films, it is impossible to imagine anyone else playing their respective roles as well. Stanley Holloway, one of Great Britain's great character actors of the forties and fifties (who finally achieved Hollywood fame and an Oscar as Eliza Doolittle's father in MY FAIR LADY) provides comic relief as a railway worker. And if you don't currently own a copy of Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto, I promise that you will rush out to buy one after seeing this film.
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Summary: I adore this movie.
Review: This is one of my favorite films; I never get tired of seeing it. It contains all the elements of a great, yet doomed, romance. I have such sympathy for Celia Johnson's character; I would have fallen in love with Alec, also. He's my kind of man! Great movie!!!
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Summary: Brief Encounter (VHS) 1946 movie& 1998 Video
Review: Video received promptly and in excellent condition including cover. I would certainly like to do further business with this seller. OE/NYC.
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Summary: An age of innocence
Review: Well before Adrian Lyne's morality tales about adultery came this David Lean non-epic that didn't burst, early into the film, with sexual aggression. Rather, that subtle pain of nervous tension, between adults who are attracted to each other but who are not allowed to act on it, is brought to life in an age of innocence and rules. Lean's style is stylistic in subtle doses (we can neither forget the atmosphere of the train station, nor the tilting camera when suicide almost happens). It is a compact, Lean (pun intended) narrative that had to be, immediately upon completion, an eternal masterpiece. This Criterion Collection DVD bears an excellent transfer; it must have coincided with the new print I saw at the American Film Institute National Theater in Washington. However, unlike most Criterion DVDs, there is very little in the nature of extras, other than a commentary track and a brief description of the restoration process. (That is to say, no documentary.)
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Summary: As heartbreaking as Umbrellas of Cherbourg
Review: When I saw Umbrellas of Cherbourg I cried so hard I swore I'd never see it again. Brief Encounters didnt make me sob buckets, but it was an extremely touching love story. It was based on Noel Coward's play, and directed by David Lean. Short (85 minutes), with rather plain-looking actors (Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson). Although the movie has some middle-class British touches (the characters drink tea, for one), David Lean carefully makes the movie somewhat vague in time and mood. The point of the movie is to suggest a romance that could happen at a train station in Anywhere, World.
The movie begins at the train station, when two lovers, apparently illicit, part ways. The woman (Celia Johnson) has a dazed, almost dead look on her face as she boards the train back home, and Rachmaninoff's music plays in the background. She relives the "brief encounter" in her mind. We learn that she's Laura, housewife, and she accidentally met a kindly doctor, Alec (Trevor Howard) at the train station when the doctor removes a piece of ash from Laura's eye. Thus begins a romance that like all great screen weepies is essentially unconsummated (think Casablanca, Roman Holiday ...). Johnson and Howard are both sensitive and restrained as the lovers. The sight of Laura fighting back tears on the train as her insensitive companion prattles endlessly is while Rach2 booms in the background is still a favorite of film classes.
In a way, Brief Encounter was an important film. It foreshadows the 1950s, when women began to openly resent the stuck role of housewife, and Betty Friedan even questioned the whole "Feminine Mystique." By presenting an adulterous liason of a bored housewife and a doctor in such a romantic, nonjudgemental manner, David Lean has made a movie that's still painfully familiar today.
There are so many moments that I love, but perhaps my favorite is the light but meaningful pat Dr. Alec gives Laura before he baords his train. Even the sternest moralists will, I think, feel for the two lovers at that moment.
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Summary: David Lean's well kept secret.
Review: When you hear the name: David Lean, one will probably think LAWRENCE, Bridge on the River Kwai, etc...never Brief Encounter. I am not saying that Lean's other films are bad...they are excellent but Brief Encounter is different. It is his best film, as far as I am concerned. I am huge film fan. I cannot usually watch movies two days in a row, but I could watch this one every day of the year. This film is perfect in every way. Noel Coward is a brilliant screenwriter and this is one of the best screenplays ever writen. This film was voted 2nd best British film ever made under The Third Man (which I also love and Trevor Howard was also in). I am shocked that this was left off of the AFI List...a film of such perfection is so rare and underrated that it is sad that this beautiful film has been viewed by so few. Sparkling, moving preformaces given by both Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard. I love Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor, but only the version in this film. I loacted a CD on this website with this version on it. It was done by Eileen Joyce. Search for her name under music and you should find it. Celia Johnson was very convincing and her voiceovers and facial expressions were superb. The way the start the film out at the end and she retells the story is brilliant. The editing is even perfect. This film is very realistic...it seems as if David Lean just went out and found some two average nobody's and filmed it. This isn't like Rita Hayworth and Cary Grant in some Hollywood love story. It captures the time beautifully and how people used to have higher standards & actually cared about their families, unlike the vulgar times of now..for example, look at Titanic...enough said. I love the cinematography...capturing the smokey dark train stations with high contrast black and white...it's so grand. This film has it's own atmosphere, like Casablanca. If you like Casablanca, you'll love this movie. I love ending because it is so mysterious-- After Laura relives her story in her mind, you can almost read it on her face and her husband goes over to comfort her: "What ever dream you had, it wasn't a very happy one, was it? You were a long way away. Thank you for coming back to me." He says it as if he heard the story while she was telling it, but then again we shall never know. It is almost haunting because I think about so often. This film my be brief, but my encounter with it will be forever.
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