The Go-Between

Joseph Losey's THE GO-BETWEEN is as stunning as it is deceptively simple. Julie Christie is the well heeled English woman/child carrying on an illicit affair with a man below her station (Alan Bates). The movie is a whole lot deeper than that. Losey and scriptwriter Harold Pinter make a point to build the film from seemingly innocuous melodrama to stinging indictment of stifling class hierarchy. Christie is tied to her family (especially her mother) for everything she has and knows. The prospect of them knowing of her affair is horrifying and the climax of the film bears that out. Dominic Guard acts as the go-between, shuttling letters and messages between the two. Margaret Leighton plays Christie's mother and she's excellent, giving what proved to be the crowning performance to a mostly overlooked film career. Losey's direction is stellar and certainly among the best of his spotty career and for once Pinter has written a screenplay that NOT a sleep-inducing bore.

Easily one of the best acted, best directed and most intellectually intriguing films I have ever seen. Julie Christie is so lovely that you will never forget her. The screenplay by Pinter is impeccable, building a rhythmic alternation of times and places, an alternation that ultimately crashes together. I have seen this movie several times - like Casablanca, it just keeps getting better - and have taught it to inner-city pre-freshmen - they loved it. They were not at all used to films that try to be artistic creations, and the slowness of the pace at first threw them off. However, once we explored the multiple levels of meaning and revelation in each of the initial scenes, they became drawn into the film, caught up in its mystery and romance and fascinated by the vision of a totally alien, yet oddly familiar, world. Losey at his best is on a par with Renoir. Why isn't this film on DVD? Even the background music is really good.

To sit through "The Go-Between" again, after years - maybe 20 - since the first time I saw it, turned out to be an almost religious experience. Harold Pinter adapted L P Hartley's novel and Joseph Losey directed - Lose, a blacklisted American who became one of the pillars of British Cinema in the 60's - think "The Servant" or "Accident" - Then, of course, Julie Christie, sublime. Alan Bates at his pick and the spectacular Margaret Leighton ensure that "The Go Between" will always be alive and relevant. Dominic Guard is wonderful in the title role as well as Michael Gough and Edward Fox. Michel Legrand and his score are the only elements who seem rooted in 1971. The film opens with the line "The past is a foreign Country...." Yes indeed, I believe that that applies to film too because in the past, even a recent past, is like a foreign Country, even a close and friendly Country, people behave differently there, then.

It's turn of the century in the English country. Young Leo Colston is spending the summer with his rich school friend Marcus Maudsley's family estate. He is taken with Marcus' older sister Marian Maudsley (Julie Christie). He encounters tenant farmer Ted Burgess (Alan Bates) who recruits him to deliver love letters between Ted and Marian. Harold Pinter adapted the screenplay from a novel. It's a rather leisurely stroll through the country especially in the beginning. The plot is not that complicated. The tension is not raised until the introduction of Burgess. There is always a sense of danger beneath the generally loving character. This inherent instability within him is the most compelling part of the movie. Marian has one great scene. It's a two hours costumed romance. It's a bit slow with moments of great intensity.