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Film details
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Featuring
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Director
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Country
United Kingdom
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Year
1946
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Genre
Romance
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Type
Film
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Category
Fiction
Introduction
“A pleasure to watch... and deeply touching... a sort of vanity-sized Anna Karenina.”
James Agee, The Nation, 1946
Having graduated from editor to co-director on Noël Coward’s In Which We Serve (1942), David Lean’s first three solo works as director were all Coward adaptations, culminating in this skilful opening-out of the 1936 play Still Life.
Trapped in a suburban marriage, brittle housewife Laura (Celia Johnson) struggles with her passion for dashing doctor Alec (Trevor Howard). Brief Encounter is easy to mock, but its blend of the middle-class everyday, Robert Krasker’s atmospheric black and white cinematography and Rachmaninoff’s swooning 2nd Piano Concerto remains powerfully affecting. The film quivers with pent-up emotion in a way that must have been even more potent on its release in 1945 – just months after the end of World War II – than it is today.
Repressed romance featured again in The Remains of the Day (1993), while Richard Kwietnowski gave Brief Encounter a gay twist in his short Flames of Passion (1989).
Cast & Credits
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Cast
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Laura Jesson
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Dr Alec Harvey
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Albert Godby
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Myrtle Bagot
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Fred Jesson
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Dolly Messiter
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Mary Norton
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Beryl Waters
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[Stanley]
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[Stephen Lynn]
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[Mrs. Rolandson]
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[organist]
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[Bill]
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[Johnnie]
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[policeman]
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[waitress]
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[Margaret Jesson]
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[Bobbie Jesson]
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[clergyman]
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[doctor]
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[boatman]
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Credits
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Direction:
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Director
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Assistant Director
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[Assistant Director (2nd)]
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[Assistant Director (3rd)]
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[Continuity]
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[Assistant Continuity]
Production:
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Production Company
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Production Company
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Producer
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Production Manager
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In Charge of Production
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In Charge of Production
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[Location Manager]
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[Studio]
Writing:
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[Screenplay]
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[Screenplay]
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[Screenplay]
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[Screenplay]
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[Based on the playlet 'Still Life']
Photography:
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Director of Photography
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[Additional Photography]
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Camera Operator
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[Focus Puller]
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[Clapper Loader]
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[Clapper Loader]
Special Effects:
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[Back Projection Operator]
Editing:
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Editor
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Associate Editor
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[Assistant Editor]
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[Assistant Editor (2nd)]
Design:
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Art Director
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[Assistant Art Director]
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Art Supervisor for Mr. Coward
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[Draughtsman]
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[Draughtsman]
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[Draughtsman]
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[Scenic Decorator]
Music:
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Music Extracts
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Musician (piano)
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Music Performed by
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Music Conducted by
Sound:
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Sound Recording
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Sound Recording
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[Dubbing Sound Camera]
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[Boom Operator]
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Sound Editor
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