Movies – The Delphine Seyrig Project – Accident

 

Delphine Seyrig and Dirk Bogarde in “Accident.” credit: patrickbittar.blogspot.com

As well as this film and La Musica (which we’ll look at next) in 1967, Delphine Seyrig also appeared in a television adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler for veteran TV director Raymond Rouleau, no doubt a film of that particular French stage production. In demand for stage work in France and the UK, she arranged to play a memorable cameo appearance in this film, but carved out her schedule to create her crucial contribution to Marguerite Duras’ solo directorial debut later on.

Joseph Losey’s film Accident (UK, 1967) is taken from a novel by Nicholas Mosely and adapted for the screen by the playwright Harold Pinter. The initial ‘accident’ of the title occurs in the first few moments of the film – Stephen (Dirk Bogarde) is an established tutor at Oxford, and one of his pupils, William (Michael York) is coming by late in the evening to see him. But just before arriving, the car loses control and crashes nearby. Stephen is able to extract William’s fiancée Anna (Jacqueline Sassard) from the wreck and help her into the house, but William has been killed.

The bulk of the film is the historical flashback of how these people came to be associated with, and tormented, each other. William is one of many students whom Stephen tutors, a young wealthy aristocrat seemingly far more interested in sports and girls than philosophy. William is attracted to one of Stephen’s other students, the Austrian beauty Anna von Graz, and makes the callow gesture of inquiring about Stephen’s level of attraction to her. Come, come, my dear boy, “her moral welfare must be my first consideration.” Perish the thought. Of course, as the film progresses, we observe Stephen’s deeply repressed desire and dwindling sense of self-possession and sense of propriety. William tends to parade his possession of Anna’s favors, and Stephen starts to compete with him – not to “steal” her, but to keep William from reducing Anna’s otherwise high regard for him. But another competitor insinuates himself into the fray: Charley Hall, another Oxford don (archaeology) who’s been a professional, and family, friend for years. Charley (Stanley Baker) is far more extroverted, assertively masculine and competitive, but he’s also a smart academic professional – frequently published, he’s a regular as a TV panelist as well. In a tutoring session, Stephen recommends one of Charley’s books to Anna. “Yes, I’ve met him.” He hands her the book: “I don’t think much of it, but you might.”

The centerpiece of the film is a day-long lunch and garden party – Stephen has asked Anna to come along with William to his place, and they’ll make a day of it with Stephen’s wife Rosalind (Vivien Merchant) and their two children (she’s currently pregnant with their third). Charley’s arrival with Anna and William as well is mildly irritating, but he’s no stranger, and settles right in.

Stanley Baker and Dirk Bogarde in “Accident.” credit: divxclasico.com

Harold Pinter, like David Mamet later, is a minimal master at weaving layers of seemingly banal domestic humdrum, or corporate ‘doing-business‘ lingo, or, here, the academically (and very British) dispassionate exchange of some otherwise questionable moral ideas, as a shell for the hundreds of small confrontations, jealousies, and betrayals that we’re capable of inflicting upon each other from underneath. And so it is with these folks – Anna, it turns out, has been having her way with both William and Charley, and it’s a fair bet that she knows exactly what effect that’s been having on Stephen. Charley, for his part, can’t imagine that Anna wouldn’t be madly in love with him, and sees William as hardly any obstacle at all. And so the day-long garden party, featuring a hotly-contested tennis foursome, Charley “sharing” some black-humored writing tips and a few heart-to-heart long walks, descends into a drunken post-supper bout of one-upmanship. Charley pontificates on What Great Friends they’ve all been (giving him even more license to treat his hosts rudely), and Stephen declares he’s going to Get A Job On TV, Too, while he and Charley outdrink the hapless William into a stupor. With Rosalind long retired to bed, they bid each other a cynical but self-congratulatory good-night.

The following week, Stephen goes to London on business and looks up an old pre-marital flame: the Provost’s daughter, Francesca (our Delphine). Throughout the film, Losey has instructed his sound recordists and editors to emphasize particular non-diagetic sounds in the backgrounds of otherwise static or calm scenes and images – cars, trains, insects, etc. Here, in these scenes between Stephen and Francesca, all of their conversation is superimposed voiceover – we never see either of them physically say anything to each other directly. It’s a notably distancing choice, since everything else is so otherwise intimate. It’s similar to many of Jean-Luc Godard’s disruptive and evocative experiments with sound editing. All we hear are their disconnected dialogue and John Dankworth’s soft harp and saxophone music. There’s a record on her turntable, but it’s reached the end, still silently spinning.

“I was in my bath when you phoned,” she says. “You haven’t changed at all. Not at all.” And, again: “I was in my bath when you phoned.” This is definitely a date, and one that’s intended to go all night from her perspective. She enters and exits her bedroom doorway a few times while ‘conversing;’ she makes cocktails, they note that it’s been ten years, and she playfully nuzzles his cheek as he helps her with her wrap before they leave for dinner. And, as a throwaway, just before they go out her door, “How’s your wife?”

Dinner’s pretty casual – a small, bright, animated steak bar featuring humorous signs like “Have your meals here and keep the Wife as a Pet!”; surprisingly unromantic, but they’re on their second bottle of wine, at least. “I’m in consumer research,” she shares. “Did you know? It’s fascinating.” Later, “I’m supposed to be on a diet. I’m too fat.” Then “So then you have three. Three children? That’s great.” And as they exit through the restaurant door, he replies “You’re not fat.”

They return to her apartment. “I’m very happy. My life is happy,” she intones, pulling off her earrings. The next shot is them in bed, presumably post-coitus (but likely not – passion seems notably absent), with Francesca pensively puffing on her cigarette. “Have I changed?” she asks. “You’re the same,” he replies. “The same? The same what? The same as I was? Then?” “The same,” he sighs.

Delphine Seyrig in “Accident.” credit: digitalcine.fr

The episode speaks volumes about Stephen’s regard for women. Stephen is languidly comfortable, even ambivalent, towards Rosalind, his pregnant wife, but would never leave her. When things start getting sloppy at the garden party, Rosalind knows to do what little she can, then disengage. Nothing else will matter.

Francesca has learned the same lessons about these men. When they’re around, she’s welcoming as far as it goes, and polite about the basics of their jobs and families. (Losey’s camera reinforces Francesca’s self-reliant transience – she’s walking through a doorway in practically every other frame.) She extracts as much flattering reassurance for herself as can be mustered, but Stephen’s clearly not one of her more satisfying flings. Stephen is there to get his mind off of Anna; he’s polite and deferential, but completely incapable of having any real fun. Francesca plays along, and genuinely seems to like Stephen, but you get the feeling that he’ll be an inconsequential blip on her timeline in a day or two. Stephen’s a classic mother-or-whore man, but Seyrig elevates Francesca beyond the cliché Stephen would otherwise have her embody.

Stephen returns to his Oxford home (about an hour away from London) to find that Charley and Anna have shacked up there for the night. They know Rosalind is staying at her parent’s home just before the delivery of her baby, but Charley really doesn’t care what Stephen thinks of the idea, even while encouraging him to be more upset at him. “It’s your bloody house!” By now Charley’s wife has thrown him out, they can’t hang in Anna’s dorm room, and “I’ve nowhere to do her. I can’t have enough of her.”

Stephen spends the weekend checking in with Rosalind at Mom and Dad-in-laws’ place, pays a chilly visit to Charley’s betrayed wife, and is invited along to a party at William’s family manse, which weirdly involves an improvised rugby match in their marble parlor. Returning to Oxford from the weekend (Stephen once again gave up his home to Charley and Anna), Stephen learns that Anna and William are engaged to be married. Charley clearly doesn’t know yet, but William wants to stop by Stephen’s place after a party tonight to celebrate with him. And that very night is when the accident happens.

I won’t reveal what happens after the accident, or the fateful next day, but the social and psychological carnage is immense. This is a superb movie, a Cannes award winner and among the best of 1960s British drama. Veteran cinematographer Gerry Fisher made his D.P. debut here, and the whole film looks fabulous. You’ll also appreciate John Dankworth’s subtle but evocative musical score.

Finally, the director, Joseph Losey: he started out in theater, directing political dramas for the WPA in New York, and working with Bertolt Brecht and Charles Laughton in Los Angeles when Brecht lived there in exile. They produced Brecht’s play Galileo – Losey directing, Laughton in the lead role – in Beverly Hills, Washington DC, and then on to Broadway. In the meantime, Brecht was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee, and fled the country shortly afterwards. In 1951, Losey himself came under scrutiny by HUAC, and, despite his lawyer’s efforts to cut a deal with the Committee, he and his wife went to Italy to direct Stranger on the Prowl in Italy. Returning to Los Angeles a year later, he had never officially been served a Committee subpoena, but he’d been effectively blacklisted nonetheless; he had no work, anywhere. In 1953 he moved to London, in self-imposed exile for the next twelve years, slowly remaking his reputation through genre films and a few film-noir gems like Chance Meeting (1956) and The Concrete Jungle (aka The Criminal) (1960). Accident was his second collaboration Losey’s new friend and associate Harold Pinter – The Servant preceded it in 1963, and The Go-Between followed in 1971.