Accident (1967 film)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Use British English Template:Infobox film Accident is a 1967 British drama film directed by Joseph Losey. Written by Harold Pinter, it is an adaptation of the 1965 novel Accident by Nicholas Mosley. It is the second of three Losey–Pinter collaborations; the others are The Servant (1963) and The Go-Between (1971).<ref>Hirsch, 1980 p. 92: “Losey’s three films with Pinter - The Servant, Accident, The Go-Between…”
Callahan, 2003: “Harold Pinter, who wrote three screenplays for the director, the first of which was The Servant…”</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> At the 1967 Cannes Film Festival, Accident won the Grand Prix Spécial du Jury award.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> It also won the Grand Prix of the Belgian Film Critics Association.<ref>Palmer and Riley, 1993 p. 162: Filmography</ref><ref>Hirsch, 1980 p. 239: Filmography</ref><ref>Hirsch, 1980 p. 92: “Accident is the most subdued of the trio, a miniaturist examination of middle-aged malaise.”
Gardner, 2001: “Losey's best film, Accident (1967).”</ref>

Plot

During the hours of darkness, a car crashes. A man, Stephen, goes to it and finds a young man dead and a shocked but uninjured young woman whom he lifts from the car and takes back to his nearby house. The film then goes into flashback.

Stephen, a married Oxford tutor in his forties, has two students: the rich and likeable William, of whom he is fond, and a beautiful, enigmatic Austrian named Anna, whom he secretly desires. William also fancies Anna and hopes to know her better. While Stephen's wife is away having their third child, he looks up an old flame in London and they sleep together. Returning home, he finds that his pushy colleague Charley has been using the house for sex with Anna. She tells Stephen privately that she and William are engaged to be married.

William says that he will go to Stephen's house after a party that night. As he is too drunk to drive, Anna takes the wheel, but she crashes the car outside Stephen's gate. Upon finding the accident and William dead, Stephen pulls the deeply shaken Anna from the wreckage and hides her upstairs while he calls the police. Later, he forces himself on her while she is still in shock, then takes her back to her room at the university. He comes by in the morning to find a bemused Charley, who cannot prevent Anna from packing to return to Austria.<ref>Hirsch, 1980 p. 52: On the story as a “flashback” And pp. 113-115: Plot summary.</ref><ref>Palmer and Riley, 1993 p. 67: Plot sketch</ref>

Cast

Cast notes

Losey makes a cameo appearance in the film, and Pinter has a brief speaking role as the television producer, Mr. Bell.<ref>Maris, 2012: “Losey and Pinter, in fact, briefly appear in the movie, the latter as a cynical television producer.”</ref>

Reception

In his review upon the film's release, New York Times critic Bosley Crowther called Accident "a sad little story of a wistful don ... neither strong drama nor stinging satire."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Responding to criticism that the film's meaning was difficult to discern, Stanley Baker said: "It's obvious what Accident meant ... It meant what was shown on the screen." Of Joseph Losey's direction, Baker said: "One of Joe's problems is that he tends to wrap things up too much for himself. I think that 75% of the audience didn't realise that Accident was a flashback."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

The film performed poorly at the box office.<ref>Brandum, 2017: Accident a “financial failure…”</ref> In 1973, Losey said the film was "officially in bankruptcy."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

On Rotten Tomatoes, Accident holds a rating of 76% from 29 reviews.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Retrospective appraisal

Perhaps the most celebrated sequence in the movie, comprising 25 minutes of the 105 minute film, is set at Stephen and Rosalind's home on a Sunday afternoon. Anna and William are the invited guests, but Charley intrudes on the company unexpectedly.<ref>Callahan, 2003: "Accident (1967)...revered by many critics…"</ref> A tennis doubles tennis match is arranged—Stephen and Charley vs. William and Anna—in which Losey reveals, cinematically, the undercurrents of sexual tension among the three men.<ref>Palmer and Riley, 1993 p. 76</ref><ref>Hirsch, 1980 p. 114: All three men "infatuated" with Anna.</ref><ref>Brandum, 2017: "Accident (1967)'s dysfunctional masculinity…"</ref> Film critic Robert Maris writes:

<templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" />

As in Pinter's plays, the dialogue is often mundane, but conversations are usually loaded with menacing implications or punctuated by lengthy silences. One scene, involving a doubles tennis match, is so laden with psychological tension and jealousy—with piercing glances across the court or a ball hit at an opponent a little too hard—that it seems less a tennis match than some sort of sexual game.<ref>Maris, 2012</ref>{{#if:|

|}}{{#if:|

— {{#if:|, in }}Template:Comma separated entries

}}{{#invoke:Check for unknown parameters|check|unknown=Template:Main other|preview=Page using Template:Blockquote with unknown parameter "_VALUE_"|ignoreblank=y| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | author | by | char | character | cite | class | content | multiline | personquoted | publication | quote | quotesource | quotetext | sign | source | style | text | title | ts }}

Film critics James Palmer and Michael Riley cite the dialogue from the "deceptively casual, languid scene on the lawn" which follows the tennis match, serving as "a paradigm of reflexive storytelling."<ref>Palmer and Riley, 1993 p. 76, p. 77: "...the scene is resonant with ironies generated by and withheld from various characters."</ref>

Charley, Stephen's academic colleague, challenges literature student William to create an omniscient narrative for characters in a novel, based on those attending the gathering:

<templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" />

CHARLEY. - Describe what we're all doing. (WILLIAM looks around the garden.)

WILLIAM. ''Rosalind's lying down. Stephen's weeding the garden. Anna's making a daisy chain.
CHARLEY. Good. But you could go further. Rosalind is pregnant. Stephen's having an affair with a girl at Oxford. He's reached the age where he can't keep his hands off the girls at Oxford.
WILLIAM. What?
CHARLEY. But he feels guilty, of course. So he makes up a story.
WILLIAM. What story?
CHARLEY. This story.
WILLIAM. What are you talking about? (CHARLEY sits up and swats violently at flies.)
CHARLEY. Oh, these flies are terrible.
WILLIAM. What flies? There aren't any flies.
CHARLEY. They're Sicilian horse flies, from Corsica.
(CHARLEY shouts across the lawn.) Have you heard our conversation? (STEPHEN weeding).
STEPHEN. Yes! ROSALIND lying, eyes closed.
ROSALIND.Yes
ANNA carefully places daisy chain around CLARISSA’s neck (Rosalind's daughter).<ref>Palmer and Riley, 1993 p. 77</ref><ref>Hirsch, 1980 p. 114-115: Material quoted from this source, not Palmer.</ref>{{#if:|

|}}{{#if:|

— {{#if:|, in }}Template:Comma separated entries

}}{{#invoke:Check for unknown parameters|check|unknown=Template:Main other|preview=Page using Template:Blockquote with unknown parameter "_VALUE_"|ignoreblank=y| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | author | by | char | character | cite | class | content | multiline | personquoted | publication | quote | quotesource | quotetext | sign | source | style | text | title | ts }}

Film critic Dan Callahan at Senses of Cinema registers this assessment of Losey's second film collaboration with playwright Harold Pinter:

<templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" />

Accident, though revered by many critics, is a self-conscious art film with a sexy veneer—it evaporates off the screen. Everything about it is oblique, glancing and empty.<ref>Callahan, 2003</ref>{{#if:|

|}}{{#if:|

— {{#if:|, in }}Template:Comma separated entries

}}{{#invoke:Check for unknown parameters|check|unknown=Template:Main other|preview=Page using Template:Blockquote with unknown parameter "_VALUE_"|ignoreblank=y| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | author | by | char | character | cite | class | content | multiline | personquoted | publication | quote | quotesource | quotetext | sign | source | style | text | title | ts }}

Footnotes

Template:Reflist

Sources

Further reading 

 | title/{{#if: {{#invoke:ustring|match|1=0061328|2=^tt}}
   | Template:Trim/
   | tt0061328/
   }}
 | {{#if: {{#property:P345|from=}}
   | title/Template:First word/
   | find?q=%5B%5B%3ATemplate%3APAGENAMEBASE%5D%5D&s=tt
   }}
 }}{{#ifeq: {{#invoke:If any equal|main|Q618779|Q67325957|Q33999|value=Template:Wikidata}} | yes 
     | {{#switch: Template:Wikidata 
       | Q618779 
       | Q67325957  = awards Awards for
       | Q33999  = fullcredits Full cast and crew of
       }}
   | {{#if: Template:Wikidata 
     | {{#switch: Template:Wikidata
       | Q63032896 
       | Q66763446  = fullcredits Full cast and crew of
       | Q107974527 
       | Q482994  = soundtrack Soundtrack of
       }}
     }}
   }} Template:Trim] at {{#if: | IMDb | IMDb }}Template:EditAtWikidata{{#invoke:Check for unknown parameters|check|unknown=Template:Main other|preview=Page using Template:IMDb title with unknown parameter "_VALUE_"|showblankpositional=1| 1 | 2 | 3 | description | id | link_hide | qid | quotes | title }}{{#switch: {{#invoke:String2|matchAny|^tt.........|^tt.......|tt|.........|source=0061328|plain=false}}| 1 | 3 = Template:Main otherTemplate:Preview warning| 4 = Template:Main otherTemplate:Preview warning}}{{#if: 0061328 {{#property:P345}} || Template:Preview warningTemplate:Main other }}{{#switch: Template:Wikidata

| Q21191270 | Q21664088 | Q50062923 | Q50914552 | Q99079902 | Q123186929 | Q55422400 | Q61220733 = Template:Preview warning | Q3464665 = Template:Preview warning }}{{#ifeq: Template:Wikidata | Q21191270 | Template:Preview warning }}{{#if: 0061328 | Template:WikidataCheck }}

Template:Joseph Losey Template:Harold Pinter Template:Cannes Film Festival Grand Prix

Template:Authority control

Retrieved from "https://wiki.sarg.dev/index.php?title=Accident_(1967_film)&oldid=271237"