Product Description

From Noël Coward's play Still Life, legendary filmmaker David Lean deftly explores the thrill, pain, and tenderness of an illicit romance in the dour, gray Britain of 1945. From a chance meeting on a train platform, a middle-aged married doctor (Trevor Howard) and a suburban housewife (Celia Johnson) enter into a quietly passionate, ultimately doomed love affair, set to a swirling Rachmaninoff score. Criterion is proud to present Lean's award-winning masterpiece a beautifully restored digital transfer.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10166 in DVD
• Released on: 2000-06-27
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Black & White, Closed-captioned, DVD-Video, NTSC
• Original language: English, Italian
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 86 minutes

Amazon.com essential video
To many, Brief Encounter may seem like a relic of more proper times--or, specifically, more properly British times--when the pressures of marital decorum and fidelity were perhaps more keenly felt. In truth, David Lean's fourth film remains a timeless study of true love (or, rather, the promise of it), and the aching desire for intimate connection that is often subdued by the obligations of marriage. And so it is that ordinary Londoners Alec (Trevor Howard), a married doctor, and contented housewife Laura (Celia Johnson) meet by chance one day in a train station, when he volunteers to remove a fleck of ash from her eye (a romantic gesture that, perhaps, inspired Robert Towne's "flaw in the iris" scene in Chinatown).

It so happens that their schedules coincide at the train station every Thursday, and their casual attraction grows, through quiet conversation and longing expressions, into the desperate recognition of mutual love. From this point forward, Lean turns this utterly precise, 85-minute film into a bracing study of romantic suspense, leading inevitably, and with the paranoid, furtive glances of a spy thriller, to the moment when this brief encounter must be consummated or abandoned altogether. Decades later, the outcome of this affair--both agonizing and rapturous--is subtle and yet powerful enough to draw tears from the numbest of souls, and spark debate regarding the tragedy or virtue of the choices made. A truly universal film, with meticulously controlled emotions revealed through the flawless performances of Howard and Johnson, and an enduring masterpiece that continued Lean on his course to cinematic greatness. --Jeff Shannon

Customer Reviews

When passion violently invades...
...The unsuspecting lives of Laura & Dr. Harvey; this video titillates the viewer by a metaphorical likening of love's passions to the steaming over, crushing power which once influenced the coal burning industrial society. Period viewers might have remembered the political power of railroad lobbyists in dividing up American lives and properties. The powerful symbol of the rushing steam locomotive is iconic.

This classic drama, focused around coincidental liaisons, and then deliberate devices of the clandestine couple to meet one another repeatedly, revolves around a spoiler theme; that, fated was the ubiquitous `way of escape', which literally bursts in on their sneaking around, their rationalizations, and their otherwise oblivious clinging to one another.

Filmed in England, the sculptured dialog plays out like some of the black & white comedies & dramas featuring David Niven, or the suspence and mystery of Alfred Hithcock. If you've an acquired taste for English `cheekiness' you shouldn't be disappointed. The film score incorporates a Rachmaninov piano concerto extensively. I laugh every time I hear Laura trying to summarize to her husband without actually explaining to him why she is weepy, she exclaims, "Isn't it awful about people meaning to be kind !"

My DVD is the foreign version with the Chinese sub-titles & the only way to banish them is to select the `NO SUBTITLES' menu option.

My favorite movie!
Brief Encounter is the most romantic, sensuous movie ever made. There is so much "electricity" and passion - with virtually no physical contact between the two lovers.

Classic romance
A fantastic film, with brillant acting that is subtle and realistic, and although the dialogue seems a little dated at first, after the first few minutes you forget all about this and are totally emersed in what is understandably a classic film. It's not often that I am so emotional after a film that I just sit there for 10 minutes or so, not wanting to move, but this film had this effect on me, and I would recommend it to anyone who likes a good story and real romance. Brilliant.