When Mrs Esmond returns home from an abortive trip to Paris something is wrong. The scene is played out in real time. She enters through the door and reads a note awaiting her. The mirror reflects the out-of-field behind her. She is being watched. Something makes her uncomfortable and she turns. A young man is in her house, watching her. He is a guest of her husband. She climbs the staircase. Cut.
Joseph Losey takes the juvenile delinquent movie, twists in some film noir, psychoanalysis, class consciousness, modernism and gives us The Sleeping Tiger. But who is the sleeping tiger? Is it Frank, the kid from a broken home. Mrs Esmond - Glenda - the frustrated wife of Dr Esmond. Or Dr Esmond, a psychoanalyst out to prove himself god... or is it all of them, in their own way?
This 1954 film is the first film Joseph Losey made in Britain after his his exile from America due to him being blacklisted as a communist - which he was. The subpoena went to his old address and he hightailed it to Europe. Working under the name of Victor Hanbury he directed this odd genre flick of mirrors and staircases... it is essential viewing from the director that went on to work with Pinter and Stoppard, to direct The Servant and Accident and become one the finest directors Britain - and Europe - has ever had.
Strangers in the House: The Mirror Images of Joe Losey
Labels: British Cinema, David Deamer, Joseph Losey, The Sleeping Tiger
posted by Atomic Discourse Gale at 10:48 pm
2 Comments:
I was pleasantly surprised by this film, I have to be honest and tell you that I expected an interminably long, crap, old British film... but instead I got a fantastic piece of cinema. It was a real 50's thriller and had all the elements of a great movie of that era (Dirk Bogarde! need I say more), but certainly had a darker and more 'film noir'-esque (can i say that?!) underbelly. The character of 'Glenda' was extremely reminiscient of Anne Bancroft as Mrs Robinson in the Graduate, using her power as the 'woman of the house' and her endless sex appeal in order to bed the young Mr Clements.
It was however, the spectualar camerawork and use of mise en scene to get the shot or the scene perfect. In this movie, it is almost a case of that which is not said becomes more important than the dialogue taking place and the use of mirrors to shoot not only what is happening within the frame, but also what is happening beyond it exemplifies this. It is something the viewer is normally left to imagine.
I feel that I could go on forever about this film and it's unique nuances, but i'm not going too, cos no-one ever reads these things anyway. Either way, I can't wait to see the next installment in what seems like an exceptional triptych!
I agree totally. Amazing film. I think that's the really good thing about Trauma; you get to watch films you might never have had either an interest or opportunity to watch had you not gone along that turn out to be great. If The Sleeping Tiger had been on TV I probably would have turned it off using the old 'it's boring, it's British, it's black and white' routine. And I would have shot myself in the foot because of it.
I thought the camera work was very refreshing. I liked Dave's comment in his intro about Losey purposefully not restricting himself within the Hollywood filmic grammar. I'd like to think that if I ever got to shoot a film and could emulate and expand upon some of those baffling and beautiful sequences.
The story was cool too. I'm tending towards the belief that the wife was all along part of the doctor’s machinations, or at least an unwilling player in his obsession with healing. There was no physical distinction or distance between his home or his place of work. They were one and the same.
Watch this film if you haven't seen it. It's immensely enjoyable.
I'm looking forward with eager anticipation to the next in the season.
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