Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7374 in DVD
• Released on: 2008-01-07
• Rating: Parental Guidance
• Format: PAL
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 101 minutes

Synopsis
Directed by renowned American filmmaker Joseph Losey (THE SERVANT, MR. KLEIN), this artful, nuanced British film is based on a thought-provoking script by Harold Pinter. A forbidden attraction between a repressed, married Oxford professor and his female student climaxes in the allegorical titular accident.

Customer Reviews

Perfect, in its way
Dirk Bogarde felt his performance in this film was the best of his career, because the character he portrayed had so little in common with the real D.B.

I don't know whether I'd entirely go along with that, but there's no denying that this is one of his finest, if not the peak: you'll never forget the way he says 'And sex' at the conclusion of the dinner scene - a lifetime of contempt, derision and self-loathing encapsulated in the delivery of two short words.

Elsewhere, Pinter - possibly the finest writer for the screen who ever lived - turns in the usual masterly screenplay, which Losey directs with his customary aplomb. Stanley Baker gives an excellent turn as Bogarde's more successful colleague (though it's a bit difficult to picture him as an Oxford don)and the photography is quite beautiful. Vivien Merchant, in a minor role, is a major joy.

It's really very superficial to describe this film as a lot of rich kids grumbling about life...that's entirely to miss the point: the film is a study of human weakness, among other things. That it happens to be set amongst the dreaming spires of Oxford is coincidental.

Strong mise en scene deep psychology of the characters perfect acting
From The Servant's director Joseph Losey, this film is certainly one of the most important films of the history of British cinema and the world.
The film creates a kind of language by the hands and arms of the characters, things such as
-Anna (Jacqueline Sassard) and Stephen (Dirk Bogarde) put their hands on a fence during a walk in the countryside. This is the first shot of the sequence. The camera zooms out from the close up of their hands to a medium shot in which we can see Stephen's obsession to Anna's body in his way of looking at her hands.
-Charley (Stanley Baker) astonished of Anna's sudden departure to her country puts his hand on Anna's shoulder (He believes she loves him, he feels a kind of possessing her)
-Anna turns her head and looks at this hand showing in her way of looking that she does not appreciate this intrusive hand
-Later on when she finished packing she draws her hand to Charley for a farewel. Thus she puts a distance between herself and Charley with whom she was previously in bed
-In the TV office Mr Bell (Harold Pinter) and Stephen (Dirk Bogarde) start to speak with each other when suddenly an intrusive colleague of Mr Bell comes in and seats between the two men. Then the only way of seeing each other for the two men is looking through an empty space made by that colleague's arm

The eye expression of Dirk Bogarde all along the film is the proof of excellent acting of this greatest actor of all the history of British cinema.

The Accident
British film from 1967 that focuses on the `dilemmas' of two Oxford Professors (Dirk Bogarde & Stanley Baker) who become enamoured with one of their students (Jacqueline Sassard).

Shamefully soulless and superficial, it really is nothing more than rich boys worrying about who to have an affair with next. Melodramatic is an understatement.

The acting is fine from Bogarde & Baker, Sassard is a bore. Michael York has a few minor scenes. It's all quite dull but you can tell Pinter's self aware script thinks a lot of itself.