The Go-Between | |
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Directed by | Joseph Losey |
Screenplay by | Harold Pinter |
Produced by | John Heyman Denis Johnson |
Starring | Julie Christie Alan Bates Margaret Leighton Edward Fox Dominic Guard |
Cinematography | Gerry Fisher |
Edited by | Reginald Beck |
Music by | Michel Legrand |
Production company | |
Distributed by | MGM-EMI Distributors (UK) Columbia Pictures (US) |
Release dates |
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Running time | 116 minutes[2] |
Countries | United Kingdom United States |
Language | English |
Budget | £500,000[3] or under $1 million[4] |
The Go-Between is a 1971[1] British romantic drama film, directed by Joseph Losey. Its screenplay, by Harold Pinter, is an adaptation of the 1953 novel of the same name by L. P. Hartley. The film stars Julie Christie, Alan Bates, Margaret Leighton, Michael Redgrave and Dominic Guard.
The story follows a young boy named Leo Colston (Dominic Guard), who in the year 1900 is invited by a school friend, Marcus Maudsley (Richard Gibson), to spend the summer holidays at a Norfolk country house occupied by his family. While Leo is there, Marcus is taken sick, and Leo finds himself becoming a messenger (go-between) carrying messages between Marcus's older sister, Marian Maudsley (Julie Christie), and a farmer neighbour, Ted Burgess (Alan Bates) with whom she is secretly in love. However, her parents want her to become engaged to the owner of the house and estate, Hugh, Viscount Trimingham (played by Edward Fox). A heatwave leads to a thunderstorm, which coincides with Leo's birthday party and the climax of the film, when Marion's mother and Leo find Marion and Burgess making love in an outbuilding. This event has a long-lasting impact on Leo, and it leads to Burgess being sent to fight in the Second Boer War, in which he is killed.
More than fifty years later, Marion, now the Dowager Lady Trimingham, sends for Leo, wanting him to speak to her grandson to explain to him that she had truly loved Burgess. She asks Leo whether her grandson reminds him of anyone, and he replies "Yes. Ted Burgess".
Michael Redgrave plays Leo in old age.
Pinter's screenplay for the film was his final collaboration with Losey, following The Servant (1963) and Accident (1967). It is largely faithful to the novel, although it alludes to the novel's opening events in dialogue and incorporates events described in the novel's epilogue within the central narrative.[citation needed]
The rights to the novel had been in the hands of many producers, among them Sir Alex Korda, who purchased it in 1956. He originally envisioned Alec Guinness and Margaret Leighton in the leads and employed Nancy Mitford to write a script.[4]
Joseph Losey was interested in filming the novel. He tried to get financing for a version in 1963 after The Servant and then again in 1968.[4]
Eventually John Heyman managed to get financing from EMI Films, where Bryan Forbes agreed to pay £75,000 for the script.[5] Because of the relatively steep budget, EMI had to seek co-production financing from MGM.
The film was shot at Melton Constable Hall, Heydon and Norwich in Norfolk.[6] The art director was Carmen Dillon.
Michel Legrand composed the soundtrack for the film. The main theme was later used as the title music for the French "true crime" documentary series Faites entrer l'accusé (in French Wikipedia).[7] The love theme "I Still See You" written by Legrand with lyrics by Hal Sharper was performed by Scott Walker and released as a single in late 1971.
The film was first shown in May 1971 at the 1971 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Palme d'Or.[8] A few days before, James Aubrey, head of MGM, had sold his interest in it to Columbia Pictures, because he disliked the final film and regarded it a flop.[9]
The film was released in the UK on 24 September 1971, opening at ABC1 on Shaftesbury Avenue in London.[1] A month later, on 29 October, Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother arrived at the ABC Cinema on Prince of Wales Road in Norwich to attend the local premiere, thus giving Norwich its first ever Royal Premiere.[10]
By August 1971 Nat Cohen stated the film had already been "contracted" for a million dollars.[11]
However by September 1972 James Aubrey of MGM claimed the film recorded an overall loss of $200,000.[12]
An enthusiastic John Russell Taylor wrote in The Times that, "Up to now, Accident was without argument Losey's best film; now in The Go-Between it has a serious contender for the title. And everything is achieved by apparently doing the absolute minimum."[1]
Charles Champlain in the Los Angeles Times wrote after the US premiere in November 1971 that The Go-Between was one of the best films of the previous six years. Andrew Sarris in the Village Voice labelled it the best film of the year.[13] Joanne Klein saw the filmscript as a major stylistic and technical advance in Pinter’s work for the screen, and Foster Hirsch described it as “one of the world’s great films”.[citation needed]
For many involved it was praised as the peak of their careers. Leighton earned her first and only Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the film.
In 1999, it was included on the British Film Institute's list of its 100 best British films. At the BAFTA festival it was nominated in no less than 12 categories, winning four; Screenplay: Harold Pinter (his second BAFTA), Edward Fox (Supporting actor), Dominic Guard (Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles), Supporting actress: Margaret Leighton (her second nomination and her only win), which makes it one of the most successful in the history of the competition.
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