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The Go-Between [VHS]

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The third, last, and probably most famous of the collaborations between director Joseph Losey and Harold Pinter, "The Go-Between" is a coming of age story for adults. While containing all the ingredients of the standard "summer I became a man" situation, "The Go-Between" presents a bitter, sophisticated view of sexual awakening that may take many viewers by surprise.

Like another great American expatriate filmmaker, Stanley Kubrick, Losey was a visual stylist with a bleak take on humanity. Losey's considerable technical skill--and pessimism--are at peak in "The Go-Between." Set on an English country estate during the summer of 1900, everything that contributes toward the sense of the past is ravishingly textured. A long, hot summer afternoon relieved by an impromptu bathing party, the justly famous cricket match sequence, thick with lassitude, the services before Sunday breakfast, stiffly formal, familiar yet remote at the same time, the games of croquet, seen from a pretty distance, as if watching chess pieces in boaters and crinolines--all testify to the director's ability to find those details that help to make the past come to life.

Amid the lush green fields, the breezes blowing through the trees, the sun dancing across the reeds and the sparkle of the water, a group of selfish, repressed upper and middle-class English pose, lie and suffer through the heat. At the center of the story is Leo Colston, a thirteen year old visitor to the estate who gets caught up in the adults' deceptions and machinations. As with most of Losey and Pinter's work, it's never entirely clear exactly who knows what. There is only the constant, heavy implication that something lurks just beneath the surface, and it is probably unpleasant. "The Go-Between" is practically a circus of raised eyebrows passed between the characters in knowing, unspoken comment. Leo, the innocent outsider, ends up impaled on their smug superciliousness, and for all the summer lyricism, the net effect is ashen.

All of the actors are superb. Margaret Leighton, as the matriarch of the household deserves special mention for her quicksilver motions, her ability to convey Madeleine's barely constrained neurasthenic rage. The music, by Michel Legrand, can be painfully loud and abrupt in places, but there's no denying that it's catchy. (How appropriate it is is another matter.) The transfer is not grossly awful, but it doesn't allow much informed evaluation of the cinematography. At the very least it would be nice to see the film in the correct aspect ratio. Contrasty, over-saturated, with a warbly soundtrack, the video makes you long for DVD. While I don't have much hope of it (Columbia is the studio, after all, that allowed "Lawrence of Arabia" literally to rot in its vaults), perhaps we can look forward to a new transfer that takes advantage of DVD's capabilities. This movie certainly deserves the best the studio can offer.

Th entire film takes place on the grounds of a sprawling English manor. Young aristocrat Marcus has invited Leo whose background is much more humble to spend the summer at his familys estate. Marcus and Leo are both just about to turn 13--that ripe age with one foot in childhood and one beginning to test the waters of adulthood. Marcus is a snobby little brat quite used to the comforts of his palatial home but Leo is utterly amazed at all he sees. And what he is most amazed with is Marcus' older sister Marion played by Julie Christie who we first meet lounging in a hammock in a long lacey white dress--she is like a vision. Leo is immediately smitten and Marion takes the socially awkward Leo under her lovely wing. Leo also gets to meet an assortment of other aristocrats including the Viscount Trimmingham played by Edward Fox. The first thing Leo notices about Trimmingham is a scar which runs across one cheek which he wears like a souvenier or battle trophy(which it is compliments of the Boer Wars). Trimmingham is a blue blood through and through but he treats Leo with an amused kind of graciousness and wins the young man over. Leo also runs into the groundskeeper, a long haired and bearded robust and ruddy outdoorsman called Ted Burgess played by the always very appealing Alan Bates. Leo is subjected to a bit of aristocratic snobbery and even his friend likes to constantly remind him what a privelege he has been honored with to spend the summer in such surroundings but they all grow fond of him as well. Marion is quite aware that Leo is smitten with her and she treats him like her most loyal servant. Soon she has Leo playing messenger for her--running notes to Ted Burgess who in turn sends notes back to her via Leo as well. Marion is engaged to mary Lord Trimmingham and it takes Leo awhile to suspect just what exactly he has been parlaying between Marion and Ted. But figure it out he does and it baffles him that Marion can carry on with Ted while being engaged to Trimmingham. The film is as elegant as they come and the estates opulent interiors and lush grounds and forests and fields keep your eyes affixed. The time is 1914. A time when horse and buggies are still commonplace and cars a bit of a rarity at least on country estates. Its also a time when war is looming. Director Joseph Losey and scriptwriter Harold Pinter examine the social mores of the elite class by showing them with their gaurd down. And a fascinating glimpse it is.

The flash forward device at the end of the film which shows a meeting between Marion and Leo many years after that fateful summer interestingly conveys the fact that Marion and aristocrats in general still live in their cocoon of luxury and remain unchanged though the rest of the world has completely altered around them. That last scene of the film no doubt had a sting to it for English audiences when it was released in 1971. But I don't think time has diminished that sting.

I first saw this movie on TV on channel 7 in New York one late night in the early 70's. (That was back when movies were still watchable on TV, but that's another story.) The non-linearity of the story-telling immediately held me. Now, connect-the-dots film-making is all over the place, but "The Go-Between" was there first and best.

Dominic Guard plays the wide-eyed young enabler of the title to a class-bound pair of lovers during a hot Edwardian summer, with disatrous results. Near the end of his life the character attempts self-reconciliation by returning to the scene. Michael Redgrave's time-shifted fast-forwards are shattering as we see starkly the effects of his emotional enchainment.

Pinter's script is a contained explosion of drama, especially at the suspenseful climactic moments. Losey's direction pulses with rhythm and grace. Michel Legrand's music swirls with his famous cycles of half-diminished chords, portending dread and death.

It is an absolute crime that this film is so unavailable. I really wish the Criterion folks would get on this one.

I saw this film when I was about 13 and it made a strong impression. I recently viewed it again, some 30 years since, and was struck with how extraordinary it truly is. Aside from the sterling cast, the screenplay adaptation by Harold Pinter is true to the Hartley novel. Joseph Losey's direction talents reflect great craftsmanship. It's a period piece of course, capturing all of the Victorian culture and attitudes. Very intelligent and engaging!

Harold Pinter did a great job of scripting Hartley's fine novel and Joseph Losey's direction makes the narrator's perspective and fate heartbreaking. The very young Dominic Guard was wonderful as the narrator but the movie is made by a re-pairing of Julie Christie and Alan Bates (following "Far From the Madding Crowd"): their love is passionate and restrained, silent, strong, lusty as all hell and doomed. A very, very fine film.

""The past is a foreign country. People do things differently over there" is how the main character of this movie talks about his youth. The viewers however remain to decide if the past is indeed so foreign. Does it not shape one's life in a crucial way, as happens in the film we are about to see?
"The go between" takes place at the end of the Victorian era. A transformation is hanging over the movie, in a personal and worldly sense. The summers are hot and full of sun. This is the period of the shattering of the social classes which is only hinted upon in this film.
The movie is told through the eyes of an old bitter man, reliving the summer of his 13th birthday. This is the summer that shaped and shattered his world. He now looks upon his younger self with pity and love for his innocence and the way he was trapped in an impossible situation. The movie is seen through his eyes as a young man but with the understanding of Leo as he is today, and with our understanding of adults, who are beyond innocence.
Leo and his rich, snobbish friend Marcus arrive to Marcus family estate in Norfolk to spend the summer. Leo is immediately attracted to Marion, Marcus's beautiful sister who acts towards him with kind benevolence. She helps him through the pompous remarks of one of the other children about his hot coat and suggests buying him a new suit. Leo sees Marion as an angel and falls for her charm. Only later does he understand how she used him (as she used her lover as well) for her own needs. Through her kindness Marion is able to tie Leo to her side and to gain his loyalty. She needs an outsider to take part in her unacceptable relationship with Ted Burges, one of the neighbors with whom a love affair has obviously started in the past. This is suggested by her mother's questions and facial expressions. Leo is dragged into the love affair as he wants to please Marion and Ted, but later understands in his own confusing way that something is wrong here. Leo has a hard time being fair to all the people he likes, including Viscount Trimmingham, to whom Marion is engaged to marry. Leo starts to understand that something wrong is happening, something he feels is connected with "spooning", as he calls sex. Leo tries to get some answers, at no avail. "Sex" is exposed to us in the same way it was revealed to Leo, in one of the last scenes and his shock is very well portrayed. The feeling is of something wrong, forbidden and deceitful and it is no wonder Leo grows up to be "with a heart empty of love".
The viewers receive a very clear picture of Leo's confusion and misunderstanding of the state of affairs. He is trapped in a situation that is unclear and yet demands his full cooperation.
The movie ends with Marion pleading to old Leo to explain to her grandchild that he was conceived from the beautiful love relationship between her and Burges. She talks about love and the happiness it brings. Leo however does not feel the same. He has also seen the destruction that love can cause, and did cause, in the life of Burges and his own. As usually happens, the lower class pays the price.

I lived in Paris when this movie was released and my memories of this year are vivid. A highlight of the year was The Go-Between, a Cannes Film Festival attraction, and worthy of its award. Since then, I've longed for a VHS copy of this quite remarkable film, and only have a cassette in the European format (not NTSC) but would highly recommend that Columbia produces a DVD video version for the international market (Europe included, PLEASE!)

Alan Bates and Julie Christie deserve a DVD version.

Consider this cast : one of my beloved middle sixties actress Julie Chritie, the superb actor Alan Bates , the implacable direction of Joseph Losey one the most powerful Enfant terrible of USA and the screenplay of his assiduous collaborator Harold Pinter (The accident) this is a real milestone in the British cinema of the early seventies.
A little boy unwittingly becomes in the go-between for the daughter of a wealthy family and a neighboring humble farmer .
This unequal encounter between these two lovers will lead unavoidably to the tragedy .
The dark and bitter visual poetry of this film will be displacing in your memories and your mind years after you watch it due its profound personality and artistic stature.
Dominic Guard as the boy is electrifying .
A Cannes winner film and to me one of the three movie gems of Losey next to The servant -his masterpiece- (see my review) and Mr. Klein.
I really expect its release in DVD format .

The Go-Between is one of the most beautiful movies ever made and is faithful to the wonderful book written by LP Hartley. The film stars Julie Christie, an aristocrat's daughter and Alan Bates, the sharecropper farmer who are in love, and marks the summer when an eleven year old boy from a poorer background visits his classmate at the country estate.The eleven year old, Leo, played by Dominck Guard is superb. Leo is also in love with Julie Christie but doesn't understand that the notes he has agreed to deliver for her have a much deeper meaning on many levels. Leo learns a lot that summer, for instance, that "the past is a like a foreign country, they do things differently there."

I so wish this movie was available in the U.S. on DVD. It is one of my favorites. -Brenda Pizzo

I adore this film.The acting is honourably good,the atmosphere superb and parts of the musical score absolutely heartbreakingly beautiful.It's so classic-English-summer's-day-rapturously gorgeous!SEE IT!
This sumptuous treat is like being sucked into a dream.Faithful to J.P.Hartley's marvellous novel.Quite wonderful photographing of Norfolk's finest bits.Nice threading.Exciting.Good editing.MAGNIFICENT.