The Deep Blue Sea (Litvak, 1955): Close-Up Cinema, 8pm
This 16mm presentation in the Never on Sunday season at Close-Up Cinema is introduced by strand curator Ehsan Khoshbakht
Close-Up Cinema introduction:
Hester (Vivien Leigh), a middle-aged woman's suicide attempt at the
beginning of the story sparks off two flashbacks, one from the point of
view of the upper-class husband she has abandoned and the other from the
view of the younger, capricious ex-RAF pilot for whom she has left her
husband. Back to the present, the film revolves around her desperate
attempt to win back her lover, only to realise she is yearning for
something she can’t have. Adapted from a play of the same name by
Terence Rattigan who also wrote the script under director Anatole
Litvak’s supervision, Litvak conveys a stifling world of failed dreams
(a doctor who has turned bookie, a jobless and meddlesome actress) with
an emotional impact somehow stronger than Terence Davies’s 2011 version.
Litvak shows unconstrained impulses without making them look pathetic.
There's no malice of intent in the way characters hurt each other, but
things always fall in the wrong places. When hope wanes, the dust of
memories obscures it beyond recognition. There’s a profound sadness to
the sense of love ebbing away, scene after scene.
Ehsan Khoshbakht
Here (and above) is the trailer.
