Accident
The leafy well-to-do suburbs of Oxford in near darkness, the remote home of a philosophy professor, typing into the night alone with his wife and children away, disturbed some time before two in the morning by the sound of a car tearing past followed by a collision; running from his door, he finds it up the lane and on its side, one of the occupants unconscious but largely unhurt, the other dead, his students Anna and William, their engagement announced only that day ended.
Based on the 1965 novel of the same name by Nicholas Mosley, son of infamous Oswald, founder of the British Union of Fascists, Accident was adapted by playwright Harold Pinter who appears as a television producer and directed by Joseph Losey, their second of three collaborations between The Servant of 1963 and The Go-Between of 1971 and reuniting them with Dirk Bogarde.
By 1967 far past the roles which made him one of Britain’s biggest movie stars and seeking challenges, Stephen is the closest thing to a witness to the accident but covers it up, placing Anna (Jacqueline Sassard) in an upstairs bedroom and never mentioning her presence to the police when the arrive who, in the absence of other evidence, conclude William (Michael York) was drunk and alone, the interior of the vehicle decorated with splashed whisky.
The events leading to the accident told in flashback, Pinter presents them in the customary manner of his work, evasions and implications rather than accusations or admissions, the halls of the university and the gardens, kitchens and bedrooms of the faculty, Stephen and his colleague Charley (Stanley Baker) both infatuated with Anna, smiling politely while they silently resent the presence of the other and move proxies to be near to her.
The marital ennui, angst and smothered passions of the stifled middle class desperate to keep up the appearance of aloof indifference, of respectful distance, never rocking the boat or making a fuss, pretending they are doing fine, they are abstract and elusive but ultimately selfish, lying together in the summer sun plotting a novel of betrayal as the consequences play out before them, Stephen inviting them to stay for supper because it is expected even as he wants rid of them, even his silently suffering pregnant wife Rosalind (Vivien Merchant).
Restored as part of StudioCanal’s Vintage Classics season, providing evidence for the decline and fall leading up to the Accident are Kat Ellinger in an audio commentary, Pamela Hutchinson discussing the film, interviews with dialogue coach Claire Davidson, Pinter expert Harry Burton, academic Melanie Williams, John Coldstream on Bogarde, film critic Tim Robey and Maxwell Caulfield who at seven years old played Stephen’s son Ted, and an archive discussion of the film between Pinter and Losey.
Accident will be available on 4K UHD and Blu-ray from StudioCanal Monday 28th September
