Accident

Joseph Losey, UK, 1967, 105 minutes

Based on the novel by Nicholas Mosley, this is a sample from Losey's finest work. It marks the end of the fruitful collaboration with Bogarde (King and Country, The Servant, Modesty Blaise) , whom the director rightly used despite the initial pressures from the producers who insisted in using Richard Burton. With a refined and rich script written by Harold Pinter, Accident provides a stunning examination of various aspects of English life to such an extent that it is not surprising that Losey, although an American, is commonly thought to be English.

As a car accident agitates the relationship between six people (three men, two women and a girl) in Oxford, implicit waves of suspicion emerge, drawing the whole group into a complex web of self-destructive tendencies. The circular structure of the film is determined by the accident which, although unimportant in itself, is a beginning and an end of the emotional turmoil which permeates the lives of all six of them. This psychological turbulence is skillfully veiled by the aristocratic climate of Oxford, portrayed with microscopic accuracy by Gerry Fisher's camerawork. The formalism of Losey's film culminates in the scene of the picnic in the garden and the scene on the river, in both of which the demonstration of camera virtuosity reveals an amazing grasp of the detail.

Dirk Bogarde who comes up with lines such as: "All aristocrats are born to be killed... I am immortal !", leads the eclectic cast ( Stanley Baker, Jacqueline Sassard, Michael York etc) in splendid performances. Aesthetically impressive, structurally complex - especially due to the excessive use of flashbacks - Accident is ultimately a film of enormous resonance. Watch out for Harold Pinter himself as Mr. Bell !

Review by Spiros Gangas
Taken from EUFS Programme 1992-93