The Servant (1963)
Country: GB
Technical: bw 116m
Director: Joseph Losey
Cast: Dirk Bogarde, James Fox, Sarah Miles, Wendy Craig
Synopsis:
A toff takes on a new butler, who cossets him and presides over his moral degradation.
Review:
A film to be taken on many levels; as a critique (on the part of Losey) of the British class structure wherein the truth behind the roleplaying is even less attractive than the mask and the master proves to be a mere puppet; as a film about the sado-masochism, occasionally reversed, of the master-servant relationship; or simply as another Pinter exercise in exposing the powerplay underlying all human relationships. There is even a homosexual subtext if you care to see it, with Bogarde coming over as a camp Northerner in the Murray Melvin mould.
Country: GB
Technical: bw 116m
Director: Joseph Losey
Cast: Dirk Bogarde, James Fox, Sarah Miles, Wendy Craig
Synopsis:
A toff takes on a new butler, who cossets him and presides over his moral degradation.
Review:
A film to be taken on many levels; as a critique (on the part of Losey) of the British class structure wherein the truth behind the roleplaying is even less attractive than the mask and the master proves to be a mere puppet; as a film about the sado-masochism, occasionally reversed, of the master-servant relationship; or simply as another Pinter exercise in exposing the powerplay underlying all human relationships. There is even a homosexual subtext if you care to see it, with Bogarde coming over as a camp Northerner in the Murray Melvin mould.
Country: GB
Technical: bw 116m
Director: Joseph Losey
Cast: Dirk Bogarde, James Fox, Sarah Miles, Wendy Craig
Synopsis:
A toff takes on a new butler, who cossets him and presides over his moral degradation.
Review:
A film to be taken on many levels; as a critique (on the part of Losey) of the British class structure wherein the truth behind the roleplaying is even less attractive than the mask and the master proves to be a mere puppet; as a film about the sado-masochism, occasionally reversed, of the master-servant relationship; or simply as another Pinter exercise in exposing the powerplay underlying all human relationships. There is even a homosexual subtext if you care to see it, with Bogarde coming over as a camp Northerner in the Murray Melvin mould.