The Servant (1963)

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Movie
German title The servant
Original title The Servant
Country of production United Kingdom
original language English
Publishing year 1963
length 114 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Joseph Losey
script Harold Pinter
production Joseph Losey
Norman Priggen
music John Dankworth
camera Douglas Slocombe
cut Reginald Mills
occupation

Der Diener (English: The Servant) is a British film drama directed by Joseph Losey from 1963 with Dirk Bogarde , Sarah Miles and James Fox in the lead roles. The British Film Institute voted The Servant 22nd in 1999 among the best British films of the 20th century .

action

Young gentleman Tony, scion of a wealthy and respected family, returns to London from a trip abroad . He buys a large house there, but it has to be completely renovated and furnished - for this he hires the meticulous and dutiful Hugo Barrett as his servant. Tony is enthusiastic about his servant, who always does his job correctly and Tony fulfills even the smallest wishes. His fiancée Susan is rather suspicious as she finds Barrett's obsequious and old-fashioned demeanor strange. One evening, she and Tony are disturbed by Barrett's entrance in a passionate embrace. The butler claims that this mishap was accidental, but Susan rightly suspects otherwise. Barrett has long since made himself indispensable to his master and knows all his secrets.

Barrett is able to convince Tony to take his alleged sister - in reality, however, a lover - Vera into her house as a maid. One evening the maid is alone in the house with Tony and an affair develops. Tony tries to hide the affair from Barrett, who had planned it all along. Susan, who tried to intimidate Barrett with imperious orders, increasingly loses her influence on Tony. When Tony and Susan come home unplanned one evening, they surprise the alleged siblings as they enjoy themselves in Tony's bed. Tony then dismisses Barrett, but since he makes hints about the affair between his master and Vera, Susan also leaves her fiancé.

Tony is completely helpless without Barrett and longs for him, the previously tidy house is decaying and he is becoming more and more addicted to alcohol. Eventually Tony hires his butler back, who is remorseful and blames Vera for betraying them both. After Barrett's return to the house, however, the relationship has long since tipped over - he doesn't keep the house clean as he used to, instead he argues with Tony when Tony tries to give him instructions. The balance of power between servant and landlord has changed, especially since Tony is now completely addicted to alcohol and other drugs . Barrett also ensures that Vera is reintroduced into the house. Susan makes one last attempt to win Tony back over, but finds him totally insane at a decadent house party. She initially reproaches Barrett, but then lets him kiss her, to which Tony shows little reaction. Eventually Susan leaves him entirely and Barrett's dominance over Tony is now assured.

background

Losey later commented on his work on the film: “ The Servant is the only film I've ever made in my life that has no interference from start to finish, either with the book, with the cast or with the editing , Music or anything else (...) It is entirely made of one piece ”. He named subservience and living according to outdated or false principles as the themes of the film: “The film reports about a little gentleman who still lives in the 18th century, behind the facade of a house, but who has neither the desire nor the will to to take the plunge into the 20th century ”. It is therefore logical that he gets a servant who only looks old-fashioned on the outside and actually cheats him.

The Servant was the first screenplay by Harold Pinter, who a few years earlier by his play The Caretaker ( The Caretaker ) had made a name. In this, the figure of the vagabond, who is appointed caretaker, also exerts an influence on his young, weak-looking gentleman. The Caretaker and The Servant are therefore not only similar in terms of title and are often compared with each other.

Reviews

"Joseph Losey's psycho-drama is a stylistically masterfully refined parable, precisely calculated in terms of visual impact and dramaturgical structure, about the moral weakness of the upper middle class, the fragility of its conventions, the decline of its self-confidence."

“It's a film about ownership; not just who owns what, but who owns whom. "

- JNSch.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Certificate of Release for The Servant . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , March 2013 (PDF; test number: 31 559 V).
  2. ^ Georg Alexander, Peter W. Jansen, Joseph Losey (among others): Joseph Losey . Ed .: Hansen series. Film series 11. Munich 1977, p. 108 .
  3. The servant. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  4. Quoted from: Harold Pinter. In: Thomas Koebner with the assistance of Kerstin-Luise Neumann (ed.): “Film classics. Descriptions and comments. ”4 vol. Reclam, Stuttgart 1995, ISBN 3-15-030011-8 , vol. 2, pp. 568-571, here 569.