#but the context of the film and the moral propriety of post-war england

[yeoldontknow]

so I watched brief encounter last night because I was curious... I don’t understand what the main character meant by her committing the violence of falling inlove. I don’t think I understand how being in love could be violent- is it because she’s married?

hi anon! ahhhh! im so happy you decided to watch it! and then came to discuss with me pls do you know how delighted that makes me ;^; if youre not used to classic cinema, or even classic melodrama, i can see how the film would be a bit slow or a bit difficult to connect with. so i really appreciate you taking the time to watch and come up with questions for things. when i say this made my day i mean it lmaooo

the quote i believe youre pulling from is this:

I’ve fallen in love. I didn’t think such violent things could happen to ordinary people.

there are several layers to this statement - emotional, moral, political, societal, etc. im happy to break these down contextually so you can have a better understanding of why this statement is painful and, also, why love is an extremely violent experience. going under a cut because...i have this entire masters degree in film and im not using it so im gonna use it here lmao

at its most basic, yes, you are correct. she says love is a violent experience because she is already married. to love, really love, is an act of violence, especially when you are already promised and making a family to another person. there is an element of ruination here that plagues laura, love as a threat to the stability of the home and family. and we can see this when her son is playing in the street and gets into an accident - a completely innocuous event, but one she sees as an omen of her violence against her own family. karma, but at a level that would start a war among her family and community.

in most filmic universes, romantic comedies especially, we are used to the relatively easy expectations that come from learning to love someone - you meet, you flirt, you are both, ideally, free to experience these types of intense emotions, you come together, you separate (due to...any sort of obstacle), you come back together. in this traditional narrative, we are presented with the notion that falling in love happens in a linear fashion and that, once the two characters have ended their arc and achieved their happy ending, there is not much else that occurs. they lived happily ever after, ever after being an indeterminate amount of time in which we are meant to assume they exist within this state, ceaselessly.

in general, there are two types of love stories - tragedies and comedies. where romantic comedies (in the modern sense, and i am stressing modern sense) end with ‘happily ever after,’ the other alternative for lovers is death. you either overcome your initial obstacle, or you perish, in love, where love becomes a death. so where does that leave brief encounter? neither party have been put to death, but the death is of the will, the passion. and, in brief encounter, it is killed by morality. by choice. i will be coming back to this. because passion is an extremely important element of this film, and it carries the narrative from start to finish.

at its core, brief encounter is a melodrama. melodrama has its own sect of film theory, but in this case ill do my best to keep it simple. and its really important to recognize that this film is british - british melodrama are two extremely different experiences and come from two completely different places of expression.

american melodrama, the most broad sense, was a stylistic set of films, usually from the 40s-50s (even some released in the early 60s) which use a lot of the tropes of classic cinematic narrative story telling - but as irony, parody, or pastiche. great examples of these films would be rebel without a cause, mildred pierce, from here to eternity, imitation of life, etc. in all of these films, and again i am paraphrasing because there is so much relating to melodrama as its own theory and practice, there is an onus on emotional expression and sensationalism. the narrative is driven by passionate action, emotional action, and, almost always, the swell of music weve come to recognize in hollywood cinema. music swells with character emotion, thus assisting in informing the audience in how to feel, and so we are ok regardless if these characters are successful in their plight, because we have felt.

british melodrama operates from an entirely different perspective. yes, like their historical theatrical roots, they favor spectacle and avoid realism. and, again, there is a reliance on the music to lead the narrative. however, the focus shifts from the societal body to the familial body; body concrete rather than body politic. culturally, this is a significant change from the usual reserved emotional experience within britain. and that is where brief encounter becomes something extremely important.

brief encounter was released in 1945, in a post-war period when there were significant changes to womens daily and societal lives, and this film really hones in on the causative anxieties that are born from these sudden changes and, yes, sudden notions of emotional liberation from their families - a new found independence. with the context of this film coming off the tails of WWII, in a post-war society in which there is meant to be peace, laura calls the act of falling in love violent which, for an audience member at the time of release, would have immediately associated that element of violence with war time violence. love is a threat. its dangerous. love at this level is repulsive. love is an insurrection - love is a revolution. and it came to her without her permission. she is bereft. she is on the brink of collapse - and ordinary women, the traditional family house wife, is never meant to feel so eager to ruin her family for a sensation that is, inherently, selfish.

so this brings us back to passion. something that comes up quite a lot in brief encounter, most explicitly at the cinema when alec and laura see a trailer for a film called flames of passion (this is a real film btw! and you might be able to watch it - it too is a melodrama. theres also a queer reading within brief encounter, because of the inclusion of flames of passion, but thats for another day). this brings us to the moral question of love as violence. for this, we can turn to hume and his 4 thesis on moral philosophy, the morals that drive humanity. primarily we will look at the following points:

1. reason alone is not enough to motivate the will, but rather is a slave to passion 3. moral distinction is derived from moral sentiment: feelings of approval (praise) and disapproval (shame, blame) through our inter-relations with others, or through the perceptions of others as they perceive us

for hume, the passions are simply emotions, but they are broken down as direct or indirect. desire is a direct emotion and it arises, without thought, from a place of good or evil, pain or pleasure - and it is only after these feelings have arisen that we are able to consider the feeling. by that same token, bodily or carnal appetites, our carnal desires, is another instinct that arises from unknown origin and only is able to be thoughtfully experienced after we have been confronted with it. and that is the most important piece - desire and carnal desire is an instinct. for hume, love, on the other hand, does not directly cause action - because love is not an instinct. love is learned.

in brief encounter, laura is admitting that not only does she thoughtfully love alec - love in a way that would not necessarily cause action, but brings her unparalleled pleasure in comparison to a man who simply helps, but she desires him. desires him enough to take action, to release the shackles of her political body and engage in her carnal body, with an appetite that is almost reductive in theory, aligning her with something base. this pleasure inherently causes her pain, yet still, she craves it - without morality.

and through her perception of those around her - her friends, her acquaintances, her own husband - she distinguishes this moral experience as shameful. but, in that shame, she still does not surrender her carnal body. her apetite is awakened, unable for her to be returned to its normal, thoughtful state. at war, now, with herself and her desires, laura is conflicted and ruined, simply because she learned to love and to desire, a violence an ordinary housewife should never experience.

#the cutest anons! #this was literally so much longer than it really needed to be #but i hope you understand now why that quote is literally so painful #why its one of the most quoted lines in film history #there are still so many layers to this #i didnt even talk about concerto no 2 and the agitation of the score #the violent swell and laura enacts violence against her heart #and her heart enacts violence against her mind #youre right anonie that its violent because shes already married #but the context of the film and the moral propriety of post-war england #makes that line an earthquake :( #Anonymous