Sunday Bloody Sunday is an astonishing film for it's time, the 1st film I ever saw where a gay man was rather "normal" & sympathetic & where male attraction we enevitable & fated. Is it better to share a lover than to have none at all? This is essence of John Schlesinger's film, a story of two people, a gay middle-aged Jewish doctor (Peter Finch) and a 30-ish working woman (Glenda Jackson), who are romantically intertwined with a boyish artist (Murray Head) who treats them both with a dismissive interest.
• 1965 Darling
• 1969 Midnight Cowboy
• 1971 Sunday Bloody Sunday
• 1976 Marathon Man
• 1996 Cold Comfort Farm
John Schlesinger was treated well in hislife time, but history has not been as kind. He won Oscars for Best Picture & Director in 1969, got nominations in 65 and 71, was still doing important work through the 1970’s, but made so many mis-steps in the 80’s and 90’s that when he made his last great feature film, it was all but ignored. He followed that up with the 2 worst films he ever made, the dreadful thriller Eye for An Eye & the miserable Madonna & Rupert Everett vehicle The Next Best Thing (it must have seemed a good idea on paper) & then he died in 2003, remembered only because headlines said “Oscar winning director dies.”
But Schlesinger was a very important part of British cinema in the 1960’s, making the brilliant swinging 60s- Darling & Billy Liar, A Kind of Loving & the beautiful Far from the Madding Crowd were brilliant, with gorgeous production values & 1st rate acting. He then moved to Hollywood & made such thoughtful films as Day of the Locust & Falcon& the Snowman. It is true that his films after that rarely rose above mediocrity, but his last great film is truly a great treasure & one of the Husband & my all tome top 10 favorites.
Technically, Cold Comfort Farm came out in 1995, but it was released in theaters & would have been Oscar eligible had it not played on television in Britain. Itreceived good reviews but not much notice. Maybe it was a matter of timing, the film was riding the wave of Jane Austen films (though it is not Austen & set in the early 30’s rather than the 19th century, but it was a British costume comedy of manners), but how much more would it get noticed today now that Ian McKellen is known the world over & not just as the guy from the interesting Richard III and that Kate Beckinsale is thought of as one of the world’s most beautiful women & not just the actress who was okay in Much Ado About Nothing.
Cold Comfort Farm is a wonderful film. Kate Beckinsale (wearing no black leather jumpsuits) portrays a city girl who goes to live with her cousins in the country & perhaps discover herself as a writer. The collection of very odd cousins include the crazed matriarch (Sheila Burell), the earthy Seth (Rufus Sewell) & enigmatic preacher father, played by Ian McKellen in a fantastic & eccentric performance. Bryan Singer told McKellen, 2 years later while making Apt Pupil, that McKellen should watch this guy’s performance in Cold Comfort to get some ideas, he didn’t realize he was talking to the same person. Add in nutty, only slightly restrained performances by the great Eileen Atkins, Julia Margolyes, Joanna Lumley, & Stephen Fry for a great mix of humor & style.
The film has a happy ending, as a Hollywood producer enters the story (in an amusing aside that perhaps would presage the Bob Balaban character in Gosford Park), but the true happiness is that Schlesinger made one more great picture, even if it was mostly ignored on impact.
Schlesinger underwent a quadruple heart bypass in 1998, before suffering a stroke in December 2000. He was taken off life support at Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs on July 24, 2003 by his life partner of over 30 years, photographer Michael Childers. Schlesinger died early the following day at the age of 77.
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