• The Servant

6/28/20 (Sun), Tokyo

Harold Pinter’s 1963 film script portrays a manservant (a superb Dirk Bogarde) who insinuates his way into the home of an apathetic upper-class gentleman (Tony Fox) and proceeds to turn the tables, the new guard displacing the old. It’s a familiar Pinter setup, unrealistic by any standards other than Pinter’s own plays. Pinter was already a highly bankable playwright at the time and did not appreciably change his cryptic theater-of-the-absurd style for the screen. Still, it’s done with great flair. The director of what seems a quintessentially British work is in fact an American, Joseph Losey, who was blacklisted in Hollywood in the McCarthy era and made his name in Europe. This was the first of several acclaimed films he made with Pinter.

The gentleman, Tony, appears to have inherited the trappings of class without the actual class, nor does he have the drive to further his lot beyond idle talk of building cities in the Brazilian jungles for Asian immigrants. He seems to take on a manservant simply because it’s the thing a gentleman does, and his relationship with his fiancée Susan (Wendy Craig) appears much the same. The manservant, Barrett, arrives for his interview to find the front door open and the master drunkenly asleep, revealing to him right away the master’s weakness. He gradually makes himself indispensable by feeding on Tony’s ego and insecurities. His main obstacle is the fiancée, who is suspicious of Barrett’s motives and does her best to undercut him by flaunting her position. As she commands him to change the decor, light her cigarette and such, he patiently accepts, biding his time. The back-and-forth between them is priceless.

Unfortunately for her, Barrett lives in the home and she doesn’t, giving him the advantage in their tug-of-war. He gets permission to provide a room to his “sister” Vera (Sarah Miles, excellent), who, once ensconced in the home, turns out to be something else entirely. Barrett uses the freewheeling woman to ensnare the hapless Tony, who thus becomes trapped by his own lethargy – the sex with the working-class woman is humiliating to his own self-worth and threatens his impending marriage. He can’t admit the act to himself anymore than he can to his fiancée. His self-disgust deepens when he finds Barrett in bed with the same woman and throws them out in despair. Later, after a (rather too convenient) chance encounter at a bar, he agrees to take the servant back. Bad move. 

Tony’s upbringing, privilege and lazy assumption of his own superiority has left him unprepared for the real world, making him a sitting duck for the wily Barrett. The enervated Tony is either unwilling or unable to extricate himself from what becomes an increasingly masochistic existence: a bizarre hide-and-seek game has Barrett ominously calling out the name of the terrified Tony and threatening to reveal his “secret” as Tony cowers in his hiding place, and a ball game between the men on the stairs sees the assertive Barrett take total command. While Barrett remains a servant to the very end, the power balance has decisively crumbled. Susan is ultimately ejected, and Barrett has triumphed.

Pinter typically does not make clear how Barrett just happened to be assigned to this very vulnerable home; as noted, the door was open and unattended when he arrived, suggesting the ease with which he would ultimately be taking charge. Just a matter of luck, I guess. Tony’s fortuitous meeting with Barrett in the bar also seemed contrived. I guess we have to accept this as the price for making the story work. I’m not so sure about the superfluous restaurant scene with the tidbits of unrelated dialogue from various walk-ons (including Pinter himself). Seems that could be excised.

The director employs a jagged style with unusual angles and some highly memorable imagery, like the suggestive positioning of Barrett hovering over the sleeping Tony at their first encounter, Vera’s seduction of Tony (great use of a swivel chair), Barrett’s shadow on the wall when discovered in flagrante delicto, and the expressionist view of a trembling Tony seen through a semi-transparent shower curtain. I also enjoyed the initial scene of Barrett walking to the interview in front of a shop named Thomas Crapper – I have to assume that was intentional. Douglas Slocombe’s cinematography is eerie and masterful. The camera takes in lots of staircases and mirrors, which I’m sure is very symbolic, and focuses curiously on several seemingly trivial objects along the way. The detailed Baroque-like settings make an interesting contrast with Pinter’s spare dialogue. 

Notable as well is the jazzy soundtrack by John Dankworth, including his wife Cleo Laine’s haunting renditions of the song “All Gone” (lyrics by Pinter) in varied arrangements that turn an ostensible love song into something quite different:

Can’t love without you,

Must love without you… alone

Don’t stay to see me

Turn from your arms

Leave it alone

It’s all gone

Give me my death

Close my mouth

Give me my breath

Close my mouth

The film has unmistakable gay overtones in the bond between the nominal master and servant, whose relationship veers toward psychological S&M. There are some more overt suggestions in places, such as the photos of the bodybuilders on the wall over Barrett’s bed and his suggestion to one woman to bring her husband to the next orgy. More pointedly, Vera could easily be swapped for a man without much change in the dialogue, which would have added a new dynamic. That might have been a step too far for the times, and Bogarde, who played a gay barrister in his breakout role in Victim just two years earlier (bravely, it should be said, as homosexuality was still illegal at the time and the actor, we now know, was secretly gay), may have preferred to leave things ambiguous. Pinter may have in any case wanted to keep the focus on the power dynamic between the men and, as master of the unspoken, is never one to give too much away. (The original novel is reportedly more emphatically gay, reflecting the experience of its author.) As a result, the film is homoerotic rather than outright gay, though it doesn’t take too much imagination to see what might have been. I fully expect that to be changed if this is ever dramatized for the stage.

The movie on the surface brings to mind the Korean Oscar winner Parasite, another film dealing with the class system. But that film is a farce that wears its social commentary on its sleeve. The Servant goes beyond the obvious into something much deeper and more cutting. A Pinter classic.