THE SERVANT 1963

It was at an early age when I became to be aware of the fact that a significant part of motion pictures' allure for me was their “magic mirror” quality. The ability to illuminate and interpret the shadow aspects of human behavior and psychology. Particularly those darker sides of our natures we’re conditioned to suppress or deny. To a shy, somewhat sheltered, gay Black teen intent on forging for himself  an independent self-image away and apart from familial and social preconceptions, movies afforded a safe, vicarious means by which I could explore complex matters of ego and identity. To be able to watch people grapple with the shifting, fluid nature of image and personality (with the added bonus of not actually having to interact with said people) felt marvelously intimate, wonderfully personal, and too good to be true.

Truth Through Distortion

Inspired by my own desire to better accept and reconcile the ofttimes conflicting sides of my own nature, it took some time, but I ultimately came to understand that, like it or not, duality and contradictions are a fundamental part of what makes us human. This personal insight led to my gravitating to (and developing an acute fondness for) movies whose themes explicitly relate to the topics of identity, personality, and duality. Decidedly dark movies, to be sure, but all of a similar breed of exploring the faceted nature of personality.

Whether those films take the form of allegorical ruminations on the dichotomy between the physical and the spiritual (Steppenwolf, Dorian Gray); hallucinatory musings on personality-theft (3 Women, Secret Ceremony); splintered-persona melodramas (Images, Black Swan); tales of psychological co-dependency (Dead Ringers, Single White Female); or psychosocial conflicts (The Maids, The Ceremony)...no matter how they’re structured, they all fascinate the hell out of me.

One movie that manages to masterfully incorporate all of the above and which rates as a genuine, five-star classic in the annals of Identity-Crisis Cinema is Joseph Losey’s mind-bending, multilayered meditation on manservants, mutuality, and malevolence: The Servant.

Dirk Bogarde as Hugo Barrett

Sarah Miles as Vera

James Fox as Tony

Wendy Craig as Susan Stewart

In The Servant, adapted by Harold Pinter from the 1949 novel by Robin Maugham, Dirk Bogarde is Hugo Barrett, the devoted and dutiful gentleman’s gentleman recently hired by aristocratic layabout Tony (James Fox). Assigned to look after the daily creature comforts of his high-born, high-maintenance master—"I’ll need, well…everything! General looking-after, you know”—Barret is live-in cook, housekeeper, dresser, barman, decorator, and nursemaid. Which is a good thing, since Tony does little but drift about imperiously giving orders in a bubble of lazy entitlement that appears to have come built-in with his inherited Georgian townhouse in London’s affluent Chelsea district maintained on an independent income he lives on while awaiting the materialization of an indistinct development job in Brazil.

Barrett brings eager-to-please efficiency and order to Tony’s world of self-absorbed disarray, both men appearing to thrive under a mutually advantageous arrangement that sees each contentedly assuming their clearly defined, socially-assigned roles respective of status and station. Considerably less pleased with this alliance is Susan (Wendy Craig), Tony’s upper-crust, frostily snobbish fiancée. She and Barrett take an immediate dislike to one another, she mocking his genteel pretensions (white serving gloves) and lowbrow contributions to the décor (“Tomorrow I’ll organize a proper spice shelf for the kitchen”), Barrett resenting her intrusion into what he has clearly come to regard as his territory.

As per the presumptive tradition of the class system, Tony and Barrett’s master/servant relationship bears the surface characteristics of polite decorum, but Losey’s sly camera—always lingering on faces a second or two after you’re sure a scene has concluded—captures the reductive (if not downright contemptuous) looks Barrett shoots Tony’s way whenever his master's eyes are averted or back is turned.

To be sure, there’s nothing unusual in an employee harboring resentment toward an employer, for Barrett has to endure the daily micro-humiliations of being condescended to and ordered about with nary a please or thank you. But there’s a faint trace of maliciousness behind Barrett’s gaze. Something hinting at a duplicitous nature which has viewers of the film asking of him “What do you want from this house?” long before Susan combatively confronts him with the same question.

Confirmation that Barrett is indeed plotting some type of intrigue comes in the form of Vera (Sarah Miles), his teenage "sister" he has persuaded Tony to take on as housekeeper. A witty tip-off that Vera is not Barrett's sister but is, in fact, his lover, appears during their cab ride from the train station. Vera places her hand a little too high on Barrett's thigh, resulting in a most perceptible rise in Barrett's suggestively fondled umbrella handle. 

As deliberate deception gives way to coerced seduction, The Servant plays it cozy as to a motive for the couple’s charade. But what’s brought into far clearer focus is the way the unfolding of these events has the effect of intensifying the repressed antagonisms and attractions already evident in the ambiguous, contradictory interrelationships of the characters. Ultimately, as the anarchy of power-plays, class conflict, and sexual tension come to overthrow the structured formality of the film’s early scenes, the lives of Tony and Barrett become inextricably intertwined, their personalities undergoing a transformation (or unmasking) that finds roles reversed and the initial power dynamic upended.

Inequity of Power

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS FILM

When the arts are controlled by the mainstream, marginalized artists are inevitably compelled to resort to coding when expressing the truth of their reality. Queer coding permeates the plays of Tennessee Williams and remain an inextricable characteristic of the works of D.H. Lawrence. In a similar vein, the dualism dramatized in The Servant reflects the insider/outsider existence of its gay author (when homosexuality was illegal), Robin Maugham.

Tony and Barrett sexually commune with one another through Vera

Prolific novelist Robin Maugham (the openly gay nephew of the deeply-closeted writer Somerset Maugham), was a war hero, political diplomat, and lawyer who scandalized his aristocratic family with the homoerotic themes of his work. Keenly aware (some biographers would say tortured) of the social duplicity that would have him afforded unfettered access to privileges due to his class, yet simultaneously denied basic freedoms due to his sexuality; the themes of Maugham’s work often dealt with characters struggling with opposing natures and splintered identities.

One of the most commented-upon details about The Servant—rumored to be a heterosexualized telling of an autobiographically inspired, near-blackmail experience Maugham had with one of his own servants—is the assertively ambiguous nature of Barrett and Tony’s relationship. 

I've not read the source novel upon which Losey's film is based (Maugham has been quoted as not being very fond of Pinter's adaptation), but it does a marvelous job of dramatizing the unique two-sided existence Maugham must have lived as a member of England’s aristocracy encouraged by family and propriety to keep an essential part of his personal life hidden.

In this way, The Servant shares the twinning quality found in the works of Albee, Inge, and the aforementioned Williams. On the surface, their works are about one thing (in this instance, a class conflict drama about an ordered life thrown into chaos by the intrusion of a wily servant), yet at the same time, they are transmitting an entirely different message on a wavelength intended for those in the know. The Servant's second, subliminal theme plays as a metaphor for the world of pretense, image, desire, and detection that defined homosexual existence at the time. It's a fear familiar to any individual feeling as though they must conceal their true nature from others: the fear that the potential intimacy and bonding with another holds with it the possibility for exposure and exploitation, resulting in that person having power over you.

THE STUFF OF FANTASY

Three-time Oscar-nominated Cinematographer Douglas Slocombe (Raiders of the Lost Ark, Julia, and Travels with My Aunt) won UK’s BAFTA award for creating what is a truly striking visual style for The Servant. Brazenly contemporary, the look is part British neorealism, borderline expressionistic, and hovering somewhere around gothic surrealism. Slocomb’s painterly compositions and expressive B&W cinematography create an atmosphere of menace and conflict with every frame.

Underscoring themes of claustrophobia and entrapment, Tony's townhouse is used as an active character in the film. Frequently, individuals are framed in ways emphasizing their emotional imprisonment. In this shot, a distraught Tony appears hemmed in by both the bars of the staircase and the frame of Vera's bed. That he is surrounded by her muscleman pinups hint that perhaps it's not Vera he's really pining for.

As Tony and Barrett grow more interdependent, the house itself
seems to get smaller...the walls and ceiling closing in on them. 

Convex mirrors (something of a staple in Pinter films)... do they reflect, distort, or reveal?

Throughout The Servant, Barrett...figuratively or literally...
always comes between Susan and Tony

PERFORMANCES

I’m not particularly familiar with the films of Dirk Bogarde’s matinee idol period (although I did catch one of his “Doctor" series films, about which the only thing I remember is thinking how much he resembled a young Desi Arnaz), so I was never able to fully appreciate the impact of his transformation from heartthrob to serious actor via films like The Servant and Victim (1961). Knowing Bogarde only as the intensely compelling dramatic actor giving memorable performances in such superb films as Despair (1978), The Damned (1969), Our Mother’s House (1967), Darling (1965), and Death in Venice (1971), it’s really saying something that I consider his performance in The Servant to be his best. 

Sarah Miles' Vera exudes a brand of sexy that can best be summed up as of guileless guile 

Playing a difficult-to-read character who calculatingly exploits his all-things-to-all people charm, I think Bogarde registers so persuasively in The Servant because at all times it feels as if the actor is navigating familiar territory. Indeed, in the 2008 book “Ever, Dirk: The Bogarde Letters” a note from Bogarde expresses the sentiment that while he would like very much to be, in real-life, more like the character he played in I Could Go On Singing (1963), he laments that he’s “Actually nearer Barret in ‘The Servant,’ which is why it was so easy to do him…people don’t realize.”

Never an actor renowned for his accessibility, Bogarde is the master of the side-eye, knows his way around a double-entendre, and is uncommonly skilled in exposing the art of concealment. The same could be said of Bogarde both onscreen and off. The King of Denial, Bogarde remained closeted his entire life in spite of the fact many were aware that the husband of actress Glynnis Johns left her for Bogarde and went on to live with him as his "manager" for 40 years.
One of the delights of The Servant is marveling in Bogarde’s depiction of Barrett’s effortless slides in and out of his Manchester accent, and contrasting his “on the job” fussiness with his louche demeanor when “off the clock.”

Tony: (Interview question) Do you drink beer?
Barrett: (Primly) No, sir.

Like Anthony Perkins, that other '50s closeted screen star/onetime teen pin-up whose guarded image was changed (arguably, not always for the better) on the strength of a single role, Dirk Bogarde turned equivocality into an acting style. The Servant was the second of five films Bogarde would make with Joseph Losey.

"I can still think of things that will please you, can't I?"

As embodied by the performance of James Fox (granted an "introducing" credit in the film) the morally-ambivalent Tony also carries about him a provocative air of sexual ambiguity. A characteristic of the slight, blond, actor which would be mined to similar effect in David Cammell and Nicolas Roeg's brilliant identity-switch head trip Performance (1970). Fox is absolutely splendid as the self-indulgent idler who falls under the corruptive sway of his Machiavellian servant, displaying a considerable range of emotional vulnerability as he morphs from patrician parvenu to pitiable prisoner. Both Fox and Bogarde deservedly won BAFTA awards for their performances (Most Promising Newcomer and Best Actor, respectively).

Although I think I’m not meant to, I like the character of Susan a great deal. At least the side of her that reminds me of Leroy in The Bad Seed. She's the one character not taken in by Barrett's obsequious fakery (precisely why he sees her as a threat) and doesn’t mince words about it. In a film populated with weak males, Susan may be an insufferable snob with questionable aesthetics, but her questioning candor is the closest thing to principle in Pinter's world. Wendy Craig's performance has such intelligence and depth, she makes Susan an unexpectedly affecting player in this power-play drama.

THE STUFF OF DREAMS

I loved The Servant the first time I ever saw it, an opinion only reinforced by repeat viewings. To me, it stands as the masterpiece achievement of Losey and Pinter’s three collaborations: Accident (1967) and The Go-Between (1971) complete the set. 

The Servant explores the dysfunction, hypocrisy, and false values behind master-servant, upper-class/working-class roles, and power inequities. Late in the film, this exchange occurs:

“Don’t forget your place, Barrett. You’re nothing but a servant in this house.”

“Servant? I’m nobody’s servant! Who furnished the whole place for you? Who painted it for you? Who does the cooking? Who washes your pants? Who cleans the bath out after you? I do! I run the whole bloody place and what do I get out of it? Nothing!”

And there you have the crucial nugget of truth that festers within the core of social class hostility; Barrett’s ruinous subversion is possible because Tony and his kind don’t really know how to “do” anything (a fact made embarrassingly explicit a while back when the world looked on as a certain reviled 72-year-old public figure demonstrated a lack of familiarity with how umbrellas work).

"A  weekend in the county. So inactive, that one has to lie down." - Stephen Sondheim
Tony and Susan pay a visit to Lord and Lady Mounset ( Richard Vernon and Catherine Lacey)

The morally-soft, easily-corrupted classes like to see themselves as the builders, but their desultory existences prepare them for nothing. Least of all survival. We encounter it in daily headlines—the wealthy, even in a system rigged in their favor, find it necessary to resort to fraud and swindles to win elections or get their children into universities. Forced, out of necessity to learn to look after themselves, it is the working classes, the servants, who are the builders, the survivors, and the only ones possessing actual skills.

The saying goes, "If you don’t have a seat at the table, you’re probably on the menu." The Servant suggests that come the day the dismissed and disregarded claim their place at the table, the bill of fare is likely to be all those who have erroneously assumed that to be waited on by another human being is their birthright.

BONUS MATERIAL:

Harold Pinter, Nobel Prize-winning author, playwright, and screenwriter of The Servant makes a brief appearance in a terrific scene that takes place in a posh restaurant where various couples engage in enigmatic games of one-upmanship and subtle power plays. (That's him in the center with actress Ann Firbank of One of Those Things.)  Pinter also wrote the lyrics to composer John Dankworth's (Darling) song "All Gone," sung by Cleo Laine on the soundtrack to The Servant.  

Copyright © Ken Anderson 2009 - 2019