165. Self-exiled US director Joseph Losey’s British masterpiece “Accident” (1967): Atrophy and unhappiness of the educated upper crust
A lthough he was an American filmmaker from Wisconsin state hounded by the infamous “McCarthy” Committee (House Un-American Activities Committee) set up to weed out Leftist sympathisers in Hollywood, most filmgoers today tend to associate Joseph Losey with British cinema than American/Hollywood cinema. Losey had in his early career worked with the obviously Leftist playwright Bertolt Brecht in Germany. Sensing apathy in the US after being asked to appear before the “McCarthy committee,” Losey quickly chose to live in the UK rather than “name names” at the socialist witch-hunt. America’s loss was Britain’s gain. Unfortunately, in England, some of Losey’s works were far ahead of its time, especially his three movies made in collaboration with the Nobel Prize winning screenplay-writer Harold Pinter in the evening of Losey’s career. Just as the Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Kieslowski bloomed in his final years as a filmmaker following his association with screenplay-writer and lawyer-po...