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Birtwhistle’s unique score for Connery’s bravest movie: The Offence
Just rewatched this underappreciated 1973 Sean Connery movie, picked by Connery himself as the price to the studio of agreeing to keep on playing Bond, and directed by the great Sidney Lumet. It’s a gritty, almost experimental take on a stage play, the story of a British cop with what we would now recognise as PTSD in an intense interview-room confrontation with a suspected paedophile. Connery’s bravery in taking on such a left field project, and unsympathetic protagonist at the height of his Bond fame was fully justified by what I would argue was probably his best ever performance.
Just as radical was the soundtrack, famed composer Harrison Birtwhistle’s only electro-acoustic score, realised with the help of Peter Zinoviev of VCS3 fame. It involved recording various acoustic sketches, choral fragments, found sounds and so on, and then extensively manipulating them with filters, and, my personal favourite, tape varispeed. In the accompanying DVD interview, Birtwhistle praises the fact that he was allowed total free rein to develop the score, and notes how slowing things down allows a mysterious ‘grain’ in the sound to manifest, an observation I can totally agree with.
The movie is a bleak, uncompromising watch, set in a grim, rainy concrete new town where the very architecture, exteriors and interiors alike seem to vibrate with blank hostility. Excellent performances from everyone in the small cast (including Trevor Howard!) but Connery and Ian Bannen totally nail it as cop and suspect, and the - dare I say it? - almost dark ambient score does much to set that mood. See what you think. Highly recommended.
Comments
Oooh I'll need to look out for that one!
It’s on Tubi! I will watch this tonight.
I’ll be interested to hear what you think of it.
Thanks for that, I’ll have to watch it too. I’m aware of it, but have never seen it.
Wow what a film and score from my country’s beloved son. This and - The Hill, also directed by Lumet, bloody brilliant
@barabajagal : absolutely agree with you on The Hill too. (Also featuring Ian Bannen). But this edges it for me because although The Hill is gritty, it still casts Connery more or less in hero mould. In The Offence he dares not only to be unlikeable but also, in critical ways, no spoilers for those who haven’t seen it yet, weak. Quite a big decision for a legit movie star ‘tough guy’ to make. I love it when ‘stars’ go against the grain of their fanbase expectations. Jim Carey in The Cable Guy; Robin Williams in One Hour Photo…
The soundtrack surprised me more than anything, and a close second is the fact it was directed by Sidney Lumet.
Every scene was so darkly lit (even the daytime scenes were heavily overcast), and so many of the sets were small and claustrophobic. It really felt as a viewer like I was always in close proximity to the events.
Connery was so good as portraying someone who was alternately breaking apart then a complete asshole. I really don’t think the build up to killing a suspect would have worked so well if it was linear and not so chopped up - his confused and disjointed list of case details to his wife really made me think it was how it must have been churning around in the character’s brain. Not only did Connery take on a role that was out of his normal type of role, but he really threw himself into it.
One disturbing thing I thought at the end is that we bever really get any confirmation that the suspect was actually guilty…
@michael_m : I think that ambiguity is central. It doesn’t let the cop, or us, off the hook, with an easy excuse of ‘the bastard had it coming’. And you’re dead right about the claustrophobia of it all. Always dark or raining. Or dark and raining… Those blank shots of concrete buildings, underpasses, the oddly empty townscapes, all roads and wasteland, never pubs and shops. Alien spaces which erase or dwarf the few human figures in any frame. Then lots of tight closeups, over the shoulder shots, putting us the audience right into it, implicating us… think of the way the finding of the girl is shot, and Connery’s reaction to the arrival of his colleagues. Or back at the nick, Connery always isolated in the scene, cornered in the room like a dangerous wild animal; barely interacting with his colleagues, or his wife, even. Then those quick impressionistic scenes of remembered horror, anticipating David Fincher’s similar trick in Seven by several decades… From the director who brought us 12 Angry Men, another masterpiece of claustrophobia,none of this was accidental.
Yes, and I wasn’t even sure if it was ambiguity of guilt - maybe just a build up of circumstances and Connery’s character’s ability to instinctively see guilt having been greatly eroded due to his barely contained breakdown.
12 Angry Men was a great film too, and another enclosed space too, but in that case Lumet made us feel like we were baking in a closed room, and every scene had something that reminded us of how hot and miserable everyone was. Lumet’s attention to detail and being really consistent with it has rarely been matched by other directors.
BTW, if you like Robin Williams in non-comedy roles in the vein of One Hour Photo, you should check out Insomnia, which also has a good performance from Al Pacino.
Yup, saw it, but tbh I much preferred the original Norwegian version. Much steelier.
Haven’t seen it, but I probably should.
This sounds exactly like the type of stuff that would have made an impression on you. It sounds like it comes out of a similar world as Stockhausen.
I watched the first two acts of The Offense a few months ago. Then it rolled off my service before I could finish it. I hate when that happens. But yeah, very interesting but kind of disturbing and not particularly enjoyable movie.
Like bitter medicine. Good for you, but best swallowed in one go
So that’s what a Birtwhistle sounds like! Thx for the tip. Love Connery and will watch this soon. Have a great weekend, friend.