Film about love and loss

Christopher Isherwood (1901–1986) is a famous American writer. We know not so much his texts as films created according to his works, more precisely, based on his works. First of all, it is “Cabaret” (“Cabaret”, 1972, in our box office since 1988), as well as “Lonely Man” (“A Single Man”, 2009, at the box office since 2010). Of course, I saw a “cabaret”; As for the A Single Man, this is my favorite film-I watched it four times and always with the feeling that I had missed something.

At the same time, I hardly read the texts of Isherwood ...

In fact, those who have read a significant literary text are most often not satisfied with its adaptation-if only because the movie requires an action embodied in the visible plot, and in the text-source the plot may not be reduced to anything apparently. After all, it is unrealistic to try “according to Tolstoy” to remove the first Ball of Natasha Rostova: in the text of the novel, the contrast of the ball and the spiritual state of the heroine was transferred by the phrase “... the sounds of Polish, which lasted quite a long time, have already begun to sound sadly - a memory in Natasha’s ears”.

“A single man” is a film about love and death, about the loss of the meaning of life.

And just as it is impossible to take the sound of a waltz on the film, as Natasha begins to hear it, it is hardly possible to show the spiritual devastation of the hero after the death of a loved one. The director’s skill is to immerse the viewer into a state close to this devastation, thereby causing our unconditional sympathy.

Tom Ford, who succeeded, is the famous clothing designer; “A Single Man” is his first film. A lonely man named George is played by Colin Fet. The task of the actor here is to reveal the spiritual screening that the hero is experiencing, with the death of a friend, who has lost himself.

The viewer does not immediately realize that when George with the usual punctuality for him plans his future life, he actually plans his departure from life.

Here George gives students another lecture, puts his own affairs in the bank, visits an old friend - they have dinner, talk lively and even dance ... The viewer already realized that all this is the rituals familiar to the hero, the momentary acts of psychological protection, and authenticity is the memories of the dead Jim, about his voice, smile. And then I forget that this is just a movie ...

Rebekah Frumkin

Detailed Analysis of the film, see: offscreen.com/view/single_man