The Go-Between (1971) - Joseph Losey's Coming-Of-Age Masterpiece

 Seen on TCM, presented by Todd Haynes as the first-parter of a double-feature with Sunday, Bloody Sunday (1971)

In this 1971 British film from blacklisted director Joseph Losey, Leo, a young boy of 12, is sent to a country estate for the summer. His father has passed away and perhaps he's sent so as not to be a burden to his mother. The family that welcomes him are part of that last bastion of aristocracy and old money, which existed in the late 1800s in England and likely still exists to this day. Leo is from a more modest background. If you're aware of Losey's other films, you'll know class often plays a role and this film is no different. 

He quickly becomes very fond of the family's daughter Marian, played by Julie Christie, who is the only one who really pays him any attention. The other adults address him in that awkward way some have with children, asking over and over whether he's enjoying the summer. His interest in Mariam is admirative; he is in the presence of a beautiful young woman, at the peak of her powers. She exudes an aura a young boy can discern, but likely not fully comprehend. Simultaneously, she plays a motherly role to him, bandaging his knee and fluffing his hair. At twelve years old, Leo is at a confusing crossroads between boyhood and his teenage years, and his feelings for Marian are mixed as well. 

Ignored by the other adults and therefore free to roam at will, he becomes the messenger (the "go-between") for Marian and a nearby farmer named Ted Burgess, played by Alan Bates. It's evident that Marian and Ted are carrying on an illicit love affair, complicated by their class difference and Marian's upcoming engagement to Hugh Trimingham, a viscount. It's not necessarily obvious to the 12-year old Leo however. The film is a romantic drama, but it's even more of a coming-of-age story, where Leo enters this complex world of adults without having all the information to make sense of it. Furthermore, he's embroiled in a real secret, his role and the attention he gets from it is a source of joy to him for much of the film, but the stakes are greater than he may realize. At one point, Lord Trimingham refers to him as Mercury, "the messenger of the Gods", that's how it must feel to Leo, how adults may appear as Gods to children, all-knowing of the world's mysterious ways. Whenever he visits Ted to deliver a letter, the frame of the image is almost always obstructed by various objects. He's entering the world of the partially comprehensible. Another theme of the film is the clash between the idyllic setting of the last summer of childhood at this beautiful estate and the dramatic events unfolding there. Michel Legrand's eerie theme foreshadows this, with its stop-start dissonant notes, that are then followed by beautiful and lively piano music. In this dreamily shot film, things are not as airy and light as they seem.

 

Ted becomes a father figure to Leo through their meetings, and Leo even badgers him about the birds and the bees, trying to untangle his own confused attraction to Marian. Leo and Ted are from a similar class background; they are both accepted by the richer people at the estate, but subtly shunned as well (Leo hears whispers of the lesser means of his family when listening at a door, Ted is barred from marrying Marian, but is also more perniciously dubbed a savage for his strength at cricket). As the summer progresses, Leo begins to learn more and more about the complicated dynamics of the world of adults and begins to resent his own role in Marian's affair, torn by his burgeoning moral sense, his consideration for the aloof but amiable Lord Trimingham, and his own jealousy for Marian's lovers. Ultimately, the ending will be tragic; Marian and Ted flew too close to the sun, young love in its passion thought it could ignore the reality of the world, its obligations, its classes, its wars, but ultimately it could not. It all unravels and Leo plays a role in that unraveling despite himself. At many times during the film, we see a person, played by Michael Redgrave, we later learn is an older Leo, who is still haunted by the events of that summer. Intriguingly enough, he is teased for being a young magician early in the film, having thrown a curse on two of his fellow schoolboys. When he catches Mariam and Ted having sex, in a burst of anger, he throws a curse on her. Knowing how the story then ends, Leo may still feel guilty for that, in that strange way a person abstractedly wishing ill of someone may then feel responsible when it actually happens, even though the two rationally cannot be connected.