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A Dark Exilic Vision of 1960s Britain: Gothic Horror and Film Noir Pervading Losey and Pinter's The Servant
- JCMS: Journal of Cinema and Media Studies
- University of Texas Press
- Volume 58, Number 3, Spring 2019
- pp. 93-117
- 10.1353/cj.2019.0024
- Article
- Additional Information
Abstract:
This article argues that the "exilic vision" of director Joseph Losey and screenwriter Harold Pinter is best demonstrated in The Servant (1963). The filmmakers' shared exilic perspective on British culture (resulting from their outsider backgrounds as a Hollywood blacklist victim and a working-class British Jew, respectively) created an apocalyptic film, which subversively employs the narrative conventions and visual styles of gothic horror and film noir to critique conservative British fears of impending social, sexual, and political upheavals during the early 1960s.