All Hail The Internationalists! - Starting Out At The New European
In May 2022, it was five years since I'd began writing for The New European. Here's the article in question!
Ask a geographer and they’ll tell you that the distance between the US and Europe is around 3,000 miles. Ask anyone with an interest in current affairs the same question and the chances are they’ll say that the New and Old Worlds are so far apart right now, the distance would be better measured in light years than kilometres.
But while in these days of Donald Trump the continents appear to be drifting further away with each passing minute, now’s as good a time as any to remember that Europe’s film history is one that’s been greatly enriched by people who swapped life on one side of the Atlantic for the other.
Of course, it hadn’t been the career dream of Joseph Losey to abandon Hollywood for the Home Counties. In Italy to promote The Prowler in 1951, Losey was summoned to Washington to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee to answer questions about his leftist leanings. Since he wasn’t a stranger to either skilful moviemaking or social courage, Losey promptly gave Joe McCarthy the finger and made for England. There, he created a body of work to rival any post-war director.
It was in collaboration with playwright-cum-screenwriter Harold Pinter that Losey fashioned his most important work. The Servant, The Go-Between, Accident - all films we’d be poorer without and all films it’s hard to imagine Losey making had he remained in America. The Servant in particular is such a transgressive work that it still retains the ability to trouble and repulse – it’s best enjoyed on a double-bill with Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg’s equally daring Performance.
“But didn’t Joseph Losey make crap like Modesty Blaise and Boom?” the eagle-eyed cineaste cries. Well, yes, not everything the great man touched in Great Britain turned to gold. If it’s the depth of Losey’s character and talent you’re interested in, you need only consider what he did when the quality work dried up. For while many a homeless artist would have been quite happy to just keep on cashing the cheques, Losey popped across the Channel and made Mr Klein, a picture Repo Man director Alex Cox has described as “among the greatest European movies ever made.”
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