JamesHitchcock

"Blunt" is one of a number of plays inspired by the notorious "Cambridge Five" who acted as spies for the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Others include Julian Mitchell's stage play "Another Country", later made into a film, Alan Bennett's "An Englishman Abroad" and "A Question of Attribution", and Dennis Potter's "Traitor". What shocked British society most about the spy ring was not so much the treachery of its members as the fact that most of them were from well-off Establishment families and educated at the country's most prestigious schools. (Working-class spies such as John Vassall, Melita Norwood and the members of the Portland spy ring never achieved the same notoriety. John Cairncross, the "fifth man" in the Cambridge spy ring, has never attracted quite the same attention as his colleagues, partly because he was not exposed until the Cold War was virtually over, but also because he, unlike them, came from a working-class background and was educated at a grammar school).

The title character, Anthony Blunt, was the "fourth man" in the ring. He confessed his treachery to MI5 in 1964 in exchange for immunity from prosecution, but was not publicly exposed as a spy until 1979. Despite his Communist sympathies, which he never disavowed, he remained an Establishment figure all his life. He was a prominent art historian and in 1945 was made Surveyor of the King's Pictures, which allowed him to become a friend and confidant of members of the Royal family. He was made a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order, but was stripped of this honour after his role as a spy was exposed.

This play, broadcast as part of the BBC's "Screen Two" series, does not deal with the whole of Blunt's career. It concentrates on the events of 1951 and the part played by Blunt in the defection of two other members of the ring, Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean, to the Soviet Union. The original plan, in fact, was that only Maclean should defect; his Soviet handlers knew that he was under suspicion and feared that, as a notoriously indiscreet alcoholic, he would not be able to withstand interrogation. In the event, however, Burgess decided to follow him, worried that he too might come under investigation.

Besides Blunt, the major characters are Burgess and Goronwy Rees, an academic who had been a close associate of the "Five" during their Cambridge days. Maclean plays a lesser role and Kim Philby, the "third man", is referred to but never appears. As for Cairncross, he is never mentioned; his role in the spy ring did not become public knowledge until 1990, three years after the play was broadcast.

Blunt is played by Ian Richardson (who bore a certain physical resemblance to the real Blunt) and Burgess by Anthony Hopkins. The two are sharply contrasting characters. Hopkins portrays Burgess as flamboyant and outgoing, but as indiscreet and hard-drinking as Maclean, idealistically drawn to Communism but temperamentally totally unsuited to the life of a spy. Richardson's Blunt, by contrast, is the ideal spy- cold, discreet, reserved, and icily self-controlled.

Michael Williams's Rees finds himself caught in a difficult position. A Communist sympathiser in his youth, he has since moved politically to the right and has become known as an anti-Communist intellectual. He insists that he was never involved in espionage himself, but is well aware of the activities of his associates. He knows that he should denounce them to the authorities, but his continuing friendship with Blunt and Burgess makes him unwilling to take such a step.

All three leading actors play their roles well, yet overall I found that the film was too talky and static. I felt that the concentration on one episode was too limiting, and would have preferred it if writer Robin Chapman had dealt with other parts of Blunt's life, especially his youth at Cambridge and his eventual exposure as a spy in 1979. Richardson's potrayal of Blunt as an emotionless cold fish was, apparently, historically accurate- a school contemporary described him as having "too much ink in his veins" and belonging to "a world of rather prissy, cold-blooded, academic puritanism". (It is revealing that the artist he revered more than any other was the cold, reserved and intellectual Nicolas Poussin). Even so, this does not make for a very interesting film. It is easy to see how the emotional, impulsive Burgess could have committed himself to Communism out of youthful idealism. Blunt, however, remains an enigma, one that this film does little to solve. 6/10.

"Sunday Bloody Sunday" is the story of a love triangle involving two men and a woman. That might not seem like anything out of the ordinary, but what is different about this film is that the triangle is a bisexual one. (A "biangle", if you like). Bob Elkin, a young artist, is simultaneously in relationships with Daniel Hirsh, a gay, middle-aged Jewish doctor, and with Alex Greville, a divorced female recruitment consultant. Daniel and Alex, who know each other through a mutual friendship with a family called the Hodsons, are both aware of Bob's relationship with the other, and both accept the situation, if somewhat reluctantly. (The director John Schlesinger, himself both gay and Jewish, said that Daniel was in some respects a self-portrait).

And that's really all the plot there is. This is not the sort of film where anything very much happens. It is the sort of film where people sit around in comfortable, bohemian, middle-class suburban London drawing-rooms talking about their emotional problems rather than actually doing anything. The only moment of action comes when the Hodson's dog is killed in a road accident and their young daughter narrowly escapes injury.

When the film came out in 1971 it was not a great box-office success. It did well in areas inhabited by comfortable, bohemian, middle-class suburban Londoners and their American counterparts, who doubtless saw the characters as their soul-mates, but flopped everywhere else. The critics, however, loved it, and it was nominated for four Oscars, including "Best Director" for Schlesinger and "Best Actor" and "Best Actress" for its stars Peter Finch and Glenda Jackson. It did even better at the BAFTAs where it won in all three equivalent categories and also took "Best Film".

The film's bisexual theme was, of course, genuinely groundbreaking in the early seventies. Male homosexuality had only been legalised three years earlier in Britain, and was still illegal in most American states; only a few years earlier a film dealing with a theme like this would have been unthinkable in both the British and American cinemas. By praising the film, therefore, the critics got a chance to show their support both for a liberal social agenda, the right to engage in same-sex relationships, as well as a liberal artistic one, the right to depict such relationships in the cinema. I suspect that if the film had revolved around a conventional heterosexual love triangle, with both Daniel and Bob in a sexual relationship with Alex but not with each other, it would not have attracted nearly so much critical acclaim.

Well, that was then and this is now. In 2025 depictions of gay relationships are no longer automatically regarded as something daring or groundbreaking, and even those of us who take a liberal line on gay rights do not feel obliged to like a film merely because it depicts such a relationship. And "Sunday Bloody Sunday" is frankly rather dull, impeccably politically liberal though it may be. Finch and Jackson, both talented stars, play their parts well, but even they cannot rescue this talky, long-winded film from sinking into boredom. Those who acclaim this as Finch's greatest achievement have presumably never seen "Network" or, for that matter, his earlier collaboration with Schlesinger, "Far from the Madding Crowd". 4/10.

"Awakenings" is based upon the non-fiction book by Oliver Sacks; the main character Dr. Malcolm Sayer, a neurologist working in a New York hospital, is a fictional version of Sacks. The action takes place in the late 1960s. Among Sayer's patients are a number of catatonic victims of an epidemic of encephalitis in the 1920s. In contrast to many of his colleagues, who consider these patients to be virtually brain-dead, Sayer believes that they have a mental life of their own, although they are unable to communicate with the outside world. When an experimental drug becomes available, Sayer administers it to his patients, with remarkable effect as they begin to "awaken" from their catatonic state. The "awakened" patients, however, need to adjust to life in a world which is unfamiliar to them.

I first saw the film, on television, a few days ago, and was surprised that I had not seen it before, as it stars two actors I have long admired, Robert De Niro and Robin Williams, a particular favourite of mine. (Perhaps the reason was the year when it came out; 1990 was a difficult time in my life when cinema-going was not perhaps my first priority). Williams had acquired a reputation for playing brash, outgoing characters like the DJ Adrian Cronauer in "Good Morning, Vietnam!" or the inspirational teacher John Keating in "Dead Poets' Society". Williams was a comedian before becoming an actor, and there is something of the clown about both Cronauer and Keating, although they are perfectly capable of being serious when necessary. Here his Dr. Sayer is rather different, a quiet, diffident, although deeply humane and caring, man. There is nothing of the clown about him. Like Cronauer and Keating, however, he is willing to challenge the establishment and the received medical opinion which holds that nothing can be done to help his patients. This is one of many fine performances from Williams.

De Niro's performance is perhaps even better. He plays Leonard Lowe, one of Sayer's patients. For much of the first half of the film Leonard is in a catatonic state, unable to express himself except by gestures, grimaces and cries which are interpreted by those around him as mere reflex actions. After his "awakening", however, Leonard reveals himself as a sensitive and intelligent person, although he finds it difficult to adapt, as a middle-aged man, to a world he has not known since he was a boy and which has changed immeasurably in the meantime. De Niro was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor. (Williams was nominated for a Golden Globe but not an Oscar). De Niro did not win; perhaps the Academy were becoming sensitive to suggestions that too many "Best Actor" and "Best Actress" awards were going to actors for portraying people with some sort of disability. (Marlee Matlin in "Children of a Lesser God", Dustin Hoffman in "Rain Man", Daniel Day Lewis in "My Left Foot"). In the end the Oscar went to Jeremy Irons for his cold, emotionless and one-dimensional portrayal of Claus von Bulow in "Reversal of Fortune", a decision I have always found incomprehensible. My vote for "Best Actor"in 1990 would have gone to Kevin Costner for "Dances with Wolves", but De Niro would also have been a worthy winner. Another excellent performance comes from Ruth Gordon as Leonard's elderly mother.

1990 may not have been a good year for me, but it was certainly a good one for the cinema- the year of "Dances with Wolves", "Edward Scissorhands", "Goodfellas" and "Memphis Belle". I am glad I have now seen "Awakenings"- another fine film from a fine year, and a sensitive, intelligent and emotionally moving human story. 8/10.