Bleeding Cool’s Brighton Rock Irony

A couple of weeks ago, just ahead of the UK DVD and Blu-ray blah blah release of Brighton Rock, I was offered a chance to speak to its writer-director, Rowan Joffe. Unfortunately, his only availability for interview coincided with a screening I was already commited to.

But there was some wriggle room, and it was soon set: Joffe would call about thirty minutes before the screening would begin, and I’d manage to squeeze in our chat before having to take my seat (for a film I’ve pretty much already forgotten). I was happy about this working out because Brighton Rock was very interesting, and I had a number of sincere questions.

But it all went wrong.

If you know Brighton Rock, either from Joffe’s film, from the Boulting Bros.’ film or from Graham Greene’s original novel, you’ll recall a key scene in which Pinkie, a young thug spiralling out of control, into the Brighton gangland scene and his own damnation, uses a novelty recording booth on Brighton Pier to cut a record for Rose, the girl who thinks she loves him, and he loves her. While she watches on from outside, through the glass, he leaves a rather more truthful message, something she’ll only hear later, when she plays the record back.

In the two filmed versions, there’s a very clever little maneuver at the end of the story which makes something unexpected out of this record – indeed, it’s the cleverest, most satisfying thing in the entire film, and installs great meaning. If you know what it is, if you’ve seen either film, then you’ll spot some irony when I tell you that the recording of my interview with Joffe was distorted to the point of being entirely useless.

Because I was out and about, and not in the normal, interview-safe comfort of my living room, I had to try and find somewhere quiet. I thought I had.

Now, I guess it wasn’t quiet enough – not anything like it. And the best means of recording Joffe was to put my phone on speakerphone mode and to record audio on my laptop. And then, the very next day, my laptop died, cutting me off from the audio completely.

It seemed that, like with Rose in the story, some kind of intervention was interfering, disrupting my expected path. I would never get to sit back and listen again to what Mr. Joffe had actually said to me.

I wrote some notes as I went along, and I’d like to share them now. Anything in quotes comes direct from Joffe – or, at least I thought it did as we were chatting, and I was scribbling. I guess I’ll never be able to go back and check.

Rose’s story. Casting of Rose “crucial”.
Some “Conservative critics” knocked the film.
Graham Greene took credit for end of Boulting Bros. film, must have liked it.
The ending is about Rose. Film “about Rose”.
There was a lot of critical praise for Rose. Andrea Riseborough received praise. Plaudits.
John Mathieson [cinematographer] also praised by critics.

You can definitely count me as amongst the fans of Andrea Riseborough and John Mathieson. Just check out the clip below.

Brighton Rock is out now. If you have never seen either film, or read Greenes’ book, I’d actually recommend them all, in different measures. Perhaps the Boulting Bros. film is more accomplished, over all, than Joffe’s, but this new version certainly has some ideas and flavours of its own. And, as Greene would apparently agree, it has a better pay off than the original novel.