The House of Terence Davies

Few filmmakers (this side of Ingmar Bergman and Mike Leigh) operated with more proficiency in the area of profound sadness than the great British writer/director Terence Davies. Davies made his name early on, starting in 1976, with three short films that later became known as the ‘Terence Davies Trilogy.’ Shot in austere black and white, the triptych of films, shot over a span of 7 years, showcased the struggles of the British working class after WWII. Intensely autobiographical, the positive response to the shorts led to Davies first full-length feature, the instant classic, Distant Voices, Still Lives released in 1988.

While Distant Voices was no blockbuster in terms of box office receipts, it heralded the long-form debut of a gifted filmmaker with a pointed perspective. Building upon his trilogy of shorts, Distant Voices was a shattering film, drawn from Davies’ own personal history, about a family coping with an abusive patriarch and the painful long term effects that living in a home that is effectively broken, if not definitively so, has on those within the household. Starring a marvelous Pete Postletwait as the paterfamilias, along with a group of far lesser known performers, Davies’ first feature film is a landmark that hearkens back to the legendary ‘kitchen-sink’ era of British filmmaking. 

Davies would continue in a similar vein for the remainder of his career. His follow up to Distant Voices, The Long Day Closes (1992), continued in a similar vein, but with an even more impressionistic style than its predecessor. Telling the story of a young Liverpool boy in 1956, coming to terms with his homosexuality through the power of movies, Davies proved that he would suffer from no “sophomore slump,” and once again showed how deep he could plumb the depths of the personal while telling a coming of age story with both universal and specific elements.

His next film, The Neon Bible (1995), would tell another coming of age story, but this time, Davies would change locale from the UK to America (Georgia, to be precise). While the geography was notably different, the theme of a troubled family and the time frame (the ‘40s), proved to once again be in Davies’ wheelhouse. While The Neon Bible (based upon a novel by John Kennedy Toole — best known for writing A Confederacy of Dunces)  is probably considered to be the ‘runt’ of Davies’ remarkable litter, it is still a poignant film that draws terrific performances from Diana Scarwid, Gene Rowlands, and (no kidding) Denis Leary.

With his next production, Davies would take perhaps the biggest swing of his career in adapting Edith Wharton’s tragic novel, The House of Mirth (2000), for the big screen. Starring a far from the X-Files Gillian Anderson as the lead character Lily Barth, Mirth tells the heartrending tale of an increasingly desperate woman’s efforts to find a well-heeled suitor in New York during the turn of the 20th century. Anderson is an absolute revelation in the film, and when her Oscar buzz resulted in no nomination from the academy, many were suitably crestfallen, Davies’ final shot of a suicidal Barth reaching an unnatural end is one of the most devastating endings to any film from that year or any other in recent memory. The House of Mirth is so extraordinary that it puts most of the esteemed and well-fêted Merchant/Ivory films to shame. It is simply breathtaking in its scope and intimacy.

2004’s Of Time and the City would find Davies’ returning to his native Liverpool, this time in documentary form. Delving deeply (through newsreel footage and home movies) into the city’s 1960’s failed efforts to modernize, which only led to a death of Liverpool’s singular personality, Davies’ once again showcased the struggles of the working class and the despair that comes from being looked over and overlooked at the same time.

In bringing Terence Rattigan’s play The Deep Blue Sea to film, Davies produced perhaps his most romantic (and certainly his most erotic) film of his career, Starring a luminous Rachel Weisz (as if she has any other state of being), Davies’ brilliantly captured Rattigan’s tale, which largely takes place on a single day with flashbacks, of a woman’s suicide attempt after her affair with a WWII pilot (a terrific Tom Hiddleston) is uncovered and her prospects greatly diminished. Weisz is stunning as Hester, a married woman in a sexless union who wants to feel some measure of heat and longing in her life, and then suffers the cost of seeking out passion during a time when women were so secondary to their husbands that ending one’s life seemed more logical than living with the shame of adultery.

Davies’ final three films, Sunset Song (2015), A Quiet Passion (2016), and Benediction (2021) all received acclaim, but lacked the fulsome expressions of critical hosannas and notoriety of his previous works, but all three are more than notable and well worth seeking out. 

When one does the math on Davies’ output, they will count but nine works of drama, one documentary, and three short films on his ledger. In the house of Davies there may not have been many rooms to see, but all of them belonged, and all were exquisite.

Terence Davies died on October 7, 2023. He was 77 years old.