BEFORE WINTER COMES

US, 1969, 103 minutes, Colour.
David Niven, Topol, Anna Karina, John Hurt, Anthony Quayle.
Directed by J. Lee Thompson.

Before Winter Comes is a story of refugees after World War Two, a camp in Austria administered by the British with interactions with the Russians. David Niven is his usual self as the English major with John Hurt as his lieutenant and Anthony Quayle as a brigadier. Topol (Fiddler on the Roof) is one of the locals as is Anna Karina, star of many of Jean- Luc Goddard’s films.

The film is a mixture of the serious, the themes about refugees after the war, and some comic aspects of life in the camps.

The film was directed by J. Lee Thompson, the British director who made a number of strong films in Britain in the 1950s including Yield to the Night, Woman in a Dressing Gown, Ice Cold in Alex. He achieved some fame with Tiger Bay and then went to the United States to make The Guns of Navarone. For the next thirty years he made quite a number of action films. The films that he made around this time include Mc Kenna’s Gold and The Chairman.

1. What was the meaning of the title, especially its symbolism?

2. How well did the film present its setting – geographically? Its beauty? The situation of Austria at the end of the war?

3. Did the film present well the world of the refugees? Their suffering, their future?

4. How important was the border situation for this film - English and Russians? How was the rivalry of the soldiers important for illustrating this border situation? Why was there rivalry? How were the Russian soldiers more or less the same as the English soldiers? The example of the division of the inn for a border?

5. How important was the theme of law and order in this film? How necessary is law and order and its upholding in situations like this? Was too much made of orders by the characters in this film?

6. Were the characters interesting in themselves? Their personality clashes? The clash of the different nationalities? The clash of different classes and backgrounds?

7. How important was the work that they were doing? Did they do it well? How much emotion could enter into work like this at the end of the war?

8. Janovic - his personality and charm, the personality of Topol, the man of nations and of all moods? His importance to the refugees, his humanity and his humour? The contrast of his personality with Major Burnsides, his relationship with Pilkington, his love for Maria? The good that he did in the camp? The poignancy of his own Cate. The relentless decision that he had to go back to Russia? How sorry were you that he had to go back to Russia? Would he cope with the situation?

9. Major Burnside - as an Englishman. as a major, as a career army commander and-bachelor,. a man from middle class situations coping with this difficult war situation? His impersonal love, his attitude towards Pilkington and his contrast with Pilkington? His relationship with Janovic – friendly, seeming to do the right thing by him, then obeying orders to send him back to Russia? His attitude towards fraternising? Yet his affair with Maria? How could he work on these double standards? What was he left with at the end of the film? Did you feel sorry for him at all?

10. Pilkington - as an Englishman, as an army man, as young, as learning in this situation? His immaturity, his emotionalism? His responding to Janovic? His responding to Maria? The interrelation between him and Major Burnside and how it changed them both? His disillusionment with fate at the end?

11. Maria - as an Austrian, as a woman? She emphasised how the war had changed her life, made her a widow, made her depend on the soldier to keep alive and survive? Why did she enter into affairs with Janovic and Major Burnside? What would happen to her after the situation was cleared?

12. The other refugees - eg the man with the wife in Austria who had to go to Russia? The inevitable mistakes and the individual becoming a statistic?

13. The other soldiers - doing their job? how much personal feeling could be involved?

14. Impressions of the final decision? What emotional impact did this have at the end of the film?

15. What did the film have to say on the themes of war, justice, the quality of life, the value of an individual person, death, law and order, making decisions?

16. What did the colour, especially the snow and the blue and the fresh colours and the music contribute to the film?

17. The film was advertised as one of great beauty and of human interest. Was this so?