What exactly is Alan Bates trying to do with the character? He is not playing it realistically (like the stolid Englishman in Zorba) but perhaps symbolically, like Richard Basehart playing the fool in La Strada? Also, do you think Georgy develops an attraction at last for Mason? When she kisses him with passion, you get the idea she's not averse to being his lover.
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I agree with the idea about people and their flaws. At the beginning of the movie, I believe that Georgy was the only really innocent character - but at the mercy of her hunger to love and be loved.
I think she is both repulsed and intrigued by James Leamington's attraction to her; he is a nuisance but, in the end, he is the means to justify Georgy's finally-realized ambition to be a mother. Georgy has learned pragmatism, and is now getting what she wants, even if it means settling for someone she doesn't love, in order to be a mother.
Georgy has indeed come out of her shell and is now in the real world, which is a harder place than her shell ever could be. She's learning.
I generally agree with myarla's analysis, but I don't think Georgy's learned pragmatism because I think that would be to cyncial a thing for her to do. I agree she has compromised and knows she's compromised, but I don't think she's accepted it as a way to deal with the world. More like a pill she's swallowed and now that's she's done so, she will move on.
In the end, I'm not sure Georgy has much of a future besides nappies and the sort. That's why I find the ending so bittersweet.
I think she is attracted to Mason --she DID return his kiss with passion, her foot is tapping, and she looks turned-on. She says something like "What am I doing? You're old enough to be my dad!" So her running away from him initially seems more to do with the inappropriatness of him being older and in a different social class ( in Britain seen as a bad thing, to step outside of your socio-economic class ). But I think she's attracted to him; as for her and Bates, I thought HE ran away from HER, abandoning her and the baby. Cute guys are attractive, but a woman's passion and excitement for such a man can turn to ashes if he acts like a pig. Believe me, I've slept with quite a few men, and the exciting, young ones are fun, but many are flakes. Sometimes you need to step away from expectations of perfect romanance, because some of us do not get that with cute guys. We have to look at other attributes besides cuteness in choosing a life-partner.
Mason is more suitable and stable as a husband for her. It isn't just the money and baby that she's getting. The song made it sound that way, but that was caused by going against traditional 1960s romantic expectations, which this entire story went against.
I think Georgy and Mason's character would have a fine time in bed, and she would be happier with him. She'd always have to feel inferior and lack of security with Bates' character. She'd always worry that he might leave her for a woman with a thinner figure, someday. So he says he loves her. I've gotten men on the rebound from icy, skinny blondes. But once their wounds healed sufficiently, they were back to chasing more icy, skinny blondes , because they make better arm candy than I do. And to some men, the woman you have on your arm is a big pleasure-factor --showing off to other men what you snagged. Woman as object, not as companion. After all, the relationship between Jos and Georgy was covert, not open, right? She got Mason to marry her --out in the open, where it should be. He would treat her like a queen, which is what she deserves.
I enjoyed this film but the Alan Bates character gave me a real pain.I still can't figure him out or whether Bates just acted badly. Btw hasn't Bates a very harsh accent.I noticed this also in the marvellous " The Go Between" film when Bates sang the song "Take a pair of sparkling eyes".He has a really grating tone.
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Georgy does not fight off James Mason's kiss early on in the film and seems to in fact like it I suspect because it's the very first kiss she's ever had. Doesn't she make a remark just after after this scene that she's 22 and never been kissed? I think it was a true statement prior to Mason's smooch. I don't think she was ever attracted to Mason or really liked him, she was pleased though there was somebody who lusted after her.
Alan Bates' character is just a good-natured slob who in many ways is as shallow as Charlotte Rampling, just not as heartless as her. I think Georgy realizes this in the end and doesn't fight to keep him when their relationship starts to turn and he is bored with being "settled down" with a baby and quasi-wife. She lets him slip away and be the "Peter Pan" eternal juvenile he really is. I agree Alan Bates is over the top at times but then his character is a "look at me" ham and there are people who are always "on" like this.
Alan Bates' character is just a good-natured slob who in many ways is as shallow as Charlotte Rampling, just not as heartless as her.
He's playing the character well - Jos is child-like and shallow and Alan Bates was terrific in a not so likable role.
This is what he said about the role: 'I didn't think he was funny. I felt he was an infinitely sad character, and I found him easy to play, because he's a bit like me - a person escaping into a fantasy world...he was really a bit past behaving like a kid - he needed to grow up, but there was nothing underneath the fun and games...he's having this great time, with everybody ignoring him - but in fact there's nothing there at all! Jos lives on the surface and ends up with nothing. The minute something big comes along, a responsibility or something to take him out of the road of his own pleasures, he can't cope. He can't go outside his own image of himself'.
Agreed! Jos was very funny and cute, but he was not "husband" or "father" material, whereas James was
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In the beginning when James wanted Georgy to be his 'mistress' she was very turned off by that, since he was someone she had known all her life, primarily as a "second father figure". She does not turn away from his kiss, but she doesn't want to be his mistress either I think the baby helps Georgy grow up in her own way, because she figures out who she wants to be: a wife and mother. The fact that James and his wife never had any children looms in the background. There is a sense that James would probably be a good father if given the chance. He is very generous when it comes to buying things for the baby, and I think that becomes a turning point in the way Georgy starts to see him as a man. Contrasting that with Jos, who is by his own admission "Peter Pan",like Meredith, he is not around to help with the baby, even though he is the father! Georgy sees who the better "man" for her actually is. James is older, but like Georgy, he has had difficulties in life as well, (a sickly wife), and like Georgy, he does care about other people. They have that in common. Georgy may not be "swept" off her feet by James, but she does love him, and that is why she didn't want to be his mistress--she held out to become his wife. She does make the right choice.