What did Crocker-Harris mean when he said, "There are two kinds of love?" Was that to imply that he is gay or that he had more of an intellectual love vs. his wife's need for more physical attention?
Someone please help. What were the 2 kinds of love?
I took it to mean that she wanted more passion and more physical excitement from the marriage and he wanted more intellectual and spiritual connection than he was getting. Her wants were more earthy and his were more ethereal and cerebral. That's how it appeared to me.
That probably means that he hardly ever touched her because he felt so distant from her intellectually. And she probably scoffed at the idea of him as a man because he was all brain and no physical excitement.
In spite of the author being gay, I don't think that this story was written to portray Crocker Harris as a gay man. I suppose that he could easily have been portrayed as such and that the actor and/or the director could choose to portray him that way. I think the main point was that he was practically dead inside as a person in general, so that he hardly had much of any connection with his wife, much less the people he knew in daily life.
Really, if this were an ideal marriage, one would hope that they would each be able to give the other plenty of physical and intellectual stimulation.
I came across the movie on TV last night with no information about it. When Crock told Hunter there were two kinds of love, my assumption was that he was impotent. He wanted a caring, platonic relationship with his wife and she wanted sex. Hence, her affair with Hunter.
Their marriage ended up in a hateful, angry state where she hurt him rather viciously. I think this hurt and hate carried over into his other life, making him as he was as a teacher - a Himmler. He may have started out as a caring, good teacher, but his marriage wrecked his life and his career.
I read the trivia section about the movie, and the playwright/scenarist is said to be a closeted homosexual from the 30s and 40s and that the other kind of love Crocker Harris refers to is a veiled reference to homosexuality. In that event, Crock still isn't giving his wife the sexual attention she needs and the result is the same.
I disagree with Jackboot as to cause and effect. I think Crock was very much alive as a young man - his attempted translation of Agamemnon and his reported brilliance as a young scholar are clues. I think Crocker Harris became a dead person inside as a result of his marriage. He says to Hunter his marriage to her was a bad mistake. Whether that was because he was impotent or gay, I wouldn't care to guess based on the script. I'll think that the scenarist left it as it is so that people could fill in their own motive for Crock's failure as her husband.
I did not see Crocker Harris as a gay man, but that would be expected in the time period this movie takes place. Homosexuality was illegal at the time. It may also be that Crock wasn't out even to himself, leading to his inability to have a sexual relationship with his wife. But it's all speculation, as the script keeps us in the dark as to the two kinds of love he meant. You get to choose.
EDIT: I just read Wikipedia's page on Michael Redgrave, and it is said there that he was bisexual. An interesting role for him indeed.
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That makes more sense.
shareHe is referring to the 2 primary ancient Greek words for love. One is philia, which is commonly referred to as brotherly love.
Then there is eros, which is marital or passionate love (and often sexual love, it's the origin of the word erotic).
My vote history: http://us.imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=9354248
Good comments all around. I tend to doubt that when he refers to two kinds of love - we are mant to think of him as homosexual - despite the mistaken imdb.comment staing this - after all, it's SHE whom he implies wants a physical love - and his own he describes as more spiritual and he says he had mistgakenly thought his own feeling was larger, more encompassing and more more profound than her kind of love. I don't think Rattigan was describing homosexual feeling as somehow more profound than her physical heterosexual desires.
And we're given no sense whatever that Crocker-Harris is attracted to any other man in the film. It could well be that he homosexual Rattigan was particularly sympathetic to someone who did not have physical feelings for a woman - but this doesn't mean he intends for us to see Crocker-Harris as homosexual. We're just given no evidence of it.
I found I was impressed with the typical wry insincerity of British formal speech in this movie. It is something you can even find today if you watch British Parliament on your cable (C span carried it last I checked).
I think this is salient when examining some of the particulars of the relationship between Mr and Mrs Crocker Harris.
They both are quite frank about their hatred for each other. Which is in contrast to the smiling avarice of much of the rest of the cast. They also are both quite plain about their relationship. He even confronts his cuckold with no evident anger, which leads me to believe that in that subtle British fashion, his character was a closeted or at least unfulfilled homosexual.
I am not seeking to force an agenda here, I could not care less about who is or isn't gay. But honestly I do not see a better explanation for Crocker-Harris' utter lack of desire for his wife or jealousy for that matter.
However it is a good point that 1951 Britain was a fair bit more conservative than now. So perhaps he was speaking of matrimonial love vs erotic. Or even love for the sake of procreation vs pleasure. Though no mention I can recall is made of trying to have children on their part.
I could see that subtext in it, but my mind immediately went to the kind of love that forms over time between a couple that is still there when the passion fades (and it fades no matter how hot the couple is for each other at the start). I took it to mean she still had to be turned on and passionate, while he just wanted (and needed) the comfort of unconditional love and companionship.
I think one could interpret it many ways, whether the author intended it or not--but in this case the author probably did intend for the words to be open to interpretation.