Joseph Losey, the indomitable

Viewed from today's perspective, the cinema of Joseph Losey, who passed away forty years ago, has something elusive about it. Far from the stylistic quirks and preferred genres that characterize many works, Losey's seems eclectic and multifaceted, which may have unjustly condemned a portion of his significant filmography to obscurity. From the 1940s to the 1980s, he ventured into psychological drama, fantasy, comedy, crime thriller, and historical film, with precision in character study, emotional intensity, and a constantly renewed sense of direction. A friend of Bertolt Brecht as well as an English adoptee after being driven out of the United States by McCarthyism, Losey patiently and confidently forged his worldview through a gallery of disparate characters, often sharing the common experience of being hunted, stigmatized, or isolated.