THE COLLECTOR
UK, 1965,120 minutes, Colour.
Terence Stamp, Samantha Eggar.
Directed by William Wyler.
The Collector is a striking film version of John Fowles' famous psychological novel. The film is carried by the two stars who made this film early in their careers. Terence Stamp plays the shy, puritanical madman who wins a fortune that enables him to act out a mania that he could never have done otherwise. Samantha Eggar plays the girl he has admired from afar and whom he kidnaps, or collects, along with the other beautiful butterflies which are his hobby. These are all beautifully laid out, dead.
The film explores the incongruities of madness, delicate feelings and precision on the one hand and a relentless and cruel logic on the other. The madman is one who shows an intense desire to live, but according to his own standards. The film also explores the terror and fear from a person captured by madness and, once more, an intense desire to live and a fear of death.
William Wyler has made a number of films over a long career: Mrs. Miniver, The Best Years of Our Lives, Ben Hur, Funny Girl. Here he confines himself in comparison with some of his more spectacular films. If the music seems familiar its composer, Maurice Jarre, was working on Doctor Zhivago at the same time. John Fowles has had another of his novels filmed, the interesting and puzzling The Magus (1969).
1. What were the implications in the title of the film?
2. Was the symbolism of the butterfly chasing at the beginning, the dungeon of the house and the butterfly collection veil portrayed?
3. When did you realise Clegg was mad? How did this affect you? In what way did his madness manifest itself?
4. Did you like him at all?
5. How sorry did you feel for Miranda? Did the screenplay make Miranda act and react in the way you would expect a girl in this situation to react?
6. How did the film create an impression of imprisonment and claustrophobia? How much was the audience made to share Miranda’s feelings?
7. How much sexual drive motivated Clegg? How much was he deceiving himself about his emotions and motivations? Did he ever have the chance of making Miranda love him?
8. How cruel was Clegg? The kidnapping - the imprisonment and yet his providing her with her needs and tastes? Tying her up when the neighbour visited? The dinner and chloroforming her again?
9. How puritanical was he - his shyness and reticence, his talk about respect, disgust with Miranda when she offers herself to him? Is it true that he wanted only to catch her and look at her and finally have her dead? How did the discussion on "The Catcher in the Rye" reveal attitudes? How did it show that Miranda could never break through his puritanical inferiority complex?
10. What impact did Miranda's death make on you? Why was it unnecessary? Why did she not want to die?
11. Why did Clegg forgive himself Miranda's death?
12. What were the prospects at the end of the film? What impact did this make on you?
13. Did this film give you an insight into the mind of the mad?
14. Did this film help you appreciate what it is to be alive?
