Brief Encounter – Romantic Classic or Propaganda film?

### “Brief Encounter”: Propaganda and Unrealistic Romanticism in Wartime Britain David Lean’s *Brief Encounter* (1945), based on Noël Coward’s one-act play *Still Life*, has often been celebrated as a quintessentially British romantic drama. However, closer scrutiny reveals it as a piece of wartime propaganda, subtly designed to discourage infidelity among married couples and promote the […]