There is a very narrow boundary between love and obsession, and some may even argue that the lines become increasingly blurred once someone grows too fond of the object of their affection, to the point where it can become quite disturbing. Literature has developed quite an appreciation for this ambiguity since we find stories of people growing so delusional in their obsession, that they begin to act out in erratic, and sometimes even overtly dangerous ways, and something is fascinating about seeing this process transpiring. This was a subject that William Wyler found fascinating enough to pass over some major productions and instead direct an adaptation of The Collector, a novel by John Fowles which tells the story of a disturbed young man who kidnaps a young art student, holding her hostage in his gorgeous countryside mansion, and forcing her to undergo a lengthy courtship process where she is made to fall in love with him, despite his brutal and aggressive efforts to get her to do his bidding. A film that was slightly misunderstood at the time, but has only grown in estimation over the years – mainly because of the solid work being done by both Wyler as a director and the two leads who take on these challenging roles, The Collector remains one of the most peculiar relics of a period in Hollywood history where simple stories were woven together and infused with complex socio-cultural commentary, in this instance the relationship between a psychopath and his victim as they spend every waking moment together, their dynamic shifting and becoming more complex and disturbing as time progresses. A fascinating and often quite bleak psychological thriller, and a film that understands how the most unsettling elements are often found in the more vague spaces between scenes and lines of dialogue, Wyler achieved something quite special with The Collector, which stands as one of his greatest films, and a film that has stood the test of time, remaining as relevant today as it did nearly seventy years ago.

As a theme, obsession has a long history in cinema, especially since it is a concept that can be either extremely simple or profoundly complex, depending on the tempo of the specific project and the extent to which the story wants to make use of it as a foundational motif. In a film like The Collector, the entire story is structured around it, so it was the responsibility of both Wyler and the screenwriters Stanley Mann and John Kohn to take Fowles’ novel, which is quite an internal, complex piece of prose that is not easily adaptable to film, and finding ways to translate the material onto screen in a way that the same sickly, vaguely macabre sense of despair lingers on every frame in much the same way that it pervaded each page of the source material. The entirety of this film focuses on the game of cat-and-mouse between two characters, one of them a maniacal villain who believes he can force someone to fall in love with him, the other his victim who genuinely does her best to outsmart him, but unfortunately doesn’t realise that he consistently ahead of her every movement, which proves to be the root of the peril they both eventually find themselves in. It takes a lot of skill to make a film that is essentially two hours of tension between only two characters as they both try and assert dominance over one another, and this often fell to these veteran directors since they possessed something quite remarkable that was a lot more rare in younger filmmakers at the time (there is a reason why only Joseph L. Mankiewicz could have made Sleuth a few years later, for example), and which forms a lot of the foundation of what makes this such an invigorating and compelling film. It is rare but not surprising to find an old master like Wyler being able to so easily adapt to the more rebellious, off-the-wall style that proved to be the direction in which much of Hollywood was moving. With The Collector (which many consider his final masterpiece, particularly amongst those who believe he was only there to keep order on Funny Girl, which many consider guided by Barbra Streisand’s performance), certainly is one of his most ambitious efforts, even if it can sometimes come across as quite stilted and uncomfortable, which is entirely intentional and part of its ingenuity.

The Collector tells a story that could be set at just about any point in history, but it intentionally chooses to draw many correlations with a specific kind of milieu, making it one of the quintessential British films of the 1960s – the references to the social and cultural context of this era is embedded in the film, and none of it is more overt than in the casting of Terence Stamp and Samantha Eggar, who would go on to define the decade (even if their future careers would be extremely different from one another, which likely could not have been predicted at the time), this film being a major addition to a steadily growing body of work that proved their invaluable skills and ability to adapt to the challenges of this film. Stamp is suitably terrifying as the titular villain, a young man whose psychopathic behaviour is hidden under layers of juvenile immaturity – what makes Freddie Clegg so unsettling is not that he is someone with malicious intent and a penchant for violence, but that it is all done by someone who has a seemingly childlike outlook on life, and we begin to wonder whether he is actually evil, or simply emotionally and mentally stunted to the point where he believes in his delusions. It’s some of Stamp’s finest work, and it may even be considered his defining performance, especially since he had made the decision to take on these more challenging parts, rather than aspiring to be the heartthrob that he initially aimed to be when he started his career. Eggar, who is mostly known for this performance, is remarkable as well – she plays the part of the victim exceptionally, and brings her to life with such vigour, proving to be a worthy adversary to Stamp’s manipulative captor. The pair work together well, and while it may seem odd considering the nature of the narrative, their chemistry is tremendous – perhaps this was the point, since it not only fools us into thinking Miranda has developed some form of Stockholm Syndrome, but causes us to question the nature of their relationship, which is much more complex than we initially expect based on the early scenes, and which continues to shift throughout the film, which takes advantage of these terrific actors.

Despite quite a simple linear concept that is relatively free of major twists or revelations (which would feel out of place in such a film), The Collector proves to bea masterful examination of several themes that spawn from the central conversation around obsession and how it can fester into something much darker. Situating the film at a specific moment in the past is important – these characters are those that were born around the end of the Second World War, which manipulated the global psyche and put it in a state of shock – and while it is never explicit in exploring certain ideas, there are concepts at the foundation of the film that set the tone, such as the story revolving around a young bank clerk who comes into a huge amount of wealth solely because he got lucky with the lottery, and instead of investing his earnings or using them wisely, he chooses to purchase a stately manor (the abandonment of which references the economic challenges faced by many countries as a result of the war), which he transforms into having dual purposes – an exhibition and laboratory for his work as an amateur entomologist, and as a torture chamber for the object of his affection, a woman who he treats similarly to the butterflies he collects – a fragile, delicate object that is so beautiful, his only response is to take ownership, removing any freedom she had and instead using her as one of his several collectible speciments, lining the walls of this enormous mansion. Gender politics, sexual violence and psychological illness are all woven into the fabric of the film, which goes in several different directions and develops into something much deeper than it appears to be at a cursory glance. This is the genius that underpins both the incredibly smart screenplay, which avoids tropes and conventions that are not immediately useful, and the razor-sharp direction by Wyler, who evokes a specific tone, one that exists at the perfect intersection between psychological thriller and romantic melodrama, drawing on elements of both in its endeavour to be a very specific kind of drama, one that is bold and complex, but also not a victim of its peculiarities, but rather rises above them in unique and compelling ways. It is all quite successful, and Wyler proves that he truly is a master of his craft with this fascinating character study that provides us with all the questions and asks us to find the answers ourselves.

The Collector is a peculiar specimen of a film – it is beautifully formed, being both hardy and elegant in equal measure, and it sometimes can be quite elusive in terms of how we capture its general premise or its overall intentions. Yet, it encourages us to look below the surface, recontextualizing it as more than just a vaguely terrifying psychological drama about a captor who physically and emotionally tortures his victim, but instead as a vicious exploration of gender dynamics, and how something like sexual desire and the lust for dominance can have terrifying consequences, which we see our lead character gradually start to realize as he enacts his plot. It’s a dark film, and there are very few moments of levity, with the tension being nearly unbearable at the best of moments, which is entirely purposeful and makes the film a much more layered experiment and one that is far more compelling when we realise that there is something far deeper below the surface. The masterful performances set the tone, and both Stamp and Eggar benefit greatly from this more complex character-based work. It all ultimately becomes a far more thorough exploration of these underlying themes than we may have expected, which adds much more detail to what could have been a pulpy, exploitative thriller, but instead flourishes into something much more detailed as a result of the effort put into creating a complex, compelling film. Beautifully strange and incredibly unsettling, The Collector is one of the great entries into the psychological thriller genre, which was starting to take form at this time, which helped boost the profile of this film, as well as keeping it in the conversation for one of the many peaks of this fascinating genre.