Conclusion: The Intimacy of Writing

We have seen that issues of the public and the private are always in play when words — of whatever kind — have a role on screen. The role of the personal letter, not just the love letter but also the missive written by one person and with a single addressee, is usually private. It can express the nature of the connection between sender and recipient, either to confirm its density or to point to its emptiness. Those moments when the letter fails to perform its function, when letters go unread, or are lost or absent, are also eloquent. So letters can be used to assess a film’s world in terms of intimacy; the difficulty of achieving it, or the fear of it, or the desire for it. This is not exclusively a matter of sexual intimacy; it can include friendship as well as passionate love.