REVIEWED
"You know, what marks you out as a repressed as well as a practicing pervert is your sentimentality over children."
- Ben Butley (Alan Bates)
Harold Pinter's Butley (not based on his own work, but a Simon Gray play) is set around the monologues of a functional alcoholic and English literature professor Ben Butley. After failed relationships (both domestically with his wife and homosexually with a fellow tutor) Butley's hit a crossroads in his life, and fears hes going to grow old and unloved like his aged spinster professor Edna Shaft.
One of those brilliantly observant character studies, not a great deal happens. Its pretty much a point and shoot affair for director Pinter, you visually don't really need the film, its whats spoken that matters. Alan Bates apparently reprising his role from the stage is magnificent, who constantly delivers hilarious anecdotes, but without losing the characters fragile washed up sadness side. I'd caught him in 'Life and Death of Joe Egg' last night and needed another fix. Needless to say it was another treat.
[Personal Reasons For Remembering]
I salute you sir for managing to keep your wit and poise while being so thoroughly blottoed. I loved Butley's chat with the Northern butchers boy most, who took his male lover away from him.
Originally taken from Letterboxd
No comments:
Post a Comment