R.I.P.: Harold Pinter (1930–2008)

Nobel-prize winning playwright Harold Pinter died on Christmas Eve. The New York Times has a lengthy obituary about Pinter, one of the most influential dramatists of our time. His list of credits is substantial. While he was known mostly for his stage plays and British TV dramas, Pinter also wrote several screenplays including The Go-Between (1970), The Last Tycoon (1976), The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1981), Turtle Diary (1985), The Handmaid’s Tale (1990), The Comfort of Strangers (199), and Sleuth (2007).

One movie I recall especially well is the 1983 film Betrayal which starred Jeremy Irons, Ben Kingsley, and Patricia Hodge. It’s a story of adultery told in step-by-step fashion — but recounted in precise chronological order backward. The first scene occurs after the affair is over and the last scene is when the affair begins. It was based on Pinter’s play which debuted in 1978. Here is Pinter on “The Charlie Rose Show” as he promotes the movie version of Betrayal.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hc-EgKk6g28

Godspeed, Harold Pinter.

UPDATE #1: The Hollywood Reporter obit is here. Daily Variety here.

UPTDATE #2: You can read Pinter’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech here. And below is a poem Pinter wrote in which, it seems to me, he sums up the writing experience — asking the endless question, “What happens next?”

“Poem” (1981)

The lights glow.
What will happen next?

Night has fallen.
The rain stops.
What will happen next?

Night will deepen.
He does not know
What I will say to him.

When he has gone
I’ll have a word in his ear
And say what I was about to say
At the meeting about to happen
Which has now taken place.

But he said nothing
At the meeting about to take place.
It is only now that he turns and smiles
And whispers:
‘I do not know
What will happen next.’