THE BIRTHDAY PARTY
UK, 1968, 123 minutes, Colour.
Robert Shaw, Patrick Mc Gee, Dandy Nicholls, Sydney Tafler, Moultrie Kelsall, Helen Fraser.
Directed by William Friedkin.
The Birthday Party is based on the play by Harold Pinter. It steers very closely to theatrical performance. Pinter had made an impression with a variety of plays in the 1950s and 1960s such as The Caretaker and The Homecoming. Pinter also wrote a number of screenplays in the 1960s including The Servant and Accident for Joseph Losey. He would continue to do so as well as perform in cameo roles in films for succeeding decades. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2004.
The film is set in a dingy seaside boarding house. Robert Shaw portrays a mysterious stranger who is lying low. Dandy Nicholls and Moultrie Kelsall portray the managers of the boarding house. Patrick McGee? and Sydney Tafler (with varying Irish and Jewish accents) are two mysterious strangers who turn up and menace the people in the boarding house.
The film uses the Pinteresque dialogue – enigmatic statements with many pauses. Audiences unused to Pinter’s style may be put off. However, Pinter’s dialogue always shows the power of silence and the pause.
While the performances are very good, direction is by a young William Friedkin, thirty-three at the time, at the beginning of his career, making this film between Good Times with Sonny and Cher and The Night They Raided Minsky’s. He also directed the film version of the play The Boys in the Band and in 1971 won an Oscar for The French Connection. He achieved some notoriety and fame with The Exorcist and has made spasmodically interesting films over several decades including Cruising, Rules of Engagement, Bug.
1. How good a film, how interesting? What were the basic responses to the film, to the visuals, to the themes?
2. How well was the film a version of a play? The importance of the words and their strength on the stage, in a film? clash between words and images, the mutual support of words and images?
3. Comment on the film’s version of a play, the use of close-ups, angles and changes of angles, strong camera set-ups, the use of colour and the transferring to black and white during the game, the number of tracking shots? Comment on the opening up of the stage-bound play, the deckchairs at beginning and end, the outside world, vehicles and people moving? The static atmosphere of the play, the theatrical aspects of the play? How well did they blend for a satisfying communication of Pinter’s themes?
4. What kind of world was this? An external world, an interior world? A world of reality and fantasy? The importance of the English setting, the English focus on this kind of private world of sense and madness? How was this world a microcosm of the larger world? The importance of an empty seaside resort as the setting, the type of boarding house, the unintelligent landlady and landlord? The world of British cliche? Why was this chosen? why was it apt for the kind of communication of the play?
5. The atmosphere of the film opened by Meg and Petey, their not so bright relationship with each other, language, inanity and cliché, especially with the breakfast? Meg as the kind of inane English woman, her breakfasts,
her enjoying things? The introduction to Stanley and her hold on him? The way that Meg was flattered by McCann? and Goldberg? Her enjoyment of the party? The gift of the drum? Her involvement in the games but not understanding? An important and transforming night but with her everything again? The fact that Petey was there at the beginning, then absent, returning mystified and participating in Meg’s ordinary day as everything started again?
The insight into the ordinary characters symbolized by Meg and Petey?
6. Stan as the centre of the film? Who was he? What did he do? How much of his past was revealed? Why was he a recluse? Robert’s presentation of the character, his physical appearance and presence? His age and maturity, his strength, yet his weaknesses? How well did the film sustain the mystery about him? The ordinariness of his relationship with Meg and Petey? The confrontation of himself with Stan and Goldberg and his weakening? The
birthday party and the oyster, his involvement in the games and the torment, the highly stylized questions and his answers? being broken and guilty? The spectacle of his humiliation? His looks, his words? what was wrong? The symbolism of the party, the gift, its being broken?
7. How menacing a character was Stan? His physical presence, the steeliness of his voice, his gruffness? His dependence on Goldberg? His sadistic support of Goldberg? What was his role? Who was he? Why did he have power of Stan?
8. Goldberg and his control of Stan? The contrast with Stan, the leader, his emphasis on his Jewish background, his natty dressing and smooth talking? His courtesy and his control? The party at his instigation, the games, the questions and the battering? What did he represent? What gave him such power over Stan?
9. The importance of the introduction of Lulu, sexuality, youth, her role at the party, her relationship with each of the main characters? How did he help various aspects of their personalities and characters to be revealed?
10. The impotence and significance of words in this film the ordinary words, unfinished sentences, stream of consciousness words and phrases half-heard and half spoken? The stylised and very literary forms and poetic forms of questions and moods and changes via words?
11. The importance of words and silence? As ways of interacting and control? Significant words with significant silence and movements?
12. How well did the film present words and corresponding actions? Which were more important?
13. Harold Pinter writes very distinctive plays. Comment on the audience response to the style. Its power of eliciting a response? Its power for communication? How valuable a way of insight into the contemporary situation to universal values, to the universal values and fears in a private world? A revelation of the world in which everyone lives? Comment on critics who say that the play has many meanings as a thriller, as a happening observed, as an experience half overheard, or a news item where follow-up is never published, a psychological allegory of personal guilt of non-conformity, or of life, death?
