PRICK UP YOUR EARS
UK, 1987, 111 minutes, Colour.
Gary Oldman, Alfred Molina, Vanessa Redgrave, Frances Barber, Janet Dale, Julie Walters, Margaret Tyzack, Lindsay Duncan, Wallace Shawn.
Directed by Stephen Frears.
Prick Up Your Ears is the title of John Lahr’s biography of playwright Joe Orton. It is the basis for this screenplay, written by celebrated playwright, Alan Bennett (Talking Heads, The Madness of King George, The History Boys).
The film was directed by Stephen Frears who has had a singularly successful career in both the United States and his native UK for over thirty years. His range of films includes My Beautiful Laundrette, Dangerous Liaisons, The Grifters, Liam, The Deal, The Queen.
The film is the biography of playwright Joe Orton. From Leicester, John Orton went to London as a student at RADA. There he met Kenneth Halliwell, a would-be novelist. They form a friendship, move in together and live together for ten years. Gradually, Orton finds a voice and writes a BBC radio play and enlists the help of agent Peggy Ramsay. By 1967 in his early thirties, he has success on the West End with Entertaining Mr Sloane. He went on to write such plays as Loot and What the Butler Saw as well as a screenplay for the Beatles (which incurred the displeasure of their manager Brian Epstein).
The film focuses on the development of John Orton into Joe Orton. It traces his skills in writing, his writing his diary and his detailed observations. It also focuses on Kenneth Halliwell, fastidious, his hair falling out, getting a wig, becoming jealous of Joe, announcing himself as his personal assistant. Ultimately, the pair begin to drift apart, Orton with success, Halliwell with lack of success (despite a photographic exhibition) and Halliwell bludgeoned Orton to death and took his own life.
Gary Oldman, who had previously appeared as Sid Vicious in Sid and Nancy, embodies Joe Orton perfectly. It is a tour-de-force performance. Alfred Molina is also excellent as Kenneth Halliwell. There is a very strong supporting cast with Vanessa Redgrave at her most lovey and darling and dear as the agent. Frances Barber appears as Orton’s sister and Julie Walters as his mother. Wallace Shawn appears as the biographer, John Lahr.
The film moves backwards and forwards, opening with the deaths, Lahr interviewing Peggy Ramsay, flashbacks building up the picture of Orton’s life with continual return to the present and the investigations for the biography.
While Orton was talented as a writer, the film focuses on his sexual orientation and his sexual behaviour. It is sometimes quite explicit – very much so for 1987 but much less so for succeeding decades. Orton was promiscuous, a cruiser, trying to draw Halliwell into this kind of behaviour, having sex holidays in Morocco. The film then shows the enigma of the private life with the talented public life.
1.Audience response to Joe Orton? His plays? His life, career, the heritage of his theatre work?
2.Joe Orton and his life, tragedy, the early death? The film as both biography and portrait? The emphasis also on his private life? Twenty years after the events?
3.Orton and his achievement, seeing the rehearsals for Entertaining Mr Sloane, his visit to the theatre during the performance of Loot? The sequences of his writing the screenplay for the Beatles, the phone call with Brian Epstein and his offhand remarks suggesting homosexual behaviour by the Beatles and Epstein’s reaction?
4.Alan Bennett, his skills as a playwright, adapting Lahr’s biography, the insight into Orton as a person, as a writer? Peggy Ramsay and her continued support, her taking of the diaries, making them available to John Lahr?
5.The structure of the film: opening with the death, the doors and the bashing them down, Peggy at the scene, taking the diaries? The return to the sequence at the end, the reaction of the landlady, the police? The two funerals, many at Orton’s, few at Halliwell’s? The sister and her putting the two ashes together (with Peggy Ramsay’s remark about it not being a recipe)? The scattering of the ashes?
6.The flashbacks, Peggy and her explaining the situation to John Lahr, meeting with his wife, the reminiscences, the Lahrs at home, Mrs Lahr? and her asking her mother to read the shorthand, their visiting Leonie Orton? The comments from Orton’s brother-in-law about Leicester?
7.The Leicester background, the silent father, the talkative mother, her hopes for her son, his sister and the siblings? His diaries, the recounting of the sexual experience at fourteen? His rehearsing, dressing in the sheets, the creditors coming to the door? His going to Madame Lambert for lessons, her saying he had no talent, his defying her, getting scholarship to RADA, the exercise in imagination, the lecturer, everybody passing the cat to each other, Halliwell miming the killing of it?
8.Leaving Leicester for London, going away from his family? The friendship with Kenneth after the class, their looking at the flat together, moving in, arranging it in the way they liked, the ten years passing and their life together? Kenneth as a person, his age, his legacy for study, his novels, their writing together, taking the sex novel to Faber and Faber, sitting on T.S. Eliot’s chair? John and his promiscuous behaviour, the sex, the pickups? Getting the wig for Kenneth, setting him up for a passer-by? Kenneth being needy for affirmation from the pickup? The police raid and their running? Orton’s homosexuality, brazen in what he said to people, following pickups? Getting Kenneth to participate? Kenneth being fastidious? His preoccupation with Kenneth? Wanting to meet Peggy and asking to bring a ‘friend’?
9.Peggy and her reflection on the ten years, their learning from each other, Kenneth and his becoming the inferior in the relationship, announcing himself as the personal assistant, feeling humiliated, becoming petulant, moods, needing psychological help, his jealousy, the visits to the theatre, his outburst during the rehearsal, his not being a guest for the party? His exhibition, Peggy buying a picture, the lady talking to him and mocking the paintings? His eruption? His being soothed? Joe taking him out and picking up a man?
10.Joe writing the radio play, the response from the BBC, visiting Peggy, bringing his friend, promising to write something better, three years passing, Entertaining Mr Sloane, the rehearsals?
11.The decision to go on the holiday to Morocco, the sun, sexuality, the men? His phone call with Brian Epstein? The return, things being much the same? Kenneth’s outbursts?
12.The death of his mother, going to Leicester, the quiet father, Leonie, the brother-in-law, the laughing at the funeral, his mother being laid out? The pickup after the funeral?
13.The performances of Loot, success, going to visit the theatre, encouraging the actor?
14.The final night, going to bed, discussions with Kenneth, the possibility of their separating? Kenneth and his simmering, the reflection, bashing Orton to death? His suicide? The note and the reference to the diaries?
15.The place of Joe Orton in the development of British theatre in the 60s, his award speech and cheekiness? His defiance? Potential? Peggy seeing herself as his widow? Lahr and the biography twenty years later?
