The Betrayal Harold Pinter

Betrayal (1978) overview

• Betrayal is a 1983 film adaptation of Harold Pinter's 1978 play of the same name. With a semi-autobiographical screenplay by Pinter, the film was produced by Sam Spiegel and directed by David Jones.
• Complete summary of Harold Pinter's Betrayal. ENotes plot summaries cover all the significant action of Betrayal.

Harold Pinter’s 1978 play employs a reverse-chronological structure to tell the story of an extra-marital affair. Inspired by Pinter’s own seven-year affair with Joan Bakewell – who would also write a play, Keeping in Touch, in order to tell her side of the story – Betrayal is a three-hander in which a number of different betrayals are shown to take place.

In Harold Pinter's Betrayal, an affair and its revelation are portrayed in reverse chronological order. William McEvoy explores how this reversal focuses our attention on the ways in which meaning and knowledge are constructed, and on the ability of language to hide as much as it reveals. A sharp look into the nature of romantic relationships, Harold Pinter’s Betrayal starts in 1977 when long time lovers Jerry and Emma meet after her marriage to her husband Robert dissolves, and then backtracks all the way to 1968 when their affair first began. As the years spin backwards, a complex web of secrets about the trio emerges.

Emma is having an affair with Jerry, a close friend of her husband, Robert. Jerry is also married, to Judith. For five years this relationship is clandestine, but then Emma confesses her infidelity to Robert – producing another betrayal in the context of the play.

The scenes unfold in reverse order. The play starts in 1977, when Jerry and Emma meet in a pub for the first time since the affair had ended two years previously. It’s a scene of restraint and melancholy; the pain is only semi-softened by the passing of time. The play’s final scene ends when the affair begins, in 1968, at a party in which Jerry declares his love for Emma.

There are nine scenes in all. Emma and Jerry acquire a small London flat in which to conduct their affair. The pivotal scene takes place in a hotel room in Venice where Robert and Emma are on holiday. Robert discovers Emma has received a letter from Jerry, and Emma admits she’s been having an affair with him.

Both the affair and Robert and Jerry’s friendship continue after this, though the relationship between all of them has altered. The play’s particular chronology lends an extra emotional weight to each scene. The audience knows where the characters are headed and the impact of their choices on all of their lives. The dialogue is typically economical, but Pinter loads it with meaning and power-play between all three characters.

Key productions of Betrayal

Betrayal was first produced by the National Theatre in 1978, with Penelope Wilton as Emma, Michael Gambon as Jerry and Daniel Massey as Robert. It has been revived many times since, in many countries. Peter Hall directed its Broadway premiere in 1980. A 2011 West End production was directed by Ian Rickson and starred Kristin Scott Thomas, Douglas Henshall and Ben Miles.

Betrayal is a 1983 British dramafilm adaptation of Harold Pinter's 1978 play of the same name. With a semi-autobiographical screenplay by Pinter, the film was produced by Sam Spiegel and directed by David Jones. It was critically well received. Distributed by 20th Century Fox International Classics (USA), it was first screened in movie theaters in New York in February 1983.^[1]

Plot[edit]

Betrayal follows significant moments in the seven-year extramarital affair of art gallery owner Emma with literary agent Jerry, the best friend of her husband Robert, a London publisher. Nine sequences are shown in reverse chronological order with Emma and Jerry meeting for the first time at the conclusion of the film.

Cast[edit]

• Jeremy Irons as Jerry
• Ben Kingsley as Robert
• Patricia Hodge as Emma
• Avril Elgar as Mrs. Banks
• Ray Marioni as Waiter
• Caspar Norman as Sam
• Chloe Billington as Charlotte, age five
• Hannah Davies as Charlotte, age nine
• Michael König as Ned, age two
• Alexander McIntosh as Ned, age five

Production[edit]

Screenwriter Harold Pinter based the drama on his seven-year (1962-69) clandestine affair with television presenter Joan Bakewell, who was married to producer-director Michael Bakewell. At the time, Pinter was married to actress Vivien Merchant.^[2][3]

Reception[edit]

New York Times film critic Vincent Canby said Harold Pinter is 'justifiably celebrated' and that 'nothing he has written for the stage has ever been as simply and grandly realized on the screen as his Betrayal'. He applauded the performances of the three lead actors, the direction, and the meaningful application of reverse chronology, and summed up that 'I can't think of another recent film that is simultaneously so funny, so moving and so rigorously unsentimental. ... This is pure Pinter well served by collaborators.'^[4]Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert similarly commented that the film's reverse chronology, far from being a gimmick, is the key element to its brilliance. He gave the movie four stars.^[5]

Dave Kehr of the Chicago Reader, by contrast, argued that 'The reverse-order gimmick of Harold Pinter's screenplay seems meant to revitalize some trite and tedious material—the breakup of a love affair—yet the expected literary games don't materialize: the film plods backward in time with the same dull linearity it would have moving forward.' He praised Kingsley's performance but gave the film an overall negative assessment.^[6]Geoff Andrew likewise wrote in Time Out, 'Hodge is fine, Kingsley tries his best, and Irons is as tight-assed as ever. But it's all so uncinematic as to make one wonder why it was ever made in the first place.'^[7]Variety commented that Patricia Hodge gave a much less compelling performance than the other two leads but summed up the film as 'an absorbing, quietly amusing chamber drama for those attuned to Harold Pinter’s way with words.'^[8]

The Betrayal By Harold Pinter Summary

Awards[edit]

The Betrayal Harold Pinter Meme

Pinter's screenplay was nominated for a 1983 Academy Award for Best Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium (Gale 256, 415).^[9]

The film also won the National Board of Review Award for Best Film (tied with Terms of Endearment).

References[edit]

1. ^Susan Hollis Merritt, Pinter in Play: Critical Strategies and the Plays of Harold Pinter (1990; Durham and London: Duke UP, 1995) 236, 300. The first film reviews of such New York commercial screenings cited by Merritt date from 20 February 1983 (236-39).
2. ^Michael Billington, Harold Pinter, rev. and expanded ed. (1996; London: Faber and Faber, 2007) 264–67.
3. ^Joan Bakewell, The Centre of the Bed (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2003). ISBN0-340-82310-0. (Two chapters deal with the relationship and affair with Pinter.)
4. ^Canby, Vincent (February 20, 1983). 'Pinter's 'Betrayal,' Directed by David Jones'. The New York Times. Archived from the original on January 30, 2013. Retrieved February 7, 2009.
5. ^Ebert, Roger (March 18, 1983). 'Betrayal Movie Review'. RogerEbert.com. Retrieved 21 January 2021.
6. ^Kehr, Dave. 'Betrayal'. Chicago Reader. Retrieved 21 January 2021.
7. ^Andrew, Geoff. 'Betrayal'. Time Out. Archived from the original on August 11, 2020.
8. ^'Betrayal'. Variety. December 31, 1982. Retrieved 22 January 2021.
9. ^Academy Awards DatabaseArchived 2012-01-14 at the Wayback Machine, accessed September 14, 2007.

External links[edit]

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• Betrayal at AllMovie
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