Harold Pinter: A conversation
1993; Salisbury University; Volume: 21; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0090-4260
Autores Tópico(s)Contemporary Literature and Criticism
ResumoHarold Pinter had just returned from Prague where his latest screenplay was in production, a new film version of Kafka's The Trial, when we met for the following conversation in his comfortable, well-appointed studio near Holland Park in London. Negotiations were underway during the same week for his next project-the film version of Kazuo Ishiguro's prize-winning best seller, The Remains of the Day. This most renowned British dramatist of his generation has increasingly extended his talents to acclaimed adaptations of significant twentieth-century fiction for the screen. As Faber and Faber continues to publish his screenplays, it will be possible to have readily available his total output in this genre, a tribute to his success and prestige. As yet his versions of Kafka and Ishiguro have not been published, but his canon so far comes to sixteen works. Not all of these have been actually filmed, such as his version of Joseph Conrad's Victory and the admired The Proust Screenplay-A Ia Recherche du Temps Perdu which was published in 1978. Pinter does not typically adapt novels that are already covertly narrated, shown, as it were by an implied camera eye; rather he provides intelligent and expressive adaptations of works with first-person expositors, investigators of characters' states of mind, and makes them work cinematically. In the process, moreover, he manages to get the story right in his adaptations, attending to the status of the original prose fiction narrative even as he alters and transforms it for the screen. Pinter seems to believe in classic dramatic construction and in the force and momentum that good narrative creates as it builds on itself. His achievement with British fiction that concentrates on internal seeing and the creation of space, quiet, and privacy such as novels by Elizabeth Bowen, L.P. Hartley, and most recently Ishiguro-and that non-English master in this mode, Proust-appears especially notable. On the other hand, other novelists as diverse as Penelope Mortimer, John Fowles, Russell Hoban, and Ian McEwan have been equally well served by Pinter adaptations. Pinter sees film as both a dramatic and narrative medium: a medium that enacts stories and at the same time tells them through the mediation of the camera. At the same time, he demonstrates unusual sensitivity to language and to images. In his screenplays, film as a writer's medium assumes new significance; it is a legacy to cherish as we pursue further in this journal and elsewhere the relationship between literature and film. London, May 1992 QUESTION: What is your current film project? PINTER: I'm very excited about Kafka's The Trial which is actually being shot at this very moment. When I was originally asked by the BBC, I immediately said yes, since I have, more or less, been waiting for this opportunity for forty-five years. I first read it when I was about fifteen. Then an independent film company came in, which is actually an American independent-very independent-that happened to have financial resources. They read the script and said they wanted to do it. That was it. There have been no problems at all. It's become a feature film. It will be shown on television, as all films eventually are, but it is aimed at a theatrical release. It's being directed by David Jones. QUESTION: Who also directed the film version of your play, Betrayal? PINTER: Exactly. It has a wonderful cast. KyIe MacLachlan is Joseph K. Anthony Hopkins plays the priest. Juliet Stevenson, a remarkable actress, is also in the cast. It's a hell of a cast. Jason Robards is just joining the company. All in Prague now. You know people often misunderstand The Trial as far as what it refers to. People assume it was-written in the twenties and somehow is about Communism. Actually it was written 1914-15, and so it refers to the Austro-Hungarian Empire. So that's what we are emphasizing. It's very plain without grotesqueries. …
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