Broadway Review: ‘Betrayal’ With Tom Hiddleston The impeccable London revival of Harold Pinter’s “Betrayal,” with Hiddleston, Charlie Cox, and Zawe Ashton, transfers to Broadway. Complete summary of Harold Pinter's Betrayal. ENotes plot summaries cover all the significant action of Betrayal. 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.

Betrayal (1978) overview

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.

Betrayal is a new departure and a bold one. Pinter has found a way of making memory active and dramatic, giving an audience the experience of the mind's accelerating momentum as it pieces together the past with a combination of curiosity and regret. Betrayal is a 1983 British drama 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.It was critically well received. Distributed by 20th Century Fox International Classics , it was first screened in movie theaters in New York in February 1983.

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

Fake location app. 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
Directed by	David Jones
Produced by	Sam Spiegel
Written by	Harold Pinter (play and screenplay)
Starring	Jeremy Irons Ben Kingsley Patricia Hodge
Cinematography	Mike Fash
Edited by	John Bloom
Distributed by	Virgin Group (United Kingdom) 20th Century Fox (United States)
Release date
Running time	95 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English

The Betrayal Harold Pinter John

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]

Aa2 hf patch. 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]

Awards[edit]

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).

Betrayal Pinter Pdf

References[edit]

^Susan Hollis Merritt, Pinter in Play: Critical Strategies and the Plays of Harold Pinter (1990; Durham and L