The Homecoming

I do think the film is cinematic, and the editing, photography, and art direction all put this in the realm of suburb film making.

Yes, it is Pinter at his peak, and most of the cast knew the play well (the new cast members probably only added freshness) from done long runs years before. Having seen most of them, I would say this must surely be the jewel in the AFT crown. Unlike the Pinter directed "Butley" it has grown rather than diminished by the years.

This is one of those film plays (Glengarry Glen Ross may be another) does commit the crime of doing the play so well that it pretty much makes further productions useless. The film of "The Caretaker" done some years earlier is also very strong.

"There are no hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal, nor between what is true and what is false. A thing is not necessarily either true or false; it can be both true and false." - Harold Pinter

Ely Landau's American Film Theater production of Harold Pinter's The Homecoming, directed by Peter Hall, has just been released on DVD as part of a retrospective of the AFT's two years of outstanding film versions of selected plays. An engrossing rendition of Pinter's disturbing play, The Homecoming is brilliant in its malevolent and macabre humor and the performances are first rate. On the surface it is a depiction of a slightly mad family in which two brothers lust over a third brother's wife. Underneath it is a surreal caricature of domestic life that focuses on the dark impulses that lie beneath the thin veneer of civility. In Pinter's view, what passes for authentic behavior is merely a cover for the irrational and the play demonstrates how power and memory can be used as tools of control. As in all of Pinter's work, the dialogue is razor sharp and often over the top, consisting of verbal thrusts and parries, ridicules, strategies, mutual warfare, and maneuvering for position.

Set in an older but spacious house in North London, the men prowl around each other like animals ready for the kill. Their mother Jessie is dead. The remaining family consists of two brothers, their father and uncle. Max (Paul Rogers), the menacing, slightly demented but still roaring old patriarch is a retired butcher with an acid tongue. His brother, Sam, a chauffeur is an unmarried man in his sixties and something of a dandy. The brothers are both working class louts. Lenny, delightfully performed by a dapper Ian Holm, is a sleazy pimp and borderline criminal, while Joey (Terence Rigby) is a demolitions expert and would-be boxer who spends most of his spare time training at the local gym.

The equilibrium is disturbed when the oldest brother Teddy (Michael Jayston), a Professor of Philosophy, arrives with Ruth, his wife of nine years Ruth (Pinter's wife at the time, Vivien Merchant) in London to visit the family she has never met. The focus of the hostility is now focused on the young couple and the father unleashes one tirade after another, calling Ruth a slut and a whore. From the beginning there is tension in the relationship between Teddy and Ruth and they both seem uncomfortable. The dialogue between family members is filled with comic touches and the characters use threats, intimidation, and power games to gain advantage over each other.

Even Ruth, a woman who has been exploited successfully plays off one brother against the other and both against her husband. Rationality becomes less and less apparent as the play progresses with the two younger brothers making passes at Ruth in front of her bewildered and strangely passive husband. Teddy only watches as Ruth joins with his brothers, perhaps because he realizes that on the deepest level he has been separate from her for years. The Homecoming is a work that does not yield to immediate deciphering and has given critics much to chew on for thirty-nine years. Pinter's plays are not about psychological realism and the actions of his characters are not always coherent or rational. He moves easily from realism to surrealism, and it is often difficult to distinguish between the reality and the dream.

One critic said, "Like Buñuel, Pinter demonstrated that only a slight shift in perspective is needed to make human behavior appear insane, and showed how easily the veneer of 'civilization' can be swept aside in favor of something more revealing". The Homecoming can be looked at it in many ways and there is enough ambiguity to allow the audience to interpret it from their own frame of reference. As Pinter biographer Michael Billington notes, "You can never say with Pinter that one interpretation is wholly right or another wholly wrong. What you can say, with reasonable certainty, is that the play continues to get under our collective skins". It definitely got under mine but I loved every minute of it.

"The Homecoming" is a masterpiece of a play, and it is transferred very skillfully to the screen. The screenplay differs little from the original text, except that Peter Hall allows the camera to linger on the phallic imagery of Max's walking stick and the various men's cigars. Needless to say, the acting is superb. Ian Holm shines as the amusing but insidious Lenny, as does Cyril Cusack as his aggressive but impotent father. The star of the film, however, is Vivien Merchant, whose portrayal of Ruth is hypnotic and captivating. This is one of Pinter's finest works. A must-see.

My three main attractions of most of the films of the American Film Theatre series have been the casts, the directors and the plays adapted themselves. They are the three main attractions here in 1973's 'The Homecoming'. Peter Hall was better known for his stage work, but seeing him directing a play for film intrigued me a lot. Harold Pinter is to me one of the great playwrights of the twentieth century, though not all will agree as his style is polarising, and the cast is another talented one.

1973's 'The Iceman Cometh' was a great start for the American Film Theatre' series and 'The Homecoming' from the same year is equally great. Like that film, it is one of the few films of the series to be my definition of great. The play is one of Pinter's best, with the prose typically sharp, insightful and intelligent though with a darker tone, and this film adaptation does it justice. Of the Pinter film adaptations, 'The Homecoming' is to me among the best and is proof that directors that specialise more in theatre work can direct for film.

Do agree that the scene outside the flat didn't feel necessary.

'The Homecoming' ranges between highly successful and brilliant everywhere else however. The setting is very intimate, but not in a way that comes over as too confined or stagebound (potential big problems with intimate settings and when the director was better known for his stage work). The photography has atmosphere and feels opened up enough to avoid it from being static and stagy, it's simple but gets the atmosphere right while looking good. Also capturing the story's bleakness perfectly..

It's also impeccably directed by Hall. It may not be what one may consider cinematic directing, but it does very well in letting the drama resonate and not swamping it and it was good actually that he stayed true to his stage roots. Spirit-wise, when it comes the drama, 'The Homecoming' as a film is as faithful as one can get without being too faithful that it loses life. The character dynamics are spot on and the last half an hour is especially well directed and emotionally devastating.

Pinter's dialogue is masterly, it's talk heavy but the emotional complexity and insight shine. Loved the storytelling, it is deliberate but never dull and it is bleakly comic in a macabre way, chillingly menacing and at times hauntingly moving. The characters admittedly are not likeable (true actually for most plays adapted for the American Film Theatre series) and can be quite unpleasant, but to me they are more deeply flawed with difficult situations but compelling in their realism. As said the character interaction is nailed and all the performances are superb. Ian Holm and Cyril Cusack are formidable presences, but it is the unforgettable Vivien Merchant that the viewer most remembers and lives longest in the memory.

Concluding, absolutely excellent. 9/10.

'The Homecoming' is perhaps Pinter's greatest play. It still seems as impenetrable and unfathomably disturbing as when first performed. As if Pinter had managed to haul it straight up from the murky waters of his subconscious without allowing it to be filtered through the clarifying, taming grilles of symmetry and craft.

A few of the other commentators have questioned whether it works as a piece of 'cinema'. But with writing and acting this vital and rich the query becomes redundant. It's a filmed record of a stage play in which color and framing are used to provide texture and ambiance for the text. The absence of any unnecessary cinematic flourishes contributes to the stark, claustrophobic atmosphere.

I would argue that the piece is more effective here, atmospherically speaking at least, than it ever could be on stage. The screen filling close-ups, slow fades to black, and subtle, almost imperceptible camera movement all add the palpable sense of entrapment, tension and menace.

The performances are all majestic. But my favourite is the astonishing one given by the wonderful Vivien Merchant. Her work in this and Sidney Lumet's 'The Offence' (in the same year) stand, for me, as being amongst the greatest performances given on screen by any actor. Ever. She can switch from poignantly lost and alone, to ironic, to chillingly manipulative with a glance. Whilst always radiating an almost heartbreaking aura of emotional privation and defeat. Her premature death was a genuine tragedy.

Am I alone in finding such a spare, bleak work so strangely comforting, even uplifting? I hope not.