Butley

This really plays much like a filming of a play. The direction is almost minimal. That's probably for the good given that what remains is a great bit of showmanship.

Alan Bates is stunningly good as the lead Butley. He's a brilliant professor and writer at the end of his career. There is some amazing scheming between his character and younger more promising acolytes that he is jealous of.

The only reason to watch this is for the dialogue which is sharp and literate -- one wonders what became of this. The version I saw was a film version of the play. Not much of production value but the playwright's craft is still preserved. Even mentioning all of this, it's amazing how well this holds up almost 40 years later. That's probably due to Bates' bravura performance.

When I first saw this film, Ben Butley fascinated me (my cousin, who saw it with me, hated him). I've seen the film many times since then--I bought the video before I had a VCR to play it on--and it remains my favorite movie. And Alan Bates remains my favorite actor, although he's not at all like Butley. I wouldn't recommend the film to everybody, because it's a filmed play, totally in one room, all talk. Ah, but what talk, what dynamics between characters, what vicious game-playing and ruthlessness and humor. Simon Gray's never written a better play.

The American Film Theatre was a praiseworthy effort to present classic modern plays to a wide audience. The series petered out when it became clear that there was in fact not enough of an audience to make the venture viable. This left us with a group of films, or rather filmed plays, of varying quality but always interesting, if not only for the wonderful casts assembled for the series. "Butley" was one of the best. After years of oblivion, the series is finally and thankfully being released.

The problem with Simon Gray's very engaging play is that the characters are people one would hardly want to meet. They are a deeply flawed, unlikable bunch. As such we have little sympathy for any of them and hence Gray, intentionally or not, does not allow the viewer to connect emotionally with his characters. He instead allows us to watch as Ben Butley's life slowly disintegrates before our eyes. Despite the enforced detachment, it still remains a fascinating process, thanks to Pinter's precise direction, Gray's very sharp dialogue and Alan Bates delivering an astonishingly virtuoso performance.

It's one of those extremely rare performances in which the actor becomes completely engulfed by the character. It's a feat to behold; almost scary at times. This alone makes "Butley" an unforgettable experience.

This American Film Theater presentation of Simon Gray's play about a bisexual professor of English whose life is in full collapse is a wordy affair. Alan Bates, in the title role, talks almost nonstop.... or perhaps I should say that he speaks. Harold Pinter directed this production like a stage play, and the performances are theatrical.

I found it impossible to work up any sympathy for Bates' character, who seems to have sabotaged his life through bad choices. Likely that was Gray's point. He taught at Queen Mary College for a quarter of a century, and this looks like an illustration of the irony that the in-fighting in academia is so vicious because the stakes are so small. Of course, these are people fighting for their lives, but they don't seem to care much for those lives, just in scoring hateful points off each other. In any case, I found the show as unpleasant as the self-absorbed characters.

One of the primary reasons for seeing this adaptation of 'Butley' is that it is one of the thirteen films making up the American Film Theatre series, which was an interesting and ambitious project but a flawed one. It is hard to go wrong with having a fine actor like Alan Bates, who sounded perfect and did two other films in the series (the others being 'Three Sisters' and 'In Celebration'). The play is good fun and Harold Pinter as director intrigued me, knowing him better for his play and screen writing.

'Butley' more than does the source material justice, managing to be faithful in detail and spirit to it without being too much so. It is easily one of the top 3 best films in the American Film Theatre series along with 'The Iceman Cometh' and 'The Homecoming' (the latter of which being written by Pinter and one of his finest plays) and by quite some way the best since 'The Homecoming'. It is highly recommended and has more to it than just curiosity value.

Pinter's direction is a little too laconic on occasion, which meant that the energy wasn't always consistent (this was fleetingly though).

A vast majority of it though is absolutely fine, very intelligent, precise and not losing the play's necessary exuberance. The script is talk-heavy, as is expected from a play, but it doesn't feel wordy. Instead it felt sharp, smart and amusing in a dark but never distasteful way.

It's a well shot and produced film, with not near as much of a too filmed play feel that most films in the American Film Theatre series suffer from. The energy is near constant. Once again the characters are deeply flawed but not one's definition of likeable (not a problem for me but this has been a criticism that has popped up in reviews for most of the series' films), but they are meaty and feel real.

While Jessica Tandy and Simon O'Callaghan are both excellent, the best thing about 'Butley' is the intense and exuberant tour de force performance from Bates.

Concluding, great and one of the series' best. 9/10.