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7

So unique you get your own adjective


Would you think you’ve made it if that ever happened to you?

From the New York Times on Harold Pinter:

That forced leap of the imagination [that he made Jude Law take in response to a question about the action in a new movie] is part of the mystery and challenge of Mr. Pinter’s work, so singular and unclassifiable that it has its own adjective. (The Financial Times, for one, defined Pinteresque as “full of dark hints and pregnant suggestions, with the audience left uncertain as to what to conclude.”)

I can’t seem to find the original Financial Times citation, but the reference goes back to at least 2001.

Even coining the word Pinteresque is in fact rather Pinteresque itself.  His most familiar works are probably Sleuth and Betrayal and the screenplay for The French Lieutenant’s Woman (need to rent that one, what a great movie and performance by Meryl Streep), but if you’re a theater-phobe, The Birthday Party would be another top memory.

Another memorable but more sanguine paragraph from the NYT piece:

Mr. Pinter reserves much of his great outrage for the United States. In his Nobel address, he said it was guilty of “systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless” crimes. “You have to hand it to America,” he said. “It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good.”

“clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good”

I can understand exactly what he’s describing.

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 9:41 am October 7th, 2007 in Culture 

Comments

2 Responses to “So unique you get your own adjective”

  1. 1 Village Green on October 7th, 2007 4:41 pm

    Don’t forget The Homecoming and The Caretaker. I saw the revival of the latter on B’way a couple of years ago with Patrick Stewart in the lead role. Pinter has always been one my favorites.

  2. 2 Jill Miller Zimon on October 7th, 2007 5:22 pm

    The Homecoming I remember but I’m not familiar with The Caretaker I don’t think. There’s a bunch of playwrights from his era that remind me of how much I really, really enjoyed theater and I just don’t go much now.

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