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.

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.

The Long Gay's Journey into Night. Nothing but bileous dialogue. Unwitty, uninteresting and unbearable.

This is one of the most excruciating films I have ever seen.

I can't believe the good reviews. They must have bought the pretense.

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.

The late Alan Bates had many "bests" (if one may be permitted to say so)because of the constant intensity he brought to every role. He made acting something of a physical sport. In this case, his neurotic Butley uses language as a fencer's epee, yielding nothing to putative antagonists in the tight confines of an English department office in a major university as the camera follows him doggedly thrusting and parrying without pause. I especially liked the puns and double entendres (obviously). This sort of thing is not for everyone, of course, and I do not blame the viewer who is easily bored by such verbal jousting.

Did I mention the superb camera work? It is a tour de force to take a stage play like this one and make it come alive on film. Great acting and great direction would be lost without due attention to the medium, and this one has it par excellence. As depressing as the theme may be, and as unlikeable the fictional characters, this production succeeds in demonstrating just how powerful a film can be in spite of itself. It reminded me instantly of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" in that regard. And it is uncanny in its recognition of all the unhappy details found in any college English department office.

The nicest touch, of course, was in making Butley a T. S. Eliot specialist, with a photo of the lugubrious poet pinned to the wall. Much comic relief if one knows how to spot it.