The Homecoming

My comments are partially a response to "My Mind Parasites must be dead".

I wish that I could talk with the author of the comments more to get an understanding of his reaction to the film. For the first hour or so, I was thinking some of the same things about it. I slogged through what I thought was just going to be a lot of angry, repressed people in a rotten, emotionally poisoned family just to say that I had seen it.

At first I found it very irritating that people would sling words at each other with barbs of hatred attached. A lot of the dialog seemed stilted and somewhat like lectures. And the words and the emotions often had very little to do with each other. Eventually I realized that this was just fleshing out the characters. It even seemed like a substitute for conversation by people that had completely forgotten how to communicate with each other.

During the last thirty minutes or so we've been given a tour of what five different people will do when immersed in an aquarium devoid of the oxygen of any sort of positive emotional bonds. What Pinter seems to be doing is taking five possible approaches and carrying them to their extremes. Although the possible ways that each character could have developed are endless, the thrust of each is representative: sex, violence, and shut-down.

I found myself most fascinated with trying to guess what Teddy was thinking and feeling. I imagined mostly bottled rage, but perhaps instead, relief at leaving it all behind. In a way Ruth's character was the most fascinating because she had only tangentially been exposed to the family by marrying into it. But by the end of the play, she had developed a complete, and for her, necessary response to her environment.

To the author of "My mind parasites must be dead", I hope that it had no resonance with you because your family life bore no resemblance to the play. For most of the rest of us, there was probably a lot too much of "oh, yeah", "unh-huh", "yep", "been there, done that", "that's just like my uncle/brother/dad/me." Painful but cathartic.

Max (Paul Rogers) is a surly pensioner who alternately venerates and vilifies his dead wife. Sam (Cyril Cusack), his brother, is a supercilious chauffeur. Lenny (Ian Holm) is a smiling, snake-like pimp. Joey (Terence Rigby) is a thick-witted, would-be boxer. These four men live together in a North London flat, the site of their perpetual sadomasochistic battle of words and sometimes physical violence. And then after nine years, Max's third son, Teddy (Michael Jayston), a philosophy professor living in California, comes back home for a visit. He brings his wife, Ruth (Vivien Merchant). She is immediately drawn in to the family's ugly psychological games and quickly proves a worthy opponent. Soon, the game involves both of Teddy's brothers taking extreme liberties with Ruth, as the coiled Teddy obstinately refuses to spoil the malicious fun by objecting.

At first the dialogue in Harold Pinter's play, little changed for this American Film Theatre production, seems arbitrarily elliptical and the characters' behavior perversely unmotivated, but the thing is so compelling that we realize there must be something more. There is a mad method to the characters' madness. The actors know what their characters are up to. Pinter knows what they're up to. They just don't hand us all the answers on a platter. Maybe Pinter is saying something about families and maybe he's saying something about women, but I think he simply created a set of very real characters and let them do their thing without bothering with a lot of explanations.

The director, Peter Hall, does a good job at staying out of the play's way. His camera does a few clumsy things that draw attention to itself, but mainly he gives the play the space to be what it is. This movie proves yet again that the confined space of a play can often be an advantage on the screen and doesn't necessarily need to be opened up.

The first thing that should be emphasised I think is if you you get the chance I strongly recommend you see the play at the theatre, somehow Pinter's famous pauses seem longer on the stage, and the claustrophobia of the piece is maintained far better than when you watch it on the screen. Nevertheless if you have seen the play (or even if you haven't) you really should watch this film version. Firstly it is directed by the fantastic Peter Hall, one of the great stage directors of the era (and still a great stage director) and thus he is able to remain true to the stage format of the play, while also maintaining a strong cinematic emphasis, this is not just a recording of a stage play. Secondly it features some truly fine actors including the fantastic Vivienne Merchant. Being Pinter's wife she seems to have a unique understanding of the words and is able to convey this onto the audience, her first conversation when she meets Lenny (Ian Holm) particularly sticks in the mind. Ian Holm and Paul Rogers are also fantastic along with the rest of the cast who have names as well known on the stage as they are on the screen. Overall I don't believe I've seen a finer adaptation of a play for the screen.

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 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.