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The Homecoming

Directed by Peter Hall

Betrayal

Directed by David Hugh Jones
Screening on Film
  • The Homecoming

    Directed by Peter Hall.
    With Cyril Cusack, Ian Holm, Michael Jayston.
    UK/US, 1973, 35mm, color, 111 min.
    Print source: HFA

In North London, an all-male beehive of inactivity is ruled with a foul mouth and an iron hand by the abusive Max (Paul Rogers) and his brother, the priggish Sam (Cusack). When Max's son Teddy (Jayston) brings his wife Ruth (Vivien Merchant) home to meet his family for the first time, he gets both more and less than he bargained for. To Teddy's rueful discomfort, Ruth's presence exposes a labyrinth of Freudian dread, venal family values, and naked neediness that could only come from the mind of Harold Pinter. Director Peter Hall re-imagines his original Royal Shakespeare Company stage triumph as a bleached, claustrophobic delirium that exploits the jagged tempos and seductive tensions of Pinter's best play as no theater staging could.

  • Betrayal

    Directed by David Hugh Jones.
    With Jeremy Irons, Ben Kingsley, Patricia Hodge.
    UK, 1983, 35mm, color, 95 min.
    Print source: HFA

A love affair told in reverse, David Hugh Jones' direction of Harold Pinter's semi-autobiographical play (for which he wrote the script) explores the complex emotions which drive marital infidelity. A suave literary agent has an affair with the wife of a book publisher who also happens to be his best friend. Each actor is perfectly cast: Irons embodies the deluded dreams of the agent, Kingsley is frighteningly seething as the publisher, and Hodge sympathetically conveys her conflicted desire for both men.

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