Thinking Activity : The Birthday Party

 Thinking Activity : The Birthday Party 

Hello readers!

Here I wrote about tasks for studying purposes . Here is my task on thinking Activity : The Birthday Party by Harold Pinter. The birthday party is played by pinte.  The task is given by Dilip Barad sir. 

The Birthday Party :

The Birthday Party (1957) is the first full-length play by Harold Pinter, first published in London by Encore Publishing in 1959. It is one of his best-known and most frequently performed plays. 

Here is some questions about Film Screening: ‘The Birthday Party’ - a British drama film (1968)- directed by 

William Friedkin (The Birthday Party) -  based on an unpublished screenplay by 2005 Nobel Laureate Harold Pinter, which he adapted from his own play The Birthday Party (Pinter, The Birthday Party).

Post-Viewing Tasks:

1 )  Why are two scenes of Lulu omitted from the movie?

It is very difficult to know the director's intention behind omitting Lulu’s scene because it does not make any difference if the scenes are omitted. Lulu is a girl who can be impressed very easily and we can see in the movie that she is actively participating with Goldberg. Goldberg is not doing it forcefully or Lulu is not in a position where she has to be submissive, she is doing it willingly. The center of the play is Stanley and symbolically Lulu is his inspiration.

2 ) Is movie success in giving us the effect of menace? Were you able to feel it while reading the text?

The idea of the comedy of menace is closely associated with Harold Pinter. Pinter has a mastery in creating ominous and humorous plays. The term was coined by drama critic Irving Wardle, who borrowed it from the subtitle of Campton's play The Lunatic View: A Comedy of Menace, in reviewing Pinter's and Campton's plays in Encore in 1958.

The Comedy of menace is used in the movie. While watching the movie I feel the effect of Menace. The pause and silence of the printer is hard to understand while we understand it. There is damage to each other psychological rather than physical. 

3 ) Do you feel the effect of lurking danger while viewing the movie? Where you able to feel the same while reading the text

Yes, I do feel lurking danger while watching a movie. In the movie I feel it when Stanley hides in the kitchen and Then again when the interrogation scene comes and at last when they take Stanley away from the house. I am able to feel the same while reading the text. When Stanley hide in kitchen, in the text there is description of kitchen and Stanley. So we can feel a little bit the same while reading the text.

4 ) What do you read in 'newspaper' in the movie? Petey is reading a newspaper to Meg, it is torn into pieces by McCain, pieces are hidden by Petey in the last scene.

In the movie newspapers are also symbolized. Act two is open with the noise of newspapers. Petey read the newspaper, it can be seen as a symbol of Power position.

 Later on this newspaper was torn into pieces by Maccan,which represents that Maccan himself is broken inside like these torn pieces of newspaper. 

Newspaper : I) power positioning

                     Il) Hide behind

                     lll) Arnold conversation

                     Iv) mask

5 ) Camera is positioned over the head of McCain when he is playing Blind Man's Buff and is positioned at the top with a view of the room like a cage (trap) when Stanley is playing it. What interpretations can you give to these positioning of cameras? 

The director of the movie had taken very effective work from the camera. During the blind man’s buff scene also it works effectively. At that time the camera is positioned over the head of maCain. It is like he is trying to emotionally blackmail Stanley. 

When it comes to Stanley the camera is on top of the room and room is looking like prison and Stanley is trying to escape. So it is symbolically said that now Stanley is in trap and he can not escape because Goldberg and MacCann will not allow him to do so.

6 ) "Pinter restored theater to its basic elements: an enclosed space and unpredictable dialogue, where people are at the mercy of one another and pretense crumbles." (Pinter, Art, Truth & Politics: Excerpts from the 2005 Nobel Lecture). Does this happen in the movie?

Yes! These lines are through. It happens in the movie. The space of the house is very narrow and dialogue is very impulsive. We can't assume that the Rabish thing is going on in the characters ' minds. All the characters are dependent on each other. At one point all came at where they are really. 

7 ) How does viewing movies help in better understanding of the play ‘The Birthday Party’ with its typical characteristics (like painteresque, pause, silence, menace, lurking danger)?

 The viewing movie helps in better understanding of the play rather than text reading. We can not understand the silence, pause, painteresque, menace and lurking danger through text but we can understand through visual images and pictures. So, camera angle helps us a lot to understand this kind of play.

8 ) With which of the following observations you agree:

o   “It probably wasn't possible to make a satisfactory film of "The Birthday Party."

o    “It's impossible to imagine a better film of Pinter's play than this sensitive, disturbing version directed by William Friedkin”. (Ebert)

 Yes I agree with the second point " it's impossible to imagine a better film of Painter's play than this sensitive, disturbing version by William friedkin. In this movie we feel all the effects which Pinter wants to create on the audience 's mind. Director has taken good shots from the camera and all the actors have also done very good jobs. So I can’t imagine a better film than this one. So, here I will go with the second point.

9 ) If you were a director or screenplay writer, what sort of difference would you make in the making of a movie?

If I am the director or screenplay of this movie I would also make a similar movie because I can't find any mistakes in settings or in any characters. I found that the boring sequence is a little bit long in the movie, like the noise of a newspaper. If I am the director then I make little bit short scenes and interesting.

10 )Who would be your choice of actors to play the role of characters?

If I have to choose the actors for this movie I will choose…

Stanley – Ranveer Kapoor

Goldberg – Pankaj Tripathi

MacCann – Manoj bajpayee

Petey – Anupam Kher

Meg – Vidhya Balan 

Lulu – Kalki Koechlin