Harold Pinter's Birthday Party - Thinking Activity - Worksheet

Hello Readers!

Here is the worksheet of the film screening of 1968 film The Birthday Party directed by William Friedkin.

Date: 1968

Director: William Friedkin

Actors: Robert Shaw, Patrick Magee

Click here to visit teacher's blog on the worksheet questions of this film.

* Post-Viewing Tasks:

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

Ans: It can be said that perhaps the director wanted to have the audience etiquettes related with the film and in terms of artistic liberty, the director might not be willing to compromise with the target audience. Although when the film released, the time of 1950s and 60s, society might be having Victorian notions. As such it was necessary to remove or omit the two scenes from the film.

2. Is movie successful in giving us the effect of menace? Where you able to feel it while reading the text?

Ans: While reading Harold Pinter's play, I was unable to identify the feeling of menace. Whereas in the film I was able to feel the menace effect because of the sound of knocking the doors and tearing the newspaper.

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

Ans: Yes the lurking danger of unknown was felt in both, while reading and while watching the film. At first, Goldberg and McCann seemed very decent and well to do people, but as the play unfolds to eyes, their hidden intentions started coming to the surface.

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

Ans: Newspaper is used as a symbol of power. Because the one who reads newspaper holds some power position in the play. For example Petey is reading newspaper and his wife Meg is asking about the trivial things. Now Petey may give answer with facts or with wring info, in such way Petey holds the power position. But when we look at the another scene of Petey hiding the torn pieces of newspaper, we suspect that he might be knowing who Goldberg and McCann actually are.

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 room like a cage (trap) when Stanley is playing it. What interpretations can you give to these positioning of camera?

Ans:

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?

Ans: When Petey and Meg allowed the duo of Goldberg and McCann to stay in boarding house, it seemed that these two are having something good around them. But by their behaviour we come to know that they are about to do suspicious activity in the house. Their inhuman way of interrogating Stanley describes their hidden instincts.

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

Ans:

8. With which of the following observations you agree:

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

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

Ans:

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

Ans: If I would be the director of this film, I would have added few more scenes of Nat Goldberg and McCann blackmailing or threatening Petey and Meg. Because one interpretation can also be given about their silence and all-right kind of behavior that perhaps they might have been threatened by Goldberg and McCann. Perhaps they are not supposed to raise their voice against the activity Goldberg and McCann are about to conduct. Their anxiety and agony should be screened in this film. I would have included this part in the film.

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

Ans: Stanley.

11. Do you see any similarities among Kafka's Joseph K. (in 'The Trial'), Orwell's Winston Smith (in 'Nineteen Eighty-Four') and Pinter's Victor (in 'One for the Road')?

Ans :