Subject: RIP Harold Pinter Thu Dec 25, 2008 10:21 pm
I could never properly appreciate Harold Pinter's work, as the world I grew up in was so close to his stage world that it was hard to see how his plays might be art.
Quote :
Playwright Harold Pinter dies aged 78 Playwright and Nobel laureate Harold Pinter, famous for his brooding, unforgiving portrayals of domestic life, has died aged 78, media reported today.
Mr Pinter, who had been suffering from cancer, died yesterday.
Lady Antonia Fraser, told the Guardian newspaper: "He was a great, and it was a privilege to live with him for over 33 years. He will never be forgotten."
Mr Pinter was due to pick up an honorary degree earlier this month from the Central School of Speech and Drama in London.
But the east London-born playwright, director, actor, poet and political activist was forced to withdraw from the event due to illness.
During his lifetime he was widely accepted as one of the world's greatest playwrights.
Mr Pinter shot to fame with works including The Birthday Party and Betrayal .
He was well-known for his left-wing political views and was a vociferous critic of US and UK foreign policy, voicing opposition on a number of issues including the bombing of Afghanistan in 2001.
( IT)
Pinter's speech of acceptance of the Nobel prize for Literature in 2005 covers art, truth, Iraq, Nicaragua and the US
The speech would go largely unreported at the time of course. The BBC seemed to have lost it down the back of the sofa since then (the sofa being unacceptable dissent).
When he was awarded the Nobel prize for literature in 2005, Pinter delivered his acceptance speech by video, sitting in a wheelchair, with a rug over his knees and framed by an image of his younger self. He made a passionate and astonishing speech attacking the United States - made all the more powerful because it was delivered in a husky, throat rasp. At one point, Pinter argued that "the United States supported and in many cases engendered every rightwing military dictatorship in the world after the end of the second world war". He then proceeded to reel off examples. But the clincher came when Pinter, with deadpan irony, said: "It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening, it wasn't happening. It didn't matter. It was of no interest." In a few sharp sentences, Pinter pinned down the willed indifference of the media to publicly recorded events.
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Subject: Re: RIP Harold Pinter Fri Dec 26, 2008 9:03 pm
A brilliant man in words and deeds. He'll be missed and fondly remembered.