Pinter and the Object of Desire
An Approach through the Screenplays

Linda Renton

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Legenda (General Series)

Legenda

1 May 2002  •  196pp

ISBN: 1-900755-53-X (paperback)  •  RRP £75, $99, €85

ContemporaryEnglishFilmDramaPsychoanalysis

Harold Pinter was fascinated by film long before the theatre, but the importance of his screenplays, based on the work of other writers, has been overlooked. Renton shows him working from manuscript to final text to engage the spectator in a relationship of desire, or anxiety, with what is unseen. A recently discovered poem links Pinter to the Surrealists, and through the Surrealists to their contemporary, the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan (1901-81). The present study shows Pinter working differently from mainstream cinema, places him at the forefront of film theory, and offers a fresh insight into his entire output.

Linda Renton gained her doctorate as a mature student from the University of the West of England in 1999. She is a part-time Lecturer on film at Bath Spa University College.

Reviews:

  • ‘Linda Renton's superb study of Pinter as screenwriter quotes him saying how natural the process seemed when he started to write for films in the early 1960s... A strong commitment to the power of the image runs through his screen work, however paradoxical this might seem in a writer famed for his sparring dialogue. Renton argues that the image was central to his approach to film, suggesting that there is an "an object of desire" at the heart of all Pinter's screenplays: one which is often barely visible - or even invisible - to the characters in the story.’ — Ian Christie, Sight & Sound June 2009, 33

Bibliography entry:

Renton, Linda, Pinter and the Object of Desire: An Approach through the Screenplays (Legenda, 2002)

First footnote reference: 35 Linda Renton, Pinter and the Object of Desire: An Approach through the Screenplays (Legenda, 2002), p. 21.

Subsequent footnote reference: 37 Renton, p. 47.

(To see how these citations were worked out, follow this link.)

Bibliography entry:

Renton, Linda. 2002. Pinter and the Object of Desire: An Approach through the Screenplays (Legenda)

Example citation: ‘A quotation occurring on page 21 of this work’ (Renton 2002: 21).

Example footnote reference: 35 Renton 2002: 21.

(To see how these citations were worked out, follow this link.)

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