Cinematic Politics in Pinter’s Screenplays

Abstract

This paper examines Pinter’s cinematic politics in his early screenplay The Servant and later screenplay The Trial. Harold Pinter is a political playwright of a kind as he himself answered the question of his politics. He expressed his indirect dramatic politics metaphorically in his early plays classified as comedy of menace, presenting the theme of dominance and subservience and the symbolic aspects of the key concept room and the conflict between its occupant and invader. In addition, he revealed direct dramatic politics in his later political plays exposing irrationalities of reality and the unjustifiable political questions of society, despotic states, or organizations. Similarly, Pinter’s early screenplay The Servant includes the indirect and metaphorical politics of his early plays, and his later screenplay The Trial deals with the direct politics of his later political plays. This paper focuses on how Pinter transformed dramatic politics into his screenplays by modifying original novels.