Customer Reviews

Prick Up Your Ears [VHS]

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Stephen Frears continues to deliver extraordinary films (Dirty Pretty Things, The Grifters, Dangerous Liaisons, My Beautiful Launderette, Loving Walter, High Fidelity among others) and returning now to his 1987 PRICK UP YOUR EARS not only shows this excellent film aging well, but now it shows how keenly Frears is able to depict a period in time. Set in the 1960s, Frears bases his story on the biography of Joe Orton (British playwright whose plays included 'Entertaining Mr. Sloane' and 'Loot'). And while many other directors and screenwriters struggle with the format of "interviewing" people who knew the subject versus creating a novel/story based on bits and pieces of fact and fiction, Frears uses both these approaches with consummate skill. Joe (John) Orton (Gary Oldman in a definitive performance) was an openly gay playwright in a period of time in England when being gay was still punishable by imprisonment. His childhood in Leicester is explored (with Julie Walters amazingly fine as his weird mother) as he wishes to become an actor. He moves to London where he becomes involved with one Kenneth Halliwell (Alfred Molina in a tour de force, over the top raging Queen role) and lives in an openly gay, albeit bizarre love/hate relationship. The two struggle to become established as actors and writers, but it is Orton who succeeds, only after a six month prison sentence for 'indecency' during which time he writes his first play. When Orton and Halliwell are released form prison, Orton's star ascends due in part to the wise counsel and friendship of Peggy Ramsey (Vanessa Redgrave in peak form). Halliwell ages (he is eight years Orton's senior), resents Orton's success not only with the theater and money, but with the near daily dalliances in toilets and lurid spaces where he seeks sex. The ending of the biography is well known and opens the film, so it is not inappropriate to say that Halliwell's mind is finally broken and he bludgeons Orton to death and then commits suicide. Only Orton's diaries are left to document his truly strange life. Given the content of the story, it may seem to some that this is a grisly tale and it might well have been in less capable hands. But with Frears' directorial gifts and absolutely first class performances by Oldman, Molina, Redgrave, Frances Barber, Julie Walters and the rest of the cast, this film finds humor, tenderness, meaningful insights into the artist's mind, and what life was like in England under the threat of a legal system that had changed little since Oscar Wilde's tragedy. The cinematography and music are excellent and the flavor of the 60s is captured completely. A splendid film, an excellent biography, and a most entertaining experience!

Oscar Wilde put it best: "In this world, there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, the other is getting it." Kenneth Halliwell, the lover and eventual murderer of Joe Orton (the British playwright of several popular comedies in the 60's) was a blueprint for success. However, never a believer in his own talents, he lived from one failure to another while experiencing success through the boy he mentored, educated, financially supported, and trained for world-renowned success. Why this movie is not on DVD, and as it even approaches VHS obscurity staggers the mind. The movie is a thriller, biography, and psychological study of two homosexuals, romantically bankrupt, yet entirely dependant on one another. A classic irony. As Orton's star rises after 16 years of struggling with a man eight years his senior, Halliwell's world and mind crack up all around him. Orton's ignorance of his lover's need to have the relationship as it was before Orton's success, drives Halliwell to destroy the mind that he himself helped create. After the brutal murder of his friend, Halliwell committed suicide with a note affixed to Orton's diary, which recorded the last six months of his life. The movie is based on this diary, as well as memoirs of friends, family, and colleagues. This adult movie spends more time than is requisite about Orton's gay fantasies and promiscuous lifestyle, even involving young boys. This might be an instant turn-off to some viewers, but if you can divorce the lifestyle from the man, you will be captivated by the spell that genius played in the two lives of these interesting people. Both Gary Oldman and Alfred Molina are at their best in this film, bringing a sometimes drifting script to abundant life.

Although I have not seen an Orton play, or read the Orton diaries compiled and edited by John Lahr; or read Lahr's biographical work on Orton; or seen the West-End play based on the diaries, one thing is clear: Lahr made quite a sum for himself off another man's diaries! The film version of Orton's story brings the ill-fated Orton-Halliwell relationship not only to the screen but to our hearts, even to the hearts of viewers uninitiated/uninterested in British plays or gay sex.Such matters,while present in the movie,take a backseat to the central issue-- namely, the turbulent complexity of human relationships. The movie takes us from the early stages of a mutually beneficial, "body-for-brains" trade-off between young, awkward and talentless Orton, and older, articulate, and caustically witty Halliwell; through Orton's parasitic draining of Halliwell's witticisms and their "refurbishment" into what would eventually be hailed as the "Orton style". The film leads us through Orton's transformation from pussycat to tiger during a stint in prison, his subsequent meteoric rise to the top of West-End playbills as a playwright of sensationalistic,farcical comedies, leading to his emotional abandonment and outshining of his increasingly uptight/neurotic former mentor(whose chronic lack of social skills is played brilliantly here). Halliwell manages no career of his own, but only continues to supply his "friend" with more material in exchange for the privilege of tasting the limelight from the wings), a situation made even more unendurable by a blatantly (I would say punishing) promiscuity by Orton in the latrines and alleyways of London (details about which Orton purposely included in his "secret" diary, knowing full-well that Halliwell was reading them and "burning...") The movie does more than elicit sympathy for Halliwell and blame Orton: it exposes us to the agony of a mutually beneficial/destructive love-hate relationship. The pressure between the increasingly smug, sadistic Orton (suffering as he does from poor self-esteem)and the neurotic brooder Halliwell, builds up to quite a boil. The fact that this story is entirely true adds to its depressing pathos, as well as its efficacy as universal moral tale--don't use your lover as a stepping-stone. To fellow gay viewers, I would add that Oldman's steamy lip-lock with the hunky "pick-up guy" is alone worth the price of the tape.

At last. This film has been unavailable on VHS for a couple of years now. I seriously contemplated stealing the copy from my local video store but couldn't do it. The whole cast is superb. The story is extremely interesting and it's all true. Oldman is Joe Orton, the uninhibited English playwright who was the toast of the town in 60's London. Young and successful he lives life to its limits, hindered only by his mentor, lover and eventual murderer Kenneth, exceptionally portrayed by Alfred Molina (who has fallen far, now starring in a horrendous American sitcom called Ladies' Man). Their story is very engrossing. Vanessa Redgrave is the literary agent and this performance made her one of my fave female actors of all time. She's excellent. Get this movie!

This was an entertaining film with suprizes. The production quality was good and the acting solid. I had no idea what to expect when I got this film and viewed it with an open mind. It is the life story of Joe Orton, Playwrite and all around character. A some what more modern Quentin Crisp although Mr. Crisp was bold and respectful and Mr. Orton was bold and much less concerned with being respectful. For his short life he was an Out, in your face sort. Gary Oldman did a masterful job of not only capturing the bold and harsh aspect of Orton but also did an outstanding job of letting us see the soft, tender and even semi-romantic feeling Orton had for his lover of ten years, Kennith. Just when your sure that Orton is cruel and cold, he shows you a loving act that that renews your hope.
The acting made this film a great investment and the story is excellant. You will most likely want to add this to your collection as I did. It was an impressive film.

I've been a huge fan of both Gary Oldman and Alfred Molina for years and I think they are both outstanding in this biography of the late British playwright Joe Orton.

Although most people think of Oldman from films like AIR FORCE ONE or the Harry Potter films and Molina from SPIDER-MAN 2, they are both some of the most dependable and most talented actors in films today.
PRICK UP YOUR EARS would be worth seeing for either one of these actors, but both of them make this an excellent film.

I would recommend it to anyone who likes them but I would also warn anyone about the film's openness about their characters' homosexuality. If you have a problem seeing men kissing, then you might want to take a pass (or just turn your head). I don't know. I wouldn't trick anyone into watching this movie without letting them know that the main characters are gay--and one of them loves to pick up strange men in London public bathrooms (called "cottages").

But this is a good movie with great performances. If you see and like this film, I would also recommend CARRINGTON with Jonathan Pryce and Emma Thompson.

I saw the stage version of PUYE in London in 1987. It was gripping drama, and this movie captures something of that unforgettable theatrical experience. The couple's small, dimly-lit room, walls covered with eerie collages of pictures cut illegally from library books, shows "beauty" "pasted on" to an essentially cheerless and shabby world. That metaphor persisted in Orton's career, as art for Orton also became a vehicle for social protest... Many undercurrents in this film! Straight-acting social-climber Orton is effectively portrayed by Oldman, serving up what becomes a boiling contrast with the caustic and anti-social Halliwell. Overall, a very realistic re-enactment of the most fascinating pairing since Frankenstein and his Bride.

. . . . well, maybe not lovers but more like two men who
shared a sexual history. When Ken hammered Joe to death,
it was hardly an act of love, but it was certainly an
act of history.

Unravelling the history of Ken and Joe is what Prick Up
Your Ears is about. Joe was playwright Joe Orton. Ken
was first his mentor, then his lover and finally-when
Joe's fame exceeded his-his depressed and angry drudge.
Prick Up Your Ears doesn't unravel the history of this
relationship so much as it caresses its surface,
playing with issues of wit and style. The play is
attractive, even funny, but it never hellps us to
understand what kept this unlikely pair together
for 16 years.

The movie rises above the level of morbid peep
show only by standing on the shoulders of three
great performances. Alfred Molina as the tormented
Ken and Gary Oldman as the sociable and heartless
Joe keep the somewhat superficial screenplay together.
Julie Walters (Educating Rita) as Joe's crazed kin
almost steals the show.

In the end, Orton's inability to recognize the value
that Ken had added to his life and Ken's refusal to
live without that recognition leads the grisly murder-
suicide with which the film begins.

Joe Orton was the, "bit of rough", Leicester lad who became the voice of edgy, sexual charged playwriting in the 60's, exactly the kind of representaions peole were seeking at the time.
The film depicts his life and rise to fame beautifully, exploring his sexually charged adoloscence,his early admission to RADA, his emerging and confident sexuality and meeting with Halliwell, throught to his final success and the destruction of his realtionship with Halliwell which led to their deaths; Halliwell battered Joe to death with a hammer before overdosing himself on a barbiturate cocktail (bizarrely Halliwell died first). The casting is perfect and the lead actors are immensley evocative and emotive. There is a delicious cameo by Julie Walters as Orton's Mum, too afraid to answer the door to a theatre offical seeking Joe because she has left her teeth upstairs. Frances Barber is excellent and loyal as Joe's Sister, Vanessa Redgrave is slightly cold and bitchy as his agent, particularly with women. An excellent depiction of Joe's high octane, interesting and sadly short life, I was only sorry that the "Morrocan Holiday" scene did not feature a representaion of the comic actor Kenneth Williams(of "Carry On" fame), a dear freind of Joe's who often holidayed with Joe and Halliwell. Not an easy film but a very good and beautifully depicted one.
Fnas of Joe may wish to know that Leicester City Council have now marked the council house he grew up in with a blue plaque, it is situated off Saffron Lane, an estate of houses bulit in the 1930's.

This is one of those unusual films that, despite excellent acting, interesting themes and a good script (here, one by Alan Bennett), seems to add up to less than the sum of its parts. Gary Oldman, perfectly cast as the ill-fated playwright Joe Orton, captures precisely the spirit of what Orton and his work seem to have been about--macabre playfulness, unflappable hedonism, and an acute sense of life's absurdity. Alfred Molina also delivers as Kenneth Halliwell, Orton's frustrated lover and literary mentor. Vanessa Redgrave is delightful as Orton's potty-mouthed agent, one among the many courageous roles that epitomize this remarkable actress's career.

Alan Bennett is, however, a verbal writer, which makes it crucial that we be allowed to hear his text. Unfortunately, sound is an area in which this film (and many other British films of its period) fail to excel. Visually, the film should have been good; the sets (especially Orton and Halliwell's claustrophobic one-room apartment) are a perfect fit with the story. But the lighting is a little too understated, a little too monotonously dim. The resultant mood is less like film noir than seasonal affective disorder, and instead of being drawn into the action and atmosphere, you want to go to sleep.