Turtle Diary

Last updated

Turtle Diary
Turtle diary post.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by John Irvin
Written by Russell Hoban (novel)
Harold Pinter (screenplay)
Produced by Richard Johnson
Bernard Sofronski (Executive Producer)
Starring
Cinematography Peter Hannan
Edited by Peter Tanner
Music by Geoffrey Burgon
Distributed by Rank Film Distributors [1]
Release date
  • 29 November 1985 (1985-11-29)(UK)
Running time
97 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish

Turtle Diary is a 1985 British film directed by John Irvin and starring Glenda Jackson, Ben Kingsley, and Michael Gambon. Based on a screenplay adapted by Harold Pinter from Russell Hoban's novel Turtle Diary , the film is about "people rediscovering the joys of life and love". [2] The film contains elements of romance, comedy, and drama and has been described as a romantic comedy.[ citation needed ]

Contents

Synopsis

Two lonely Londoners - Neaera Duncan, a children's author (Glenda Jackson), and William Snow, a bookstore assistant (Ben Kingsley) - find common ground when visiting the sea turtles at London Zoo. Independently, each perceives that the turtles are unnaturally confined, and they hatch a plan with the assistance of zookeeper George Fairbairn (Michael Gambon) to smuggle them out and release them into the sea.

Their release of the turtles is a metaphor for their escape from their inhibitions.

Main cast

Harold Pinter has a cameo role as a man in the bookshop where William and Harriet work.

Critical reception and analysis

In his 1985 review of the film for The Sunday Telegraph , David Castell observes that Pinter's screenplay concentrates on developing dialogue and plot, leaving clues for the actors to convey their characters' subtle emotional and psychological development: "It is hard to think of two actors better matched to play Pinter than Glenda Jackson and Ben Kingsley. They milk every nuance, point up every missed beat and relish each irony and repetition in the script. … Turtle Diary is a fine film that charts movingly the unnoticed despair of everyday lives, the sufferings of those who endure loneliness in silence." [2]

The film grossed $2.2 million on its American theatrical release.

Home video

The film was released on videocassette in 1985 by Vestron Video. The film has not been released on DVD.

Notes

  1. "Turtle Diary (1985)". BBFC . Retrieved 29 March 2021.
  2. 1 2 David Castell (1 December 1985). "Review of Turtle Diary" (Web). Sunday Telegraph . HaroldPinter.org. Retrieved 22 March 2009.
  3. 1 2 "Turtle Diary (1985)(VHS): Editorial reviews: Product Description" (Web). Amazon. Retrieved 6 April 2009. Critically hailed as a mini-masterpiece, TURTLE DIARY is the enchanting film of people rediscovering the joys of life and love. … Outside of their chance meetings at the aquarium, they have little in common, but an inspiration to free the captive turtles starts a bond that gives their lives a new outlook. The 'turtlenappers' are about to set their own spirits free.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harold Pinter</span> British playwright (1930–2008)

Harold Pinter was a British playwright, screenwriter, director and actor. A Nobel Prize winner, Pinter was one of the most influential modern British dramatists with a writing career that spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party (1957), The Homecoming (1964) and Betrayal (1978), each of which he adapted for the screen. His screenplay adaptations of others' works include The Servant (1963), The Go-Between (1971), The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981), The Trial (1993) and Sleuth (2007). He also directed or acted in radio, stage, television and film productions of his own and others' works.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Glenda Jackson</span> English actress and politician (1936–2023)

Glenda May Jackson was an English actress and politician. She was one of the few performers to achieve the American Triple Crown of Acting, having won two Academy Awards, three Emmy Awards and a Tony Award. A member of the Labour Party, she served continuously as a Member of Parliament (MP) for 23 years, initially for Hampstead and Highgate from 1992 to 2010, and Hampstead and Kilburn from 2010 to 2015, following boundary changes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Gambon</span> Irish-English actor (1940–2023)

Sir Michael John Gambon was an Irish-English actor. Gambon started his acting career with Laurence Olivier as one of the original members of the Royal National Theatre. Over his six-decade-long career, he received three Olivier Awards and four BAFTA TV Awards. In 1998, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for services to drama.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ben Kingsley</span> British actor (born 1943)

Sir Ben Kingsley is an English actor. He has received various accolades throughout his career spanning five decades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, a Grammy Award, and two Golden Globe Awards. Kingsley was appointed Knight Bachelor in 2002 for services to the British film industry. In 2010, he was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2013, he received the Britannia Award for Worldwide Contribution to Filmed Entertainment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ian Holm</span> British actor (1931–2020)

Sir Ian Holm Cuthbert was an English actor. After beginning his career on the British stage as a leading member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, he became a successful and prolific performer on television and in films. He received numerous accolades including two BAFTA Awards and a Tony Award, along with nominations for an Academy Award and two Emmy Awards. He was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1989 by Queen Elizabeth II.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrew Davies (writer)</span> British screenwriter and novelist (born 1936)

Andrew Wynford Davies is a Welsh screenwriter and novelist, best known for his television adaptations of To Serve Them All My Days, House of Cards, Middlemarch, Pride and Prejudice, Bleak House, War & Peace, and his original serial A Very Peculiar Practice. He was made a BAFTA Fellow in 2002.

<i>Accident</i> (1967 film) 1967 British film

Accident is a 1967 British drama film directed by Joseph Losey. Written by Harold Pinter, it is an adaptation of the 1965 novel Accident by Nicholas Mosley. It is the third of four Losey–Pinter collaborations; the others being The Servant (1963), Modesty Blaise (1966) and The Go-Between (1971). At the 1967 Cannes Film Festival, Accident won the Grand Prix Spécial du Jury award. It also won the Grand Prix of the Belgian Film Critics Association.

No Man's Land is a play by Harold Pinter written in 1974 and first produced and published in 1975. Its original production was at the Old Vic theatre in London by the National Theatre on 23 April 1975, and it later transferred to Wyndham's Theatre, July 1975 – January 1976, the Lyttelton Theatre April–May 1976, and New York's Longacre Theatre from October–December 1976. It returned to the Lyttelton from January – February 1977. It is a two-act play.

Louis Frank Marks was an English screenwriter and producer, mainly for BBC Television. His career began in the late 1950s and continued into the next century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lindsay Duncan</span> Scottish actress

Lindsay Vere Duncan is a Scottish actress. She is the recipient of three BAFTA nominations and one Scottish BAFTA nomination, as well as two Olivier Awards and a Tony Award for her work on stage. She has starred in several plays by Harold Pinter. Duncan's film credits include Prick Up Your Ears (1987), The Reflecting Skin (1990), City Hall (1996), An Ideal Husband, Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, Mansfield Park, Under the Tuscan Sun, AfterLife, Starter for 10 (2006), Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland (2010), About Time (2013), Birdman (2014), and Blackbird (2019).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Griffith Jones (actor)</span> English actor (1909–2007)

Griffith Jones was an Anglo/Welsh film, stage and television actor.

<i>Betrayal</i> (play) 1978 play by Harold Pinter

Betrayal is a play written by Harold Pinter in 1978. Critically regarded as one of the English playwright's major dramatic works, it features his characteristically economical dialogue, characters' hidden emotions and veiled motivations, and their self-absorbed competitive one-upmanship, face-saving, dishonesty, and (self-) deceptions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Johnson (actor)</span> British actor (1927-2015)

Richard Keith Johnson was an English stage and screen actor, writer and producer. Described by Michael Coveney as "a very 'still' actor – authoritative, calm and compelling," he was a staple performer in British films and television from the 1960s through the 2010s, often playing urbane sophisticates and authoritative characters. He had a distinguished theatrical career, notably as a cornerstone member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, and was once acclaimed as "the finest romantic actor of his generation."

John Irvin is an English film director. Born in Newcastle upon Tyne, Northumberland, he began his career by directing a number of documentaries and television works, including the BBC adaptation of John le Carré's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. He made several Hollywood films in the 1980s, including The Dogs of War (1980), Ghost Story (1981) and Hamburger Hill (1987).

Bibliography for Harold Pinter is a list of selected published primary works, productions, secondary sources, and other resources related to English playwright Harold Pinter (1930–2008), the 2005 Nobel Laureate in Literature, who was also a screenwriter, actor, director, poet, author, and political activist. It lists works by and works about him, and it serves as the Bibliography for the main article on Harold Pinter and for several articles relating to him and his works.

<i>Betrayal</i> (1983 film) 1983 British film

Betrayal is a 1983 British drama film adaptation of Harold Pinter's 1978 play of the same name. With a semi-autobiographical screenplay by Pinter, the film was produced by Sam Spiegel and directed by David Jones. It was critically well received. Distributed by 20th Century Fox International Classics in the United States, it was first screened in movie theaters in New York in February 1983.

David Hugh Jones was an English stage, television and film director.

Remembrance of Things Past is the 2000 collaborative stage adaptation by Harold Pinter and director Di Trevis of Harold Pinter's as-yet unproduced The Proust Screenplay (1977), a screen adaptation of À la recherche du temps perdu, the 1913–1927 seven-volume novel by Marcel Proust.

<i>National Theatre Live: 50 Years On Stage</i> 2013 documentary directed by Nicholas Hytner

National Theatre Live: 50 Years On Stage is a 2013 live staged event film directed by Nicholas Hytner. Shown in theatres and on PBS and National Theatre Live. The program is presented by The Royal National Theatre which celebrates 50 years of theatre, with some extracts of the best productions from the last five decades including Alan Bennett, Noël Coward, David Hare, Tony Kushner, Eugene O'Neill, Harold Pinter, William Shakespeare, George Bernard Shaw, Tom Stoppard, and Tennessee Williams performed by the countries best performers including Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Michael Gambon, Helen Mirren, Benedict Cumberbatch, Andrew Scott, Penelope Wilton, Simon Russell Beale, Frances de la Tour, Ian Holm, Derek Jacobi, and Joan Plowright.

References