Harold Pinter: Nobel lecture [movie download]

db: Harold Pinter delivers a message to the world
in dramatic style - a different experience to reading
the transcript - not to be missed.

In an effort to keep the filesize to a minimum [18MB]
this movie begins 10 mins 30 seconds into the lecture,
which for me was when things really got interesting.

Click here to watch 'Harold_Pinter_Nobel' WMV

Transcript here

Londontheatreguide: While illness may have prevented him from attending the Nobel Prize award ceremony in Stockholm this week, Harold Pinter still stole the show with a characteristically withering attack upon the ongoing political policies of the USA and, to a lesser extent, Great Britain during his recorded Nobel lecture. Pinter's 46-minute lecture, which he gave after being awarded this year's Nobel Prize for Literature, was shown on video to the collected luminaries, and, while also addressing a number of artistic issues, will be best remembered for its scathing assault on America's foreign policy over the last 50 years.

The lecture, entitled Art, Truth and Politics, began by exploring the importance of truth in Art before suggesting that it was a value increasingly neglected in modern politics. According to Pinter, the British and American public were fed "a vast tapestry of lies" about the war in Iraq by politicians who, mostly, "are interested not in truth but in power and the maintenance of that power". Pinter added that claims that Saddam Hussein possessed Weapons Of Mass Destruction "were not true" and also alleged that the US has "supported, and in many cases engendered every right-wing military dictatorship in the world" since the end of World War II. The UK also came under stringent attack from Pinter, who dubbed the country America's "bleating little lamb", trotting obediently behind on a leash, "pathetic and supine".

Harold Pinter was awarded this year's Nobel Prize For Literature after half a century of ground-breaking writing, directing and acting. His most famous plays include The Caretaker, The Birthday Party and Betrayal. The Publisher Stephen Page will accept the Nobel Prize For Literature on behalf of Harold Pinter, who was readmitted to hospital earlier this week. He is known to have been fighting cancer for some time. Link

Don't Worry America - Harold Pinter Hates Your Freedom!