"BBC2 Play of the Week" Langrishe Go Down (1978)

User Rating:

6.5/10   

Director:

David Hugh Jones

Writers:

Aidan Higgins (novel)
Harold Pinter (screenplay)

TV Series:

"BBC2 Play of the Week" (1977)

Original Air Date:

20 September 1978 (Season 2, Episode 1)

Plot:

In the late 1930s, three reclusive middle-aged spinster sisters live on their run down family estate in Ireland...

Plot Keywords:

Based On Novel

Cast

Judi Dench	...	Imogen Langrishe
Jeremy Irons	...	Otto Beck
Annette Crosbie	...	Helen Langrishe
Susan Williamson	...	Lily Langrishe
Margaret Whiting	...	Maureen Layde
Harold Pinter	...	Barry Shannon
John Molloy	...	1st man on bus
Niall O'Brien	...	2nd man on bus
Arthur O'Sullivan	...	Joseph Feeney
Michael O'Brian	...	Priest (as Michael O'Briain)
Liam O'Callaghan	...	Mr. Langrishe
Joan O'Hara	...	Mrs. Langrishe

Runtime:

105 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English | French | German

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Filming Locations:

Ferrybank, Waterford, Ireland

Company:

British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)

Quotes:

Imogen Langrishe: What star is that?
Otto Beck: Venus.
Imogen Langrishe: I thought it was Hesper.
Otto Beck: Hesper? No, no, unmistakably Venus. The brightest of the planets - -a planet in fact, not a star.
Imogen Langrishe: I thought they were the same.
Otto Beck: The same - -the same as what?
Imogen Langrishe: The same as each other, planets and stars.
Otto Beck: Decidedly not. Planets are closer than stars, for one thing, and nine of them revolve around the sun against a background of constant stars that do not move. How does one know it's Venus, you ask? Well, because it's the brightest of planets and because it's in the position it should be, if it is Venus, moving in the direction Venus ought to move in. How then can it be anything else but Venus?
[...]

When the rot sets in

Pinter's "Langrishe, Go Down" is an exceptional piece of work, a beautifully written and multi-layered story as well as a masterful tour de force for its two leads, Jeremy Irons (brilliantly seedy as the 35-year-old leech of a 'scholar', Otto Beck) and Judi Dench, who brings the agonizingly conflicted Imogen Langrishe to life with superb subtlety. We realize their relationship is doomed from the start - partly because it's based on their two very different kinds of desperation - but in this piece, once the two of them have fully realized that the proverbial honeymoon is quite over, it's the WAY in which Imogen responds to Otto's casually-delivered, soul-crushing insults that gives the movie its ultimate power. If you get a chance to see this 16mm version of the BBC Play of The Week, do not miss it.