28. Yesterday &...

Lyrics

Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away.
Now it looks as though they're here to stay.
Oh, I believe in yesterday.

Suddenly,
I'm not half the man I used to be,
There's a shadow hanging over me,
Oh, yesterday came suddenly.

Why she had to go
I don't know she wouldn't say.
I said something wrong,
Now I long for yesterday.

Yesterday, love was such an easy game to play.
Now I need a place to hide away.
Oh, I believe in yesterday.

Why'd she had to go
I don't know she wouldn't say.
I said something wrong,
Now I long for yesterday.

Yesterday, love was such an easy game to play.
Now I need a place to hide away.
Oh, I believe in yesterday.
Mm mm mm mm mm mm mm.


In my previous post on The Beatles I wrote about how I am not really a fan of their music. Well, that statement is a bit dated now. I recently played a Beatles-themed Guitar Hero (or something like it) game. And I found out they had made some truly spectacular songs, about which I didn't really know much. Songs like Come Together, I am The Walrus, Helter Skelter and I Want You are truly great. Listening to them, it was the first time I truly got why The Beatles were considered trailblazers. Radio 2's top 2000 is often criticized to be too conservative and it is quite telling that of the four songs I've mentioned only I am The Walrus is on this list (I am glad it's pretty low on the list, because I currently have no idea how to link that one to a movie). Anyway, despite all this I still find Yesterday to be a fairly boring song. It is a song in which the protagonist is looking backward at much happier times. I chose to link it to a movie which looks backward (at much happier times) in the most literal way possible. Its story is told backwards.

The Movie: Betrayal (David Hugh Jones, 1983)

Betrayal is about the extramarital affair of Jerry and Emma. This affair is even more complicated because Emma's husband Robert is Jerry's best and oldest friend. This is not groundbreaking material, but it is made more interesting due to the fact that the story is told backwards. And I don't mean that it's told in flashbacks. The film has a straightforward chronology, only it's reversed. After the first scenes we go back in time, instead of forward. In the first scenes we see Jerry and Emma meet. It's clear that they haven't seen each other in a long time and that their affair is long over. We also learn that Emma is going to divorce Robert and that Robert knew for four years already about Emma and Jerry's affair, something Jerry didn't know.  After these scenes, a new scene starts with a title card saying 'two years earlier'. We now see how Emma and Jerry ended their affair. The next scene starts with the title card 'one year earlier'.

The movie is written by the famous British playwright Harold Pinter, who also wrote the play from which the film is adapted. The play was written in the same backwards chronology as the film and was therefore considered groundbreaking and original. I am quite surprised it hadn't, and still hasn't, been done more often. Not only is it a simple (and quite obvious) way to make a simple, straightforward story (seem) more interesting and original, it also really does work in making us care more about the characters. We (the audience) almost always know more than the characters in the movie. In Betrayal for example we know that the affair between Emma and Jerry won't end happily, so the scenes when they are happy have an added poignancy to them. Even more poignant are the scenes in which Jerry and Robert are still friends. Especially the scenes taking place during the period when Robert knows that his wife and Jerry are having an affair. Due to its structure (and due to the dialogue and Ben Kingsley's brilliant acting) the movie creates enormous sympathy for Robert. He loves both his wife and Jerry and tries his best to control himself in order to retain both his marriage and his good friendship with the unsuspecting Jerry. The backwards structure also enables us to focus more on the characters. After all, we don't have to focus much on thinking about what's going to happen next. We already know that. We can focus on how the characters' behavior led them to their misery. Lastly through it's backwards structure, the movie manages to create incredible suspense in one scene. We know that four years before the 'now' Robert found out about Emma's affair. So when the scene that takes place four years before now starts, we immediately sense that something interesting might happen. That's further enhanced by the fact that, during Robert and Emma's holiday in Venice, we see a rather odd behaving Robert. When he starts telling her about some letter that's arrived for her from Jerry, we now her secret will be out. We just don't know how and when it'll happen and what Robert's reaction to it will be. Thus the tension in this scene is pretty enormous, also because we know Robert loves his wife and Jerry, and that he is not always able to control his fury.

Some final notes: Dr. House would've absolutely loved this movie. Not only does everybody lie here, they almost turn lying into a form of art. They are such experts at lying, that one actually hopes that they will continue doing so. It is extremely enjoyable to watch them do it. This is also helped by the tremendous actors, having enormous fun saying Pinters dialogue and acting deplorably. It must be said though that Patrica Hodge who plays Emma isn't on the same level as Ben Kinglsey and Jeremy Irons. She is sometimes a bit flat and never really manages to convince that these two men can be so smitten by her.
Lastly, while I really liked this movie, the Seinfeld episode The Betrayal remains the best version of Pinter's play I've seen. Even though it's a parody.