Samuel Beckett’s Film and Waiting for Godot

May 07, 2012

(Alan Schneider, United States, 1961/65, DigiBeta/35mm, 140 min)

Samuel Beckett’s FILM: Preservation Funded by The Film Foundation and administered by the National Film Preservation Foundation

Seeking a dose and a half of absurdity? You can’t do any better than Samuel Beckett’s Film—his only screenplay, clocking in at 20 minutes long—followed by the television adaptation of Waiting For Godot with Zero Mostel. Produced for the 1960s series Play of the Week, which endured minimal funding in exchange for freedom from McCarthy-era censorship, Waiting for Godot restored a comedic legend who had been blacklisted for nearly a decade. Preceding Mostel is Buster Keaton in Film. Keaton attempts to avoid pursuit by a mysterious all-seeing eye—but what good is his remaining unseen if “to be is to be perceived”?

 

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