VISUAL ARTS

A portrait of a failing marriage, The Pumpkin Eater is probably the Clayton film most closely linked to the European art cinema of the 1960s. It was celebrated at the time for its sophistication and gripping drama, thanks to a screenplay by Harold Pinter and riveting performances by Anne Bancroft and Peter Finch. Bancroft is remarkable as a woman incapable of either denying or accepting her own sensuality. Having helped to spark the British New Wave five years earlier, Clayton here takes advantage of that movement’s visual inventiveness by using a number of handheld shots, as well as unusual close-ups and camera angles.