by Mark Deming
synopsis
Atom Egoyan directed this film adaptation of Samuel Beckett's single-character play, in which Krapp (John Hurt), an elderly man, sits at a desk and looks back at the events of his life. Every year, Krapp has made a point of recalling the most remarkable events of the past 12 months and reciting them into a tape recorder; as he plays back the tapes and remembers his few pleasures and many regrets, he tries to wipe out his past life and begin again. Krapp's Last Tape was produced as part of the "Beckett on Film" project, an ambitious attempt to bring Samuel Beckett's entire body of work to the screen.
