i’ve only seen two of his films. “cook/theif/wife”, and “the pillow book”. i enjoyed them both very much.
but i havent heard much from greenaway in recent years. it seems he’s fallen off the map. i dont know anything about his new works, or what hes putting out.
I have adored him since I saw Macon for the first time. He’s probably one of the most unique and genuine of auteurs that ultimately respects the craft of motion in pictures. Even in more recent years with Tulse – his love declared for the almighty digital and bringing it to the front fold (not that I adopt fully with this transformation here but I can respect it just the same since it aligns with evolving). I personally feel his story arcs are never secondary…he is much too literary in being for that to occur and not shy about it either. Since he is an artist as well however, I can see how his imagery is able to stand on its own and appears to weigh in heavier at times.
I feel his baser themes of humanity devolving and rotting from the inside to out is quite transforming. I’m also very appreciative of his collaborations via directors of photography and scoring, they leave complete imprints on the psyche.
When I think of Greenaway I think: death, literature, food, art. All of his work seems to somehow combine these themes but in such wonderful and creative ways – and often very literal ways. I always feel like doing something creative after watching one of his films. I haven’t seen all of his films – but “The Cook, the Thief” and “Pillowbook” are prob my favourites. I did happen to catch a documentary about Charles Darwin on TV once and you could immediately tell that it was Greenaway’s work. Same wonderful set design.
I just watched The Draughtsman’s Contract and I feel like I finally have an answer to people who flip over the supposed aesthetic brilliance and authenticity of Barry Lyndon. Greenaway has created a bristling, tangible, claustrophobic world that is as close to an 18th century English manor as I would ever want to come. (And the reptilian Ryan O’Neal is nowhere to be found! Yay!) In the opening scene, everything is a tableau where the characters literally emerge out of sinister darkness to quip and repartee lightly about matters which we already know concern the deepest of subjects — love, sex, life, death. Of course, “every shot looks like an old painting” — that cliche only begins to scratch the surface, because what Greenaway shows with an unerring and lucid eye is that chiaroscuro was not just an invention of painters: artists painted that way with dark shadowy backgrounds and fitfull foregrounded sources of light because everything was done by candlelight in those days.
This film is rich in double entendre dialogue and atmosphere, but extremely, starkly minimal in its filmmaking style. One short scene after another in which very little information is imparted (usually in a kind of cryptic code). It adds up to a wallop of a punch. I never really understood Aristotelian catharsis in its pure sense until this film. Oh sure, I got the vulgar connotation — someone breaks down crying, it rains, then there’s a rainbow, they wipe away their tears, etc., curtain. But here — my god, it’s like the entire film is locked in this suffocating corset, and then finally in the very last moments we are allowed to burst out, and everything that these upper-crust, uptight, oh-so-proper nobles have been sinisterly repressing for ninety minutes comes flooding out in an explosion of — well, damnation. The living statues are even a comic nod to Don Giovanni.
I loved this film.
btw, Bobby, his newest film, which is just coming out of dvd, is Nightwatching (2007), about how Rembrandt uncovered a deadly conspiracy behind one of his most famous paintings, The Night Watch.
OCD
? Banal1
Justin —
I saw the Greenaway film this past June at Seattle’s Internat’l Film Festival and it did concern Rembrandt’s painting…only it was entitled “Rembrandt J’accuse” or perhaps “J’accuse Rembrandt”. Perhaps the title was changed for the DVD release. I’m going to Amazon right now and see when and if it’s available.
By the way, I love your earlier post after having watched “Draughtsman’s Contract”. Excellent example of why I “follow” you on this forum.
Thanks Cineaste! They’re taking pre-orders now — I think Sept. 15 is the release date.
@Justin –
My god, man – you’ve made my day. Very excited to see Nightwatching.
I took a look at A Zed and Two Naughts the other day, my first Greenaway movie, and I have to say that I wish I had a gun in my house. I would have shot a hole in my wall, right through those idiot actors and their stuffed dialogue that was supposed to be oh-so intelligent.
ZOO – You know, “A Zed and Two Noughts”. Like, people are like animals. That is so deep. We are like living in a zoo, caged, you know. I could have clawed my eyes out.
Mind you, that’s not a real evaluation of a film I really hated, and I will watch other Greenaway films in the future under the belief that not every film can be as bad as this.
Justin V: Not surprisingly – you got the point. A great analysis you have given us of what I still believe to be Greenaway’s first true masterwork – Draughtman’s Contract. Thank you!
Nathan M: You missed the whole point – go and watch again or otherwise, stay far away from Greenaway. He obviously is not your type of auteur. His works are dense in symbolism, reference to classical painting (Greenaway was a graphic artist and experimental filmmaker before making feature films), and he uses the medium of film like a painter’s palette. To approach his films from any conventional standpoint is to do him a great injustice. The whole is much greater than the sum of its parts in a Greenaway film. Everything is self-referential on multiple levels – like a hall of mirrors. I know he isn’t to everyone’s taste, but don’t minimalize his artistic intentions because you fail to recognize them.
Bob – It’s not that I’m failing to recognize what he’s doing; he just has the subtlety of a baseball bat to the head. Much of what you’ve said about Greenaway is true, and I was aware of both his background and film type going into this movie. I’m willing to try him again, and I’m willing to recognize that he might execute his vision better in some movies than others. A Zed and Two Noughts seemed so forced in it’s symbolism and references that I couldn’t enjoy it on a “human” (Oh, God, I can’t believe I just used that term – for lack of a better one) level.
Then again, I’m the type of person that would love to walk into the modern wing at the Chicago Art Institute, and burn almost every piece of “work” there. The architecture for that wing is great – too bad it’s a house for a bunch of artists crap.
I’m giddy, for today I ordered the 2-disc set, “Greenaway—The Early Films”, that includes his early shorts and the 3.5 hour-long “The Falls” with music by Brian Eno.
What a night that will make!
Bob — “a hall of mirrors” — how true! But mirrors in baroque, gilt-edged frames, wouldn’t you add?
Nathan M: Try some other Greenaway – it may work for you, it may not. I know that film viewing is very personal. Greenaway doesn’t appeal to all sensibilities – like any contemporary artist who is trying something a bit radical. Maybe his art is not for you – which is fine. I have no problem with that, but try to see his work in its own context first, regardless of your initial emotional response. I find that once I try to understand the why of an artist’s endeavor – even if I don’t fully empathize with it – what is behind what they do, then it helps me to be more objective. But, hey, it’s your call. Thanks for your honest opinion, which is all any of us can give here.
Cineaste: “But mirrors in baroque, gilt-edged frames, wouldn’t you add?” Exactly!
Bob – I’m glad to see you popping in every once in a while.
Here’s one thing that I will grant you about Greenaway. When he stayed away from the “drama” of the film, and the character interactions, I did enjoy some of the abstract elements of the film. The biology, decay, etc, etc.
One more thing I’ll give you is this – If I scroll down my top ten favorite movies of all time, I notice that for more than half of them, I wasn’t much impressed the first time through. I may not have had a violent reaction to them, as I did with this film, but it took time for them to grow on me. Maybe Greenaway will grow on me. Who knows?
Like I said in the first post – I’m not intending to give a real critical evaluation of his film; just my gut reaction to it.
Nathan M: Well, I think a gut reaction is usually the best way to evaluate a film viewed for the first time. See if your own viewpoint stays the same or if, on reflection, you can see something in an approach you may have missed the first time around. I have changed my own perspective on a film or director enough times to know that my first view – if it is negative – is not always my last view of a film. If a film resonates with me, I may change my mind. If it doesn’t – I usually don’t.
In any case, I respect your own viewpoint and please take my own comments in context, as an attempt to be provocative in the context of the thread (ie, pro-Greenaway), but not in any way implying your own view is not just as valid.
Both a Zed and Two Naughts/the Cook, the thief…cause EYEGASMS! both are moving paintings and some particular frames in both can easily be art installation projects. My mouth was open the whole time during Zed because it truly was a piece of art on the screen.
i remember seen Drowning by numbers when it came out and being blown away…from that moment i knew that he was a genius, ive seen all most all of them. He’s complicated, challenging, visionary, elitist and a true auteur.
I’m actually kind of obsessed with The Falls. So much information thrown at the viewer, and yet we really learn nothing about the Violent Unknown Event. It’s some amazing film-making, served up with the driest of dry British humor.
And while I’ve seen and enjoyed some of the later films, and clearly the later films are better-made films, The Falls is the only one I go back and watch a few times a year. Also a big fan of the long short on that DVD, A Walk Through H.
@Nathan M: If you are drawn to the more abstract elements of Greenaway, then your next attempt would probably be best served being The Falls or Prospero’s Books. Prospero’s Books abandons narrative altogether for a primarily visual essay on Shakespeare’s the Tempest, while The Falls is nothing but narrative (but no attempts at drama are present, as the story is relayed solely through multiple narrators with no immediate interaction between any of the many characters) and both are as overtly self-referential, abstract and as complex as Greenaway films get.
@Scottbateman: I don’t think his later films are better at all. I enjoy some of his later stuff but The Falls is far and away Greenaway’s most accomplished movie imo.
Cineaste—95% of the music in The Falls is by Michael Nyman; Greenaway uses one or two previously-released Eno tracks here and there.
That said, the Nyman soundtrack is pretty cool; 90-some variations on the same theme. It would be a very different film without the Nyman soundtrack.
“The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover” was such a unique experience for me simply because of the setting. It’s so theatrical, like watching a stageplay. Incredible.
Bruce – Thanks for the recommendation. The Falls was going to be my next direction. Whenever a director mixes surreal elements with loose narrative structures, it makes me nervous. The only director that seems to pull it off with success is Luis Bunuel. Generally I prefer it one way or the other – give me a crazy surreal art project, or give me a story.
@scottbateman…Belly of an architect is done by Wim Mertens…
I didn’t know where else to post this, but several weeks ago I saw someone mention his TV film Darwin and found a clip of it on YouTube. However, it only includes the first two tableuxs and it’s not on DVD at the moment. Does anyone know where it can be found and/or whether there’s any news of it’s being released in the future?
I wonder why the number 92 is so important to him, most notably in Tulse Luper Suitcases (92 suitcases, 92 objects- not seen it), The Falls (92 individuals affected by Violent Inknown Event) and a Walk through H (92 maps).
i’ve looked it up
92 Johnson solids
92 faces of the snub dodecahedron (an Archimidean solid)
92 solutions to n=8 in n-Queens problem
92 is an Erdos-Woods number
92, atomic number of uranium
92, max number of regions into which a plane can be divided by 10
92 atomic elements in the look-and-say sequence
92 non-transuranic elements in chemist’s periodic table
92, Saros number of Solar eclipse series
92, dial code to Pakistan
92, pentagonal number
92, French Hauts-de-Seine Département
92 clubs in the England + Wales football league
92 tantras revealed by Lord Siva
92 a.d: Legio XXI Rapax destroyed by the Sarmatians of Pennonia
92 a.d: Chinese notables Dou Xian, Ban-Cu and Yuan An all died
92 Undina large main belt asteroid
In The Falls, Bwythan Fallbutus, VUE linguistic expert, is run down by van with reg NID 92 on a zebra crossing.
I guess i come at it as just thinking he makes the most flat beauitful fucking films ive ever seen, nothing more.
He constructs his own universe with each film & even if i don’t even begin to get any his work, i know im watching something…. unique
I’ve seen three Greenaway films so far… the most recent was A Zed & Two Noughts, just last night… and I have the urge to bring them into some sort of relationship by assigning adjectives to each one.
I’d say, of the ones I saw:
The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, & Her Lover – vicious
Drowning By Numbers – desolate
A Zed & Two Noughts – decrepit
Obviously not the sunniest of adjectives, but Greenaway’s stark, lurid universe is very vivid, and really wants us to watch it in spite of ourselves. Zed & Two Noughts was disconcerting, and hard to turn away from.
Bob Stutsman
OK, you Peter Greenaway fans, it is time to come out of the cinematic woodwork and discuss this very creative filmmaker. I have sung his praises elsewhere on this site, but realize he needs to be recognized on his own in the talent section of the forum. I believe he is the most creative person working in film as an artistic medium today. He has a large and complex array of work that demonstrates again and again his ability to extend film language and subject. His works are dense and reverberate with multiple meaning – like the images in the shattered glass in the hall of mirrors in Welles’ Lady from Shanghai.
His films owe a great deal to his inital work as a graphic artist. His use of vibrant colour and highly detailed imagery is seen in film after film. You can expect an elaborate fruit bowl – like an old Dutch still-life, or ornate costuming, or colouring of a scene. All his movies look like surreal, dream-like paintings. Oh yes, he likes to use erotic imagery and the nude, too. He has been using the latest computer technology to extend his visual palette, as demonstarted in Pillow Book and Propero’s Books. His works are like a rich symbolic novel. If we weren’t all sick of the term deconstruction, his films would be the most fun to deconstruct, to take apart.
Here is a list of the films (besides some of his shorts) of his I have seen and admired:
The Draughtsman’s Contract
Zed & Two Noughts
Drowning by Numbers
Belly of an Architect
The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover – with the delicious and wonderful Helen Mirren, a film that took the art of cooking to a new level
Prospero’s Books
Though I have yet to fully see Pillow Book or some of his later work, I believe Prospero’s Books represents the creative height of his vision. It is an intricate retelling of the Prospero tale from The Tempest. The film is a visually stunning work, where Greenaway has taken his images into new realms of complexity and beauty using advanced digital techniques. I think he is showing the way for a cinema of the future, where the image is the centre of the film medium, and the story is secondary. What do you think?