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"Draughtsman's Contract."
An almost brilliant effort but, with the strange figure wandering around when a statue really shouldn't..... a waste. The story itself is cleverly told but the conceit, a group of paintings with the clues to murder, isn't exploited very well, at least not enough to involve the viewer. If Greenaway wished to prove himself smarter than his audience, he ought to have made it a fair fight, at least.
"Prospero's Books," I haven't seen for years but here again, if I remember correctly, he allows his style to overwhelm the substance.
"The Thief..." is such an ugly story that, frankly, it cannot please.
I'd say (to answer another poster) that, even if one only grants Lars von Trier one very good film, "Breaking the Waves," it still is superior to the many misses of Greenaway.
Follow Ups:
...what he calls "19th century novel" moviemaking. His films are contextual, multi-layered - organized like a painting rather than a "story" ("story" doesn't much interest Greenaway, nor do actors). He finds the film frame a rather old fashioned idea, and seems always to want to break the fourth wall. Greenaway doesn't weant you transported into fantasy, he wants your mind taking in the images as images.
I don't think Greenaway even thinks of himself as a film "director", but as an artist who makes films.
Greenaway uses his films to explore aspects of several ideas at once, and the visuals reference extra filmic context - the narrative is a device to explore Greenaway's references, allusions and concepts, the ideas that are in fact the true subjects of his films. He quite consciously incorporates other arts into his movies - calligraphy, painting, philosophy, architecture, music etc. and plays with their context and meaning. Greenaway wants to jar you out of passivity and desires your participation in assembling your own filmic narrative from his material. This requires you to pay attention is a very different way conventionally structured movies do.
I also feel that he himself - i.e. the artist - is quite often the subject of his own films.
Greenaway is particularly interested in what he calls he "confrontation" between text and image - as explored in Prospero's Books and Pillow Book.
This makes him frustrating for some viewers, exhilerating for others.
The problem is, the density of his films is possibly easier to process if you have a degree in western art and/or history (and ideally, lterature and philosophy too). Greenaway's ultimate medium may actually be something along the lines of interactive CD-ROM. It's very hard to do what he wants in a movie theater, and it ain't very commercial.
BTW, re/that article on leading filmmakers below, Greenaway admires (or at least "admired") David Lynch - he said that Blue Velvet was so good he wished he'd made it himself. However, these two seem quite different from each other to me as artists - Lynch's, dream logic/stream of consciousness assemblages seem rather far from Greenaway's meticulously assembled, referential films. But they have in common that they both seek a subjective, unconstrained film poetry rather than a conventional, novel-like narrative.
I found a shortish article at the British Film Institute Screenonline that I think describes Greenaway and his best films well - and why he is important. He's made 7-8 excellent filmss, he possesses a un ique voice, and that's more than manny filmmakers can say.
Meanwhile, Greenaways movies, at least up through baby Of Macon, require multiple, viewings. Seek and you shall be rewarded.
You've actually made me want to delve into the ouevre again. I think I've only ever seen The Draughtsman's Contract, The Cook et al and The Pillow Book, so there's a lot of catching up to do.
I often play Michael Nyman's Purcell-esque soundtrack to The Draughtsman's Contract, which conjures up much of the plot, dialogue and visuals. Must get the DVD.
I loved the baroque excess - musical and otherwise - of The Cook. I remember a work colleague, seeing me with 'someone new' at a showing, saying 'I hope this isn't a first date!'. (It wasn't. Still together 20 years on, she still talks about 'that ghastly film you dragged me along to'!)
I fell asleep in the The Pillow Book, despite having been a long-time fan of Sei Shonagon's book. I had just got off a long flight, though. Big mistake.
Anyway, thanks - and to you, tinear - for the nudge.
... at least not any more in what we might call mainstream success.
He has carved a niche for himself and has produced a series of works that refines and develops his style.
I have noticed that cinema has expanded a lot over the past decade.
Perhaps in response to the ways that film is watched, perhaps to cable TV.
I don't know.
But more documentaries are in cinemas.
Live opera is in cinemas (around the world from the Met almost as I write).
Greenaway has responded to these new opportunities and is making films that have little to do with the world of Die Hard IX...
You spend too much time chasing me around, cretin.
Fellini, Lynch, Greenaway, Antonini, et al. are equally self-indulgent and self satisfying. You either appreciate the ride or not.
d
.
It's "acuity."
.
grad?
...don't care if they're perfect or even if I "understand" them. They're best allowed directly into the subconscious.
though I prefer Tarsem's storytelling.
I'd be careful if I were you about letting Peter's films directly into your subconscious! Especially you being a family man and all :-)
dd
There are all kinds of visual clues going on in Greenaway films; eg: in "Drowning by Numbers" there's a game played early in the film where as players lose they have to go into a funeral "winding sheet"; the sequence with which each of the characters loses the game is the same as each player dies in the film later
Other loose ends + red herrings Greenaway never ties up....
I'm also not at all concerned with his films perfection or lack thereof, I think he's an inventive, original + imaginative filmmaker
GW
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