Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by Harmonia (A) on January 05, 2009 at 19:47:20

In Reply to: RE: Peter Greenaway: potential, unrealized. posted by tinear on December 31, 2008 at 14:55:26

...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.

• BFI Films of Peter Greenaway   (Open in New Window)