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Or is it Greenaway? I forget. In any case, the English version of David Lynch, or a disturbed but brilliant iconoclast? I am still pissed that I can't get Prospero's Books on NetFlix...by far the best performance of The Tempest I've ever seen.

*runs away screaming*

Vertical Features was extremely funny the first three times it went around. Then I believe my film history class stopped taking the piss and started weeping.

H is for House was very nice but it could have been shorter.

Windows was funny.

Intervals was pointless.

Drowning by numbers was painful, and only the counting sustained us.

I managed to sleep through the rest of it all, though I did wait out most of the Reincarnation of an Ornithologist in the vain hope that something would happen...the maps were pretty...I liked the idea...but again after so many repetitions it was just boring.

It's just what I call artsy-fartsy.

The teacher threatened to show us Prospero...but took pity...(or so she said) and showed us Derek Jarman's 'Jubilee' instead. ARGH. I wished we were back with Greenaway at that point. That's about all the good I can say about Greenaway, he takes care with his sets and is better than Jarman.

The lights came on and she looked at us expectantly, and we said, it was utter crap, miss, sorry, we know you're just doing your job.

(sorry, Ax, I so rarely feel justified in bashing a director, I indulge, but we really did have a hard time of it all. Call it my post-Greenaway therapy. )

I've only seen two of his writer/director movies - The Draughtsman's Contract and The Cook, The Thief, His Wife And His Lover.

The latter was particularly impressive for its color scheming and Helen Mirren at her hottest.

The guy can be pretty fucked up at times, but you always come away from his movies thinking - and that is a rare thing.

The only one of his films I've seen is The Cook, The Thief, His Wife And His Lover, which I think is brilliant. It's not something I can watch very often though!

Maybe I should see that one. I'm afraid to, though.

You probably wouldn't like that either, Ro.
Drowning by Numbers was set in my part of the world in Southwold; I often pop over there. Prospero's Books is a very interesting take on The Tempest with a sense of the Renaissance magical tradition. Greenaway is interested in the idea of corporality, of the sense of the human body so he uses the naked body a lot but without eroticism. He is an interesting maverick and no one makes anything similar. He was on BBC TV tonight talking briefly about the cinematographic style of Vermeer. You will never get a coherent narrative out of him but the films are sumptious to watch.

Greenaway interesting man, does anyone know the name of the TV film he did set at a house near the beach, I saw it some years ago and struggle to recall the name

I think that was Drowning by Numbers. Juliet Stevenson, and um, Laurence Olivier's wife and um



Joan Plowright and, um, Joely Richardson?

I heard him speak once--he definitely liked David Lynch. He had a lot of interesting things to say about film, particularly the way it drives him crazy that it was just decided that film should mostly be "filmed plays" instead of using the medium as itself. He does that, obviously, especially in films like Prospero's Books.

eborr,

Peter Greenaway

The Cook et al was visually arresting...and Helen Mirren is one of those great British actresses who stays sexy into the grave...but it didn't kick me in the gut like Draughtsman's Contract, or work as perfectly as Prospero's Books. I kept thinking through the latter that it was exactly as a member of Shakespeare's audience would have experienced the play...the island "full of spirits"

I've got Pillow Book queued up in NetFlix. I think I may discover a new fetish.

ToshoftheWuffingas wrote:

I think that was Drowning by Numbers. Juliet Stevenson, and um, Laurence Olivier's wife and um



Joan Plowright and, um, Joely Richardson?

yes, dancing around disrobed if I recall correctly, (not Joan Plowright), knew there was something special about that one.

I have only seen The Cook, The Thief....and The Pillow Book. The Pillow Book took me a bit to get through, the whole end made me 'think' Of course now everytime I see Ewan I think I know what you look like nekkid.