/film/ - Film

There are a couple of older threads on him:

>>340

>>2873

I've seen some Greenways here and there, but I have yet to watch (all of) The Cook Thief Wife Lover and Belly of an Architect. I need to see most of his earlier stuff too.

My favourite so far is Drowning by Numbers. The Rembrandt documentary was a fun diversion. It almost seemed to be his response to The Da Vinci Code.

I've only seen the Pillow Book and hated it. Mostly because I read the book the title was based on and while I didn't expect him to do an adaptation of it, I was still very disappointed. I just don't understand his stye. What's the point of it?

>>4514

I saw a few of his films on TV (including The Pillow Book) and didn't enjoy them either…aside from the weird nude scenes I guess. But I think I just watched the wrong ones. Some of his stuff isn't very good IMO.

I'd say try something like Drowning by Numbers and see if you feel differently.

His films atract me visually, but I simply can't stand everything else. I hate his characters.

>>4513

If it's any help to you, I read once in an interior design magazine that Peter Greenaway was trained professionally as a painter.

How does he get funding? Seems like Baby of macon and a lot of his stuff required huge set pieces and expensive costumes, which he gets, despite not seemingly to market well.

I guess he gets funded by various European film agencies. I'd like to hear more details though.

Here's a news report from January about a dispute between Greenaway the Russian State Film Fund over gay content: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/russian-film-fund-upset-gay-761302

For those of you wanting Greenaway analysis, The Films of Peter Greenaway by Amy Lawrence is pretty interesting. It examines several films from his early career: https://books.google.com/books?id=k6ROAAAAIAAJ

Then there's Peter Greenaway's Postmodern/Poststructuralist Cinema: http://english.360elib.com/datu/N/EM316445.pdf

>>4928

Cool, I appreciate his interest in the Dutch masters.

I'd like to see more film directors from Holland but I guess the country is a bit small (…or else they get murdered). At least Greenaway is doing his part by drawing inspiration from their past art and culture. Amsterdam has become a little too Americanized IMO.

if you want to see him speak, last year he gave this lecture called "The Cinema is Dead, Long Live the Cinema"

>>4930

That was a joke

Have only seen TCTTHWAHL and hated the ever-loving shit out of it. The aesthetics were nice but the story and dialogue were an absolute shitshow--and what's worse, one that seemed to be posturing as something more than that. The cast was narrowly-defined and the story so painfully direct that nothing was left in the way of characteristic relation or subtext. Cases in reference to it (Ebert's 4-star review being the prominent one in my mind--http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-cook-the-thief-his-wife-and-her-lover-1999) which disagree with this assertion seem to be utterly without basis and are an almost true-to-life parody of fanatics creating meaning from absence to self-fellate their "critical" film interpretations.

Hands down one of the worst movies that I have ever seen.

>>6014

I can see why you'd feel that way. He's an acquired taste for sure.

I've heard him say that he doesn't think movies should be simply visualized novels. From that you see how he doesn't put a lot of emphasis on storytelling. He's not very interested in realistic characters either.

Anyway, maybe you'll change your mind if you try a different one of his films in a few years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-t-9qxqdVm4

I like some of his films. I think The Cook, The Thief his Wife and Her Lover was an interesting work. But he seems quite awkward and high functioning at best, fact which immediatelly leads me to inquire the intellectual side of his work. His rant about how cinema is dead is disappointing and cringeworthy, because while his reasons are rather valid the formulation of his argument is simply awful. In this piece of interview he often sounds like he doesn't know what he's talking about. Again I like his films but I wouldn't put that much weight over them.

>>6082

I think his philosophies are interesting (as I'm curious to know what drives his film-making) but I can's say I buy into what he's talking about there either. If a remote control kills cinema, there must be some technological convenience that kills literature?