Peter Greenaway  

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Peter Greenaway (born 5 April 1942) is a British film director, screenwriter, and artist. His films are noted for the distinct influence of Renaissance and Baroque painting, and Flemish painting in particular. Common traits in his film are the scenic composition and illumination and the contrasts of costume and nudity, nature and architecture, furniture and people, sexual pleasure and painful death.

He is noted for his experimental style and films as The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989).

Contents

Career

1962–1999

In 1962, Greenaway began studies at Walthamstow College of Art, where a fellow student was musician Ian Dury (later cast in The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover). Greenaway trained as a muralist for three years; he made his first film, Death of Sentiment, a churchyard furniture essay filmed in four large London cemeteries. In 1965, he joined the Central Office of Information (COI), working there fifteen years as a film editor and director. In that time he created a filmography of experimental films, starting with Train (1966), footage of the last steam trains at Waterloo station (situated behind the COI), edited to a musique concrète composition. Tree (1966), is a homage to the embattled tree growing in concrete outside the Royal Festival Hall on the South Bank in London. By the 1970s he was confident and ambitious and made Vertical Features Remake and A Walk Through H. The former is an examination of various arithmetical editing structures, and the latter is a journey through the maps of a fictitious country.

In 1980, Greenaway delivered The Falls (his first feature-length film) – a mammoth, fantastical, absurdist encyclopaedia of flight-associated material all relating to ninety-two victims of what is referred to as the Violent Unknown Event (VUE). In the 1980s, Greenaway's cinema flowered in his best-known films, The Draughtsman's Contract (1982), A Zed & Two Noughts (1985), The Belly of an Architect (1987), Drowning by Numbers (1988), and his most successful (and controversial) film, The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989). Greenaway's most familiar musical collaborator during this period is composer Michael Nyman, who has scored several films.

In 1989, he collaborated with artist Tom Phillips on a television serial A TV Dante, dramatising the first few cantos of Dante's Inferno. In the 1990s, he presented Prospero's Books (1991), the controversial The Baby of Mâcon (1993), The Pillow Book (1996), and 8½ Women (1999).

In the early 1990s, Greenaway wrote ten opera libretti known as the Death of a Composer series, dealing with the commonalities of the deaths of ten composers from Anton Webern to John Lennon, however, the other composers are fictitious, and one is a character from The Falls. In 1995, Louis Andriessen completed the sixth libretto, Rosa – A Horse Drama. He is currently professor of cinema studies at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland.

2000–present

Greenaway presented the ambitious The Tulse Luper Suitcases, a multimedia project that resulted in three films, a website, two books, a touring exhibition, and a shorter feature which reworked the material of the first three films.

He also contributed to Visions of Europe, a short film collection by different European Union directors; his British entry is The European Showerbath. Nightwatching and Rembrandt's J'Accuse two films on Rembrandt which were released in 2007 and 2008 respectively. Nightwatching is the first feature in the series "Dutch Masters", with the second project titled as Goltzius and the Pelican Company.

On 17 June 2005, Greenaway appeared for his first VJ performance during an art club evening in Amsterdam, Netherlands, with music by DJ Serge Dodwell (aka Radar), as a backdrop, 'VJ' Greenaway used for his set a special system consisting of a large plasma screen with laser controlled touchscreen to project the ninety-two Tulse Luper stories on the twelve screens of "Club 11", mixing the images live. This was later reprised at the Optronica festival, London.

On 12 October 2007, he created the multimedia installation Peopling the Palaces at Venaria Reale at the Royal Palace of Venaria that animates the Palace with 100 videoprojectors.

Greenaway was interviewed for Clive Meyer's Critical Cinema: Beyond the Theory of Practice (2011), and voiced strong criticisms of film theory as distinct from discussions of other media: "Are you sufficiently happy with cinema as a thinking medium if you are only talking to one person?"

On 3 May 2016, he received a Honoris Causa doctorate from the University of San Martín, Argentina.

Nine Classical Paintings Revisited

In 2006, Greenaway began a series of digital video installations, Nine Classical Paintings Revisited, with his exploration of Rembrandt's Night Watch in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. On 30 June 2008, after much negotiation, Greenaway staged a one-night performance 'remixing' da Vinci's The Last Supper in the refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan to a select audience of dignitaries. The performance consisted of superimposing digital imagery and projections onto the painting with music from the composer Marco Robino.

Greenaway exhibited his digital exploration of The Wedding at Cana by Paolo Veronese as part of the 2009 Venice Biennial. An arts writer for The New York Times called it "possibly the best unmanned art history lecture you'll ever experience," while acknowledging that some viewers might respond to it as "mediocre art, Disneyfied kitsch or a flamboyant denigration of site-specific video installation." The 50-minute presentation, set to a soundtrack, incorporates closeup images of faces from the painting along with animated diagrams revealing compositional relations among the figures. These images are projected onto and around the replica of the painting that now stands at the original site, within the Palladian architecture of the Benedictine refectory on San Giorgio Maggiore. The soundtrack features music and imagined dialogue scripted by Greenaway for the 126 "wedding guests, servants, onlookers and wedding crashers" depicted in the painting, consisting of small talk and banal chatter that culminates in reaction to the miraculous transformation of water to wine, according to the Gospels the first miracle performed by Jesus. Picasso's Guernica, Seurat's Grande Jatte, works by Jackson Pollock and Claude Monet, Velázquez's Las Meninas and Michelangelo's The Last Judgment are possible series subjects.

Films

Features
Shorts
  • Death of Sentiment (1962)
  • Tree (1966)
  • Train (1966)
  • Revolution (1967)
  • 5 Postcards from Capital Cities (1967)
  • Intervals (1969)
  • Erosion (1971)
  • H Is for House (1973)
  • Windows (1975)
  • Water Wrackets (1975)
  • Water (1975)
  • Goole by Numbers (1976)
  • Dear Phone (1978)
  • Vertical Features Remake (1978)
  • A Walk Through H: The Reincarnation of an Ornithologist (1978)
  • 1–100 (1978)
  • Making a Splash (1984)
  • Inside Rooms: 26 Bathrooms, London & Oxfordshire (1985)
  • Hubert Bals Handshake (1989)
  • Rosa: La monnaie de munt (1992)
  • Peter Greenaway (1995) - segment of Lumière and Company
  • The Bridge Celebration (1997)
  • The Man in the Bath (2001)
  • European Showerbath (2004) - segment of Visions of Europe
  • Castle Amerongen (2011)
  • Just in Time (2013) - segment of 3x3D
Documentaries and mockumentaries
  • Eddie Kid (1978)
  • Cut Above the Rest (1978)
  • Zandra Rhodes (1979)
  • Women Artists (1979)
  • Leeds Castle (1979)
  • Lacock Village (1980)
  • Country Diary (1980)
  • Terence Conran (1981)
  • Four American Composers (1983)
  • The Coastline (also known as The Sea in their Blood) (1983)
  • Fear of Drowning (1988)
  • The Reitdiep Journeys (2001)
  • Rembrandt's J'Accuse (2008)
  • The Marriage (2009)
  • Atomic Bombs on the Planet Earth (2011)
Television

Exhibitions

Pages linking in as of April 2021

3x3D, 8½ Women, , 92 (number), A TV Dante, A Zed & Two Noughts, Adelaide Festival, Agnès Godard, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, Alan Howard, Alexander Bălănescu, Almeida Theatre, Amerongen Castle, Anarchy (Chumbawamba album), And Do They Do/Zoo Caprices, André Djaoui, Andréa Ferréol, Andrea Liberovici, Andrea Prodan, Andy Wilson (director), Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Anne-Louise Lambert, Anthony Higgins (actor), Anthropodermic bibliopegy, April 1942, April 5, Aria Films, Art Film Fest, Art film, Autopsia, Axiom Films, BAFTA Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema Award, Beata Poźniak, Benjamin Davies (actor), BFI London Film Festival, BFI Production Board, BFI Top 100 British films, Body painting, Brian Bolland, Brian Deacon, Brian Dennehy, British pavilion, Brody Neuenschwander, Bruno Felix, Cahiers intempestifs, Camerimage, Camp (style), Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Foreign Language Film, Chicago Film Critics Association Awards 1990, Chingford, Chloe Webb, Christopher C. Odom, Cinema of Europe, Cinema of Luxembourg, Cinema of the United Kingdom, Cinema of Wales, Cinema16, Cinephilia, Cinesapiens, Compton Verney Art Gallery, Conversations with Filmmakers Series, Cultural references to Leonardo da Vinci, Daddy's Gonna Pay for Your Crashed Car, Daniel Caux, Dante Alighieri and the Divine Comedy in popular culture, Database cinema, David Annwn Jones, David Aukin, Dead Ringers (film), Death of a Composer, Deborah Conway, Decay Music, Diana Groó, Digby Rumsey, Digital Classics DVD, Don Warrington, Drowning by Numbers, Dylan Mohan Gray, Edgar Pêra, Eisenstein in Guanajuato, Elmer Bäck, Emi Wada, Eric Deacon, Erland Josephson, Étienne-Louis Boullée, European Media Art Festival, Eva Birthistle, Evening Standard British Film Awards, Ewan McGregor filmography, Expresión en Corto International Film Festival, Face Tomorrow, Factum Arte, Federico Fellini, Femke Wolting, Festival della Scienza, Festival du nouveau cinéma, Filmmovement.com, Forest School, Walthamstow, Fortissimo Films, Frans Hals, From the Sea to the Land Beyond, Fundació Joan Miró, Geertje Dircx, Generation Sex, Georges de La Tour, Gerard Thoolen, Ghosts (Banville novel), Glasbury, Glasgow Film Theatre, Glaspaleis, Glenn Wilhide, Golden Calf for Best Script, Goltzius and the Pelican Company, Grand Prix (Belgian Film Critics Association), Green Man, Greenaway, Groombridge Place, Grzegorz Hajdarowicz, Guesch Patti, Hafler Trio, Han van Meegeren, HanWay Films, Harvey Weinstein, Helen Mirren, Helga Davis, Hendrickje Stoffels, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, Hubertus von Amelunxen, Hugh Fraser (actor), Ian Dury, Independent Spirit Award for Best International Film, International Association for Philosophy and Literature, International Istanbul Film Festival, International Uranium Film Festival, Istvan Horkay, Iván Massagué, J'Accuse…!, James Thiérrée, Janet Suzman, Jean Paul Gaultier, Jean-Luc Godard filmography, Jean-Luc Godard, Jessica Curry, Jessica Hynes, Jim Davidson, Joely Richardson, Johannes Vermeer in popular culture, John Gielgud, Jordi Mollà, Joseph Plateau Awards 1999, Karine Saporta, Ken Campbell, Ken Ogata, Kosmorama, La Traversée de Paris (album), Lambert Wilson, Lars Physant, Lars Schwander, Last Year at Marienbad, London Film Critics Circle Awards 1991, Long take, Louis Andriessen, Lovebytes, Luca D'Alberto, Lucca Film Festival, Lucie Skeaping, Lumière and Company, Lund International Fantastic Film Festival, Macbeth (1948 film), Machinima, Mâcon, Making a Splash, Malmö Konsthall, Man on Wire, Maria Lamburn, Marie Angel, Mark Rylance, Matthias Schweighöfer, Max Eastley, Meat Is Murder (book), Memorial (Nyman), Mennan Yapo, Meredith Monk, Mexican LGBT+ cinema, Michael Clark (dancer), Michael Gambon, Michael Nyman (1981 album), Michael Nyman Band, Michael Nyman, Michael Simon (stage director), Michel Blanc, Michel van der Aa, Michèle Bernier, Mike Downey (producer), Molly Nyman, Mother and Son (1997 film), Mozart 252, Music of the Netherlands, Naím Thomas, Nancy Bishop, Natacha Amal, Neo-Baroque film, New Horizons Film Festival, Nichola Bruce, Nicholas Amer, Nicolas Fouquet, Nightwatching, Noctourniquet, Noises, Sounds & Sweet Airs, Nonlinear narrative, Non-narrative film, Original Soundtracks 1, Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana, Patrick Kennedy (actor), Patrick Mimran, Peter Sarkisian, Philip Glass, Philip Hoffman (filmmaker), Pierre Audi, Piotr Bujnowicz, Plymouth Arts Centre, Procession, Prospero, Prospero's Books, Pseudo-documentary, Ralph Fiennes, Rembrandt, Rembrandt's J'Accuse, Revel Guest, Revenge play, Revolution (disambiguation), Reykjavík International Film Festival, Richard Bohringer, River Blyth, Suffolk, Roger Ashton-Griffiths, Rogier van der Heide, Rosa – A Horse Drama, Rudolf Buitendach, Saas-Fee, Sacha Vierny, Saskia Boddeke, Scot Williams, Scud (filmmaker), Seattle International Film Festival, Self-discovery, Sergei Eisenstein, Shaken's Stars, Sheffield Doc/Fest, Sinfonia Concertante for Violin, Viola and Orchestra (Mozart), Sitges Film Festival, Slug (song), Sofia International Film Festival, Sophie Fiennes, Southwold Lighthouse, Southwold, Stairs 1 Geneva, Stanley Townsend, Stelio Savante, Stephen Billington, Stephen Woolley, Steve Pyke, Stockholm International Film Festival, Struggle for Pleasure, Sue Blane, Sue Bruce-Smith, Surreal humour, Susan Narucki, Sutherland Trophy, Sycorax, Taking a Line for a Second Walk, The Baby of Mâcon, The Banquet of the Officers of the St George Militia Company in 1616, The Belly of an Architect, The Bridge, The Coastline, The Commissar Vanishes, The Composer's Cut Series Vol. II: Nyman/Greenaway Revisited, The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (soundtrack), The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover, The Draughtsman's Contract, The Essential Michael Nyman Band, The Fall of Icarus, The Falls, The Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting, The Kiss and Other Movements, The Kitchen (performance venue), The Leader, His Driver and the Driver's Wife, The Night Watch, The Pillow Book (film), The Pillow Book, The Story of Film: An Odyssey, The Tango Lesson, The Tempest, The Tulse Luper Suitcases, Thessaloniki International Film Festival, Thomas Dworzak, Tim Roth, Time-lapse photography, 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, Tom Bell (actor), Tom Phillips (artist), Tulse Luper, Vanni Corbellini, Vertical Features Remake, Vinayak Chakravorty, Vincent Grass, Visions du Réel, Vivian Stanshall, Waléra Kanischtscheff, Walter Hus, Walthamstow College of Art, Walthamstow, Warsaw Film Festival, Watermans Arts Centre, William Balthazar Rose, Writing to Vermeer, Yasuaki Shimizu, Yolande Brener, Yonderboi, Your Blue Room, Zeitgeist Films, Zoetrope: All-Story, Zorns Lemma (film)





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