Favorite Peter Greenaway Films

Greenaway is possibly my favorite film director, and at least the most influential to my way of thinking. As everyone knows he can be gory, in an unwelcome way at times, and any feature films you notice missing from this list are probably omitted because they are a little much even for me. Except 8 1/2 Women, which I regret to say I've not seen yet, but I'm a little worried about it already. As for the rest, enjoy:

Drowning by Numbers
Easily one of my favorite films; this has the most stunning set design and mise-en-scene ever. The pagan-esque trio of deadly females is strangely sexy and moving, at least in their loyalty to each other, and the lush, half-rotten quality of the English countryside shows off Greenaway's painterly talents. And I always knew Smut would get you in the end.

The Pillow Book
While I was in grad school I was trying to coax this film into the kindling for a dissertation, and I think it's still worth it (I only wonder if I'm worth it). Someday I'll post my paper about the film's use of fetishism and Asian calligraphy, but until then I can just recommend it for its lush color, dazzling video editing and most creative use of ink.

The Draughtsman's Contract
This wins the award for best fashion; if Baroque costume can be parodied, well here it is. The plot is sort of a mystery with no clear answer, which flirts with a few questions about how people see things and why. Gorgeous, however puzzling.

ZOO (A Zed and Two Noughts)
I like to call this one a film about rotting; of all the ways to understand the mystery of human life, the method espoused by this film is probably not the best. Oh, and it's also about Vermeer, whom I'm very fond of, and Greenaway's perpetual love of painting wins the day again.

The Falls
OK, I admit I fell asleep a few times during this interminable film, but that alone testifies to the sheer doggedness of the plotless plot: that anyone would have the will power to make such a boring, repetitive and yet spookily charming films speaks volumes. Basically a surreal romp through the imaginary personnel records of an imaginary catastrophic event (forshadowing the imaginary catastrophes of White Noise); it takes it's organizing principal from the alphabet and demonstrates just how disorganized that feels.

Death in the Seine
Another of Greenaway's obsession for the cataloging of death; here an old list of bodies retrieved from the Seine provides the basis for a peculiar but compelling short film.

Dear Phone
I love this, it's sort of the film version of Derrida. Worth it 'cause it's so short and so cute.

A Walk through H
Another film about painting; here a series of Klee-like maps which invite the reader to see the narrated plot in their cryptic images; in effect, to get lost in these maps. As with many of the more obscure Greenaway films, this one concerns recurring characters Tulse Luper (who reappears in The Falls) and the bird counter Van Hoyten (who makes an appearance in ZOO).

Vertical Features Remake
Another bizzare short featuring Greenaway's version of British humor and the maze of repetition as an organizing principal.

The Belly of an Architect
One of his more conventional films and not always considered his best, but this shows off one of his obsessions more clearly than in most other films. Specifically, the good pregnancy of the main character's wife is contrasted to the 'bad pregnancy' of the main character's stomach cancer; it's a film about the struggle of an artist to create when all his efforts tend, inexoribly, to death. This view of the relative power of the sexes finds echoes in Drowing by Numbers and The Pillow Book.

Checklist of Greenaway obsessions

• Lists, esp. artificially constructed lists (e.g. alphabetical)
• Pregnancy and scary female powers of life
• Vermeer and other painters
• In fact, anything Dutch
• Rotting
• Artful gore (e.g. vomiting up shards of glass)
• Fetishism, esp. in hypersaturated color
• Calligraphy
• Betrayals and treachery
• Games and other repetitive, rule-based structures
• Creative editing techniques to create multiple levels of text
• Enigmas and uncertainties
• Fateful looking architecture
• Birds (really!)