By Kevin B. Lee
[Editor's Note: This is the latest entry in House contributor Kevin B. Lee's Shooting Down Pictures, a record of his ongoing quest to see every title on the list of the 1000 Greatest Films compiled by They Shoot Pictures, Don't They?]
Peter Greenaway launched into the vanguard of 80s Brit cinema with this BFI-funded arthouse landmark. Dressing an oblique murder mystery-cum political allegory narrative with gorgeous cinematography, elaborate declamatory wordplay and costumed sexual naughtiness, the film packages numerous art cinema conventions with a sumptuous obliqueness that almost guarantees repeat visits to puzzle over it the more. The film is most notable for its ambivalent treatment of its protagonist Neville, a painter commissioned by a landowner’s wife to create drawings of the estate (though it’s really an excuse for her to sleep with him). Artist, charlatan, lothario and subversive, Neville embodies several variations of the arthouse film iconoclast hero at once, and yet Greenaway repeatedly undermines his heroic qualities to reveal him as a pawn in the larger game being played. The film owes much to 1960s puzzlers like Blow Up or Last Year at Marienbad, while distinguishing itself through an impeccable tableaux of painterly flatness (concealing layers of intrigue) and a flippancy towards its subjects that reveals the juvenile disposition of the characters, or the director, or both._____________________________________
To read the rest of the article at Shooting Down Pictures, click here.
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3 comments:
Kevin Lee's posting was, as always, an impressive and thorough overview of material about the movie with some unexpected finds, such as the interview with Draughtsman's cinematographer.
The video commentary, unfortunately, seemed like a lazy piece of work. "It reminds me of Duran Duran, but I won't explore or explain that statement. Instead I'll show most of one of their videos which is nothing like Draughtsman's Contract."
oh well, you can't please everyone on every count.
I regret if the connection between Greenaway and Duran Duran wasn't clear. The point we tried to make was that there was a preponderance of interest in heritage culture in conservative Thatcher 80s Britain, as evidenced by the New Romantic Pop movement, the Falklands War and The Draughtsman's Contract. That the BFI would finance their first film upon a period picture saturated in arcane cultural signifiers falls in line with this overall trend of heritage nostalgia in British culture at the time. Furthermore the argument is that the film does more to exploit than to interrogate or subvert this nostalgia for Britain's storied colonial heritage, which is no better or worse than what the New Wave bands did with their videos or what Thatcher did with the Falklands.
Sorry again if the video failed to elucidate this argument, which I think is an intriguing one. The idea is Karina's, the execution of it in video essay format is mine, so only one of us is to blame if the results are found lacking.
I agree - it is an intriguing thesis, one I would love to read despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that I don't agree.
I think it is better suited to a written essay rather than a short video because you're making connections between concepts and ideas rather than images.
Thanks for taking the time to respond.
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