The Draughtman's Contract (Peter Greenaway)

The Poulenc Twins

Twin #1:
"At Southampton, there is a house I have admired because from the side it looks so flat; it is of white Portland stone and on a cloudy day looks as though it might be attached to the sky--especially in the evening."

Twin #2:
"It's owner is a Miss Antierim. She is a lady without a husband."

Twin #1:
"From the side, Miss Antierim is also a lady without significance."

Draughtsman:
"Maybe that is why I like her house; the lady is unattached."

Twin #1:
"What with one flatness and another, Mr. Neville, as a painter and as a draughtsman..."

Twin #2:
"...you could be entertained, it seems..."

Twin #1 & #2 (together):
"...especially in the evening--from the side!"

Written and directed by Peter Greenaway, The Draughtman's Contract , is the first feature-length film after "The FALLS." The film opens with score by Michael Nyman plinking out faux-baroque canons on harpsichord paired with the solo soprano that has become idiomatic in Nyman's Greenaway music (Cook/Thief & Prospero's Books). It is the first of Greenaway's period works: a Renaissance murder-mystery. Greenaway exhibits his keen visual sense in symmerty and mirrorings, paintings and illustrations are incorporated into the narrative. Art and artists are at the locus of Greenaway's exploration into the mind of an architect. The contract and power of words are also at stake. Greenaway uses more extensive and complex overlays and montages of still illustrations and film in later works; neverthless, this shows a budding stylistic feature of Greenaway's filmic palette. Recall, that Greenaway approaches film from the mind of a trained painter. Each scene has a formal rigor that is impressive, even if bordering on the fanatical.The plot is never completely fulfilled, there are visual musings that have almost no relevance other than indulging a rich visual end-in-itself. Red herrings are afloat (typical Greenaway abstruseness is present) and the film ends in medias res. Greenaway is an "auteur" and he knows it. I've watched this film many times and I still find something new in each viewing that exposes Greenaway's impressive attention to detail and artistic vision.