![]() And surely a lover of symmetry like Greenaway might find something valid in such a counterbalancing claim. But there’s an opposing argument: that image-based cinema needn’t dismiss narrative entirely. ![]() Summary: The wife of an abusive criminal finds solace in the arms of a kind regular guest in her husbands. A filmmaker as uncompromising as Greenaway would doubtless claim that this proves his point, that audiences flounder without the safety net of story, and that’s why this film (and not, say, his multi-part, multimedia experience The Tulse Luper Suitcases) is his most popular work. The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover. It’s arguably this fusion of narrative alongside Greenaway’s image-based cinema that has made it – perhaps alongside The Draughtsman’s Contract – his most accessible and acclaimed feature. Focuses on the intensely dramatic and high-stakes responsibilities and decisions that. Summary: Greenaways sumptuously grotesque story of sex, jealousy and eating. A retired detective is pulled back into the action by his former partner, they uncover a hidden underworld of sex, drugs and murder in the wealthy community controlled by kingpin Harvey Stride, and his femme fatale enforcer. And while Michael Nyman’s relentless score accompanies vast sections of the film, so too do the fearless performances of actors like Helen Mirren and Michael Gambon (anyone who knows him as gentle Albus Dumbledore from Harry Potter is in for a severe shock at a villain to rival Voldemort himself), and the gruesome, Jacobean-like revenge drama they enact… all while outfitted in costumes by Jean Paul Gaultier. The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover. ![]() The framing tableaux, shifting swathes of color, exhibition-style set decoration, and the wall-sized Frans Hals portrait looming over all proceedings all harks back to his lifelong desire to see “paintings with soundtracks”. Whether or not it functions as a metaphor for Thatcher’s Britain, as some claim, it certainly works as an expression of Greenaway’s style, and love, of art - fine art, to be precise. His 1989 film The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover is savage and sadistic, beautiful and brilliant. Take your seat at the table and enjoy a trip back to the decadence and excitement of 1980’s London where a darkly thrilling story is told with delicious theatrical. He smiled as he said it, but he would clearly rather shoot a phone book than someone else’s screenplay. Inspired by Peter Greenaway’s critically-acclaimed film, The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover is brought to life by Alan Faena in partnership with Unigram Theatrical. “All screenwriters should be shot,” he proclaimed in his 2016 BAFTA interview ‘Peter Greenaway: A Life in Pictures. And that’s all before you get to his disapproval, sometimes even outright contempt, for cinema focused around narrative, text, and script. Given that his films are filled to the corners of every frame with detailed references to paintings, literature, theatre, natural history, and a plethora of inside jokes, his work has often attracted the charge of elitism. Peter Greenaway is not an easy filmmaker to get into and, one suspects, that’s just the way he likes it.
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