Peter Greenaway

[upbeat music] People always say that the cliche of a Peter Greenaway, if you don't mind, is people say, "Peter Greenaway, sex and death, those are his obsessions." And I always think, "Well, aren't they everyone's?" [laughs]

But even if you're a nun or a sex maniac, I rather suspect those two phenomenon are pretty much alive in us.

I cannot believe that there is any continuity after that final closing of the eyes and saying goodbye to life.

But you should be aware of watching a Greenaway film.

If I could live to maybe 300 years, heaven forbid, there is a way it would've been fun to have made them.

Wouldn't that be a fascinating project, the unmade films of Peter Greenaway? I think a lot of people would love to-

Yeah

... yeah.

Here's the directors that voted for Blade Runner, 1982.

Antonetta Alamat, Shola Amoo, Ivan Gal, Grant G, Alex Gibney, Peter Greenaway, Malden Kovacic, Alexandra Felipe, Jonas Poher Rasmussen, Raymond Red, and Malgorzata Sumska.

These are people from all over the world.

We got UK, USA, Denmark, Switzerland, Philippines, Poland, Australia, Hungary.

All right, to finish this episode, I'm going back to the United Kingdom, but sticking with Shakespeare.

In 1991, the director Peter Greenaway adapted the play The Tempest and made a movie called Prospero's Books.

On many levels, this should have been a terrific film.

Well, maybe for a smallish art house cinema meets English literature degree demographic.

It's so fucking artsy and so theatrical.

It was like, what would I say? It's like Phantom Thread meets Black Swan if directed by Peter Greenaway.

I was getting very like cook the thief, his wife and her lover or like pillow book vibes from it here and there.

Okay.

Right.

So he took inspiration from a Peter Greenaway film called Drowning by Numbers, which utilizes a very rigid numerical structure to dictate its narrative.

Okay.

Gaiman applied that to the comic grid.

He describes the film as a dark marriage between the styles of two highly distinct, uncompromising filmmakers.

He calls it a mix of the shamelessly lusty Ken Russell and the anti-sensual Peter Greenaway.

Wait, okay, break that down for me.

Who are they and what does anti-sensual Peter Greenaway mean in terms of what I am actually looking at on the screen?

Well, Ken Russell was known for films that were sweaty, manic, sexually charged, and emotionally excessive.

Okay, very hot.

And Peter Greenaway is the exact opposite.

His films are notoriously cold, geometric, perfectly symmetrical, and emotionally detached.

You know, I'm going with all three because you can hit it from all three angles.

Turning into a Peter Greenaway podcast.

Okay.

I do crave roast beef right in this moment as we're talking about it.