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June 1997, Week 3

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Subject:
From:
Wayne Daniels <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Wed, 18 Jun 1997 12:12:55 -0400
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For those who haven't yet caught it, Peter Greenaway's latest is most
definitely THE GOODS. You must see it at once. A wonderful film. Do
NOT wait to rent it. Seeing it on a large screen is essential.
 
I think directors like Greenaway (Atom Egoyan is another) are the
main hope for cinema considered as an art form. (Not that I dislike
popular cinema, but there are other possibilities, as here we see).
The split-screen experimentation (Yes, I know, but it's no cliche in
Greenaway's hands) that seemed such a muddle in PROSPERO'S BOOKS is
here used with absoulute artistic control and ravishing visual
results. Each image is firmly related to the others, and all of them
are  subordinated to the artistic idea they gradually disclose. Which
is? Go see. Text = image = thing = life; drawing on paper/flesh =
living life itself; literature and experience are not two but one.
All that and a good deal more. Plus a grim tale about a man who
couldn't write a book but became one.
 
Greenaway incorporates the experience of literature without being in
thrall to it. He does not mount a book as THE ENGLISH PATIENT did. He
encompasses literature within a vocabulary of images; this is a truly
(and purely) cinematic realisation of an idea.
 
Must, must, MUST see.
 
Wayne
 
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