----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Jesse Burden <[log in to unmask]> wrote: >The show of which I am speaking, _A T.V. Dante_, was shown on Channel 4 >(London) in the late 1980's. [...] Peter Greenaway's role in >producing/directing >...was a collaboration with someone who also worked with him on _Prospero's >Books._ It shared the visual layering style but had a much looser <ambiguous> >mise-en-scene or narrative space. Sir John Guilgoud plays the main part (or he >might have been Virgil) but the narrative shows the travels through the >rings of hell, depicting some characters along the way. I have been looking over a couple of Greenaway's books, one of his drawings and the other the script and some notes on the making of _Prospero's Books_. He is a visual artist in his mastery of drawing and in the nature of the ideas that he develops for his films (at least some of which are inappropriate for the medium of film, because they fight or eclipse the narration). In his films he has achieved greatness as a visual artist, more so than in his drawings, watercolors etc. which on the whole are sketches to be completed in the films. I have seen on video P.'s Books (the best), The Cook etc (good, but not the best) and Drowning By Numbers (insufferable). I think he is the most original and daring director to come along in quite a while. It sounds like Greenaway and his collaborator(s) were able to work out in this_A T.V. Dante_ production some of the visual ideas used in Prospero's Books. In his book of the script, Greenaway attributes the idea of doing The Tempest to Gielgud -the proper spelling- so it is interesting to learn of Gielgud's involvement in_A T.V. Dante_. This TV production as a kind of rehearsal might also explain the sophistication of Prospero's Books overall visual and temporal structure (in contrast to Greenaway's other, less well-resolved filmic efforts). In any case I hope some of our other subscribers may be able to contribute insights (or trivia, what-have-you) into both -or any- Greenaway projects. >The possibilities that it may suggest are available for the design of an >interface for a CD-Rom seemed worthy of mention to someone interested in >writing about this. The visual treatments and effects pioneered by Greenaway could be used for CD-ROM interfaces. I am more interested in using them to develop personal computer operating system interfaces, which I find visually primitive and boring (compared to what is routinely on ordinary network TV and the basest Hollywood productions), and for interactive TV. I am planning to publish a Web page by early April and, bandwidth willing, I will essay to illustrate how Greenaway's concepts might be adapted to this medium.