Peter Greenaway

[colinr0380]

Ditto Julia Ormond, who only had a few TV credits to her name in 1993.

And the same could be said for Ralph Fiennes (apart from a role in the first Prime Suspect and Heathcliffe opposite Juliette Binoche in the terrible 1992 film of Wuthering Heights, Macon was an early film for him - released the same year as Schindler's List), Frances Barber from Zed and Two Noughts, Joely Richardson and Juliet Stevenson in Drowning By Numbers (Stevenson really got name recognition after Truly, Madly, Deeply a couple of years later), even Bernard Hill seemed to get a boost from his lead role (he was in Shirley Valentine the next year) and Drowning was one of David Morrissey's earliest roles (coincidentally he recently played opposite Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct 2!)

On the other hand to argue for Greenaway choosing 'name' actors there was Amanda Plummer in 8 1/2 Women, also in that film Toni Collette who was a long way past Muriel's Wedding and was in The Sixth Sense that same year, not to mention John Standing, Vivian Wu and Kirina Mano (from Shinya Tsukamoto's Bullet Ballet).

[MichaelB]

Brian Dennehy, Chloe Webb and Lambert Wilson weren't nobodies when they made The Belly of an Architect. Likewise Andrea Ferreol and Helen Mirren in their respective Greenaways.

And McGregor wasn't "practically unknown" either - he'd already co-starred in Shallow Grave (a huge domestic hit) when he signed up to do The Pillow Book. And I'd heard of him even before then, courtesy of leading roles in high-profile TV fare such as Dennis Hopper's Lipstick on Your Collar.

Then again, I hardly need to big up McGregor when you consider that Joan Plowright, Bernard Hill, Michael Gambon, Tim Roth, Richard Bohringer and Janet Suzman all had well-established reputations long before they worked with Greenaway. Oh, and John Gielgud.

Mind you, he did once attempt to cast non-actors in the lead of one of his features, when he asked the Quay Brothers to play the twins in A Zed and Two Noughts. Not too surprisingly, they said no.

[Tommaso]

John Gielgud's performance in "Prospero" must be one of his best ever, a good example of how Greenaway is indeed able to do justice to an actor and not just 'move him around like a piece on a chessboard' (although he does that there as well). These two approaches are not mutually exclusive: you can have good acting and STILL defy an actor-based cinema. Gielgud's performance is gorgeous, but it is not a showpiece for the actor as are Olivier's or especially Branagh's Shakespeare adaptations (which I love, though). Remember also that it was Gielgud who approached Greenaway to do the film, not the other way round, and that Gielgud had formerly declined Jarman's offer to play Prospero in his version.

[Gropius]

Then again, I hardly need to big up McGregor when you consider that Joan Plowright, Bernard Hill, Michael Gambon, Tim Roth, Richard Bohringer and Janet Suzman all had well-established reputations long before they worked with Greenaway. Oh, and John Gielgud.

British actors always come cheaper than their American counterparts, hence their appearance in more experimental titles.

As Tommasso has pointed out, there is more than one way to have a 'non-actor-centred' cinema; even if Greenaway didn't go the Bresson route and hire non-actors, his deliberate eschewal of close-ups, for example (a comparison could be made here with Hou in Taiwan), ensured that the actors could never dominate the frame - they are diminished by their architectural/spatial surroundings, a distancing effect which reminds the audience of their objectified status.

[Cronenfly]

Fair enough: however, Greenaway's strong suit has never been directing actors (as can be seen in the awkwardness of so many of his films), which is surely enough to write him off in most people's minds..

That is certainly true, but on the other hand it is just an expression of his own personal approach. In other words, he doesn't want an actor based cinema. He isn't interested in things usually taken for granted like 'believable narratives', 'convincing' or 'natural' acting and so on. The comparison of his films to crossword puzzles is quite to the point, but it's something I think he consciously intends. So, it's certainly allright not to like this style, but it's somewhat unfair to blame him for not doing what he doesn't want to do.

And apparently, he isn't too afraid to face the consequences of non-distribution and low public esteem. But there's hardly been anything more daring recently than the Tulse Luper Trilogy (judging from Part 1 alone), and I really can't see that he should be unable to make great films anymore and has lost his grip after "Prospero". Though I truly believe that "8 1/2 women" is bad. I haven't seen "Nightwatching" yet (and wonder whether I will ever get the chance to), and if it's a return to more conventional filmmaking, be it so.

Thanks for making those points, Tommaso: I agree that Greenaway should be able to handle his actors in the manner he sees fit, and I actually think that his approach works pretty well in his better films. It can lead to a lot of awkwardness and (intentional?) camp, but perhaps that's Greenaway's intent. That might be code for "poor handling of the actors" and "bad acting" to most, and that's fine, but to dismiss him outright for this conscious choice isn't really fair.

I have not been able to see Macon or Tulse Luper, due to their lack of distribution, so it's perhaps unfair to dismiss PG's later output outright; I think that the man still has some talent to share with us. I just hope he can find a forum (art, film, whatever) where there he can more easily reach his audience (ie not be limited by lack of distribution-maybe his actually making some youtube shorts, for instance, wouldn't be such a bad idea). Nightwatching is more conventional, but more so in the way that it's a (however stylistically different) variation on Draughtsman, more a return to what people would expect from an '80s PG movie, for better or worse (probably the latter, as he's not the same artist he was then, but that's my own personal opinion).

Your point about Bresson is a fair one, David, but I don't think that Bresson's approach bears comparison to Greenaway, their aims being fundamentally different. If PG's handling (or your perceived lack thereof) of his actors makes his movies worthless in your mind, David, that's fine, and I'm perfectly willing to agree to disagree, but could you not concede that there's perhaps more to the discussion than that? I'm probably not helping by likening his films to nothing more than filmic crossword puzzles (which I still think is a worthy goal, on some level); anybody care to posit a more sophisticated analysis/reason for liking PG?

EDIT- Already done in a number of the above posts, and I look forward to hearing more.

And if name actors choose to work with PG, what's wrong with that? It's their choice, and maybe for some of them it was more of a chance to be in a PG film than to deliver a conventionally stunning performance (though Gielgud is an excellent, notable exception to this, as mentioned above: it's a beautiful, simultaneous transcendance and embrace of PG's aesthetics)

[Robin Davies]

Dennis Hopper's Lipstick on Your Collar.

Wow! Was that a remake of Dennis Potter's series with extra swearing and psychopathic violence?