Regular readers know I am a huge fan of polarizing auteur director Peter Greenaway. You either love him or hate him. I happen to love him and his films. I think they are visual marvels that push the boundaries of storytelling.
This film is the second in Greenaway's series of films based on artists and their lives. His first installment, "Nightwatching," imagined possible nefarious circumstances surrounding Rembrandt's creation of his famous painting The Night Watch. The third in the series is "Eisenstein In Guanajuato," about Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein trying to make a film about the history of Mexico but being sidetracked by his first gay love affair (previously here). And slated for release next year (but we will see about that) is "Walking To Paris", about twenty-seven-year-old Romanian sculptor Constantin Brâncusi walking from Bucharest to Paris in 1903 and 1904 as a preparation and prelude to becoming the most important sculptor of the twentieth century.
Meanwhile, Greenaway took a detour to one of his preferred time periods for a highly stylized, fanciful reverie of the life of German-born Dutch printmaker, draftsman, and painter Hendrick Goltzius, the leading engraver of the early Baroque period, or Northern Mannerism, noted for his sophisticated technique and the "exuberance" of his compositions of Biblical or mythological characters often in daring erotic poses.
In "Goltzius and the Pelican Company," Greenaway places Goltzius (a delightfully chatty Ramsey Nasr) and his fictional band of artists, fellow printers, and a troupe of actors traveling for an audience with the Margrave of Alsace (played with prickly aplomb by F. Murray Abraham) whom the band petition for money to buy a printing press. As part of the deal, Goltzius agrees to give the Margrave a set of books with engraved illustrations of the stories of the temptation of Adam and Eve, Lot and his daughters, David and Bathsheba, Joseph and Potiphar's wife, Samson and Delilah, and John the Baptist and Salome. To tempt the Margrave further, Goltzius and his printing company sweeten the pot with an offer to perform dramatizations of these erotic stories for his court. And what follows is not only these tales acted out each evening the troupe are in residence, but the back stage drama between couples in the troupe and the Margrave leering at one of the actresses. Eventually the troupe are put on trial--on a rotating circular platform--for some of the more salacious content of their nightly shows. As things spiral out of control, the stories become more and more violent, and the troupe become more and more desperate.
But the real story here, as usual, is Greenaway's presentational framing, and sumptuous art direction, costumes (or as often is the case, the lack of costumes) and sets. Everything looks like a spectacular, splashy Renaissance painting...just look at the film stills below!
Filmed entirely in an empty warehouse, the various sets--the Margrave's court, the theatre, the audience, private quarters, a river, a prison, are all set, to perfect effect, in different areas of the structure. And Greenaway here continues his exploration of screens within screens showing action, boxes within boxes showing art, and words and script flowing over it all. It is as Baroque and sumptuous as the time period Greenaway is invoking.
Recommend? Yes, I thought it was wonderful, but I realize it will not be to everyone's taste. If you see it, be be prepared to see lots of nude bodies (but not as many as in Greenaway's masterpiece "Prospero's Books" based on Shakepseare's "The Tempest") and sex (in one scene, I had to ponder if what I was seeing was an actual erection but concluded that it must be a prosthetic...how else could a poor actor remain in such a state take after take, while lights are adjusted and the camera is reset for hours on end?), and to hear some pretty strong language.
https://www.luperpediafoundation.com/
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