Taking sides Alan Parker vs Peter Greenaway

and yes before anyone get smart i know about the why are british films shit thread but omg did i love this

i started a thread inspired by michael gambons perf after seeing it -- he blew me away, otherwise i wasnt too hot on it, but it did make me put a bunch of greenaway in my queue (none of which ive gotten to)

list and talk abt some unrelenting, brutal, sadistic movie characters

yeah gambon in that movie is something i'm still processing. it seems even more impressive because there are so few closeups and it's pretty much all voice and body language. i think it's hard to make a 100% reprehensible character that "works" tho obviously it's aided here by the overall formalism and stage-play vibe.

i saw the draughtsman's contract years ago and it is pretty confusing and tough to watch (in terms of pacing not content). greenaway is one of those dudes where i'm glad he's around and does his thing even if i don't actually like that thing, which is why i'm surprised at how much i liked this. i want to check out at least the rest of his 80s stuff but i would probably be well-advised to stretch out those viewings over a period of years.

Parker's directed one great film, Shoot The Moon.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Friday, January 6, 2006

do ppl still watch greenaway films

i suddenly thought maybe i should watch one even tho ppl seem to speak ill of him much of the time

think you cld prob wring a bbc 3 drama out of the meeting of jim davidson and peter greenaway on the set of a zed and two noughts

and do ppl still watch alan parker films?

hmmn looking at wiki filmography it seems i have seen mississippi burning only

iirc we watched it at school where its message that the lynching of black ppl is morally wrong was probably thought to have propadeutic value

draughtsman's contract is on BBC iplayer at the moment fwiw. (I'm not sure wiw)

iw quite a bit. it's really good.

but Fame is pretty good too and I'd rather watch that again.

yeah i saw it had been on bbc2 xp

what about derek jarman? one or two of his are on bluray now i think

hmmn looking at wiki filmography it seems i have seen mississippi burning only

wow youve never seen 'midnight express'? not that its a good movie or anything, but its the kind of movie youd see on video when you were 13 and think its the best movie ever.

no....as i understand it, it's mostly about how turkish ppl are savages, but it probably doesn't express it as well as byron did

i still love Greenaway in all his glossy inhuman glory tbh

on the other hand Bugsy Malone was good apart from the crepey bits

just watched the cook, the thief, his wife, and her lover tonight - i can't get over how brilliant it was. just looked amazing, perfect music, and great performances by mirren and gambon. such a rich experience.

I havent seen that film in years. I remember being quite drawn in by the amazing visuals and costumes/sets, but also appalled by the gory bits - esp where the bookseller is killed with his own books, urgh. I said to myself I didnt thnk I could ever watch it again on that basis, though I'm sure ive seen it since.

I used to love popping on Nyman soundtracks from his films all the time just as daytime background music.

Cook, Thief... still one of my all time favorite movies and also gets the special 'has made me weep' star. I owe Greenaway forever for making it, Drowning By #s, and especially The Falls.

also super cheap in HMV sale

do ppl still watch greenaway films

― A.R.R.Y. Kane (nakhchivan), Saturday, 13 October 2012 20:38 (2 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Ha! I came to this thread to ask if anyone remembered Peter Greenaway and his (mostly) shit films but distracted by nakh's user name of Oct 2013!

i still fuck w/ his structural films e.g. the falls

the pretentious british filmmaker who hasn't made a film worth a damn is mike figgis

Parker made Bugsy Malone ergo he wins

i still love Greenaway in all his glossy inhuman glory tbh

― thread lock holiday (Noodle Vague), Saturday, October 13, 2012 3:44 PM (2 years ago)

Berlin reactions to PG's Eisenstein in Guanajuato

https://www.fandor.com/keyframe/daily-berlinale-2015-diary-7

Greenaway at his best is exhilarating, even tear-inducing if not in the usual way.

vertical features remake might be my favourite but all the early shorts I've seen are good

I watched The Draughstman’s Contract on criterion w basically no information other than the description and uh, what????

Liked it all right though.

Somehow, according to imdb, Peter Greenaway has two films in post-production and three in pre-production. Sometimes I wonder if his late career is funded by a high-end money laundering operation, but I guess he had the last laugh over Parker.

RIP and all but I cannot fathom choosing Parker over Greenaway (as the OP does) in a million years

Greenaway risks more, so he fails and succeeds more spectacularly.

(not that i have seen much of his recent work besides that Eisenstein feature, which i was meh on)