Prospero's Books

Shakespeare is without peer, the man of whom Harold Bloom said he invented humanity. `The Tempest' is his richest and essentially his last play, clearly about himself and his career. John Gielgud is the finest Shakespearean actor of our age. Greenaway is the most creative, lush and introspective filmmaker working.

This film is important.

I've already had one comment some time back. But on reviewing, there are two things I'd like to point you to when you see it.

Prospero is based on Shakespeare himself of course, but also on Thomas Harriot, who was a Kabbalist. Harriot had led a mission to the new world in 1585, where he wintered over with Algonquian priests. He came back convinced of having discovered a new cosmology which he never published (because of continuing trials for heresy). But he did share with Galileo, Kepler and Descartes.

Shakespeare satirized Harriot in `Love's Labors Lost' as Holofernes, because Harriot was then allied with an opposing clique (including rival poet Marlowe). But they became close as events unfolded.

The first point is to look for Thomas Harriot's only published work, about his trip to Virginia. It is the Book of Utopias, with the paintings by artist John White. Just after that the sprites act out the Indian magical circle described by Harriot.

Second: Harriot's Kabbalah is based on 21 paths that the magician can open, and one that opens automatically as part of the game of life. Here, Greenaway has Prospero open the 21 books in weaving his magic. When he closes them, the spell recedes. The 22nd is the Book of Games, which the lovers open and close. Kabbalah provides for two `invisible' paths for creating magical artifacts. This we have in the Folio and The Tempest, numbers 23 and 24.

Gielgud suggested the collaboration, and we suppose the scholarship was a joint project. But this is deep work indeed, the only production I know that understood what the play is all about.

Greenaway says: "Theres a project, I'd like very much to do, called Prospero's Creatures' about what happened before the beginning. Sort of a prelude to The Tempest. And I've also written a play called Miranda, about what happens afterwards on the ship on the way home. It's about what happens to innocence and how it has to be destroyed."

We can only hope.

I found Prospero's Books fascinating, on many levels, but it wasn't until my second or third time watching it that I realized the "key" to unlocking this film: It's a ballet.

This film is essentially images and motion choreographed to music (this realization struck me during the opening credit sequence in one viewing). Now, it's an unusual ballet: The "music" includes the mellifluous recitation of "The Tempest" by Gielgud, and the choreography includes things like digital manipulation of images, and the images are heavily influenced by renaissance paintings, but I maintain that the film is, fundamentally, a ballet.

That means that you shouldn't really expect a clear expression of the story, any more than you would from any other ballet. What you should expect is a series of interesting images choreographed to music inspired by "The Tempest". As with any ballet, you can follow it if you're already familiar with the story, but otherwise, you should read the play in advance.

And, just a couple of things about some of the most common criticisms: The naked people? Think of them as invisible - they are visual symbolic representations of the "airy spirits" Prospero commands, his magic. The infamous pissing? Ariel p***ing on a model ship is just an obvious visual metaphor for Ariel creating a storm over the real ship.

Prospero's Books is perhaps difficult to watch and requires some patience, but it doesn't deserve the dragging through the mud that it has received from some of these comments. The best way to approach this film is to just calm down and sit back and enjoy it on a psychedelic level. To question it too much is to miss the point. Also, I don't understand the focus on the nudity that many of the comments here have. Again, it's a matter of just making yourself comfortable with it, and moving on. This is a remarkable piece of work, and it needs to be approached with an understanding that it is simply very different from what most people are used to seeing. And thank goodness for that. To say that it is "the worst movie ever" or some such comment is incredibly unfair and a bit misguided.

I love Shakespeare, to read and to see it performed. I also loved Prospero's Books. Granted, I've only watched it twice as yet, and will undoubtedly indulge in a course of dyed-in-the-wool over-intellectualization and cerebral gymnastics during some future viewing, but these first two viewings (with a lovely bottle of Beringer Brothers White Zinfandel) were utterly given over to happily losing all perspective and immersing myself into the fantastical visual orgy spread before me. But then, I also like Heironymus Bosch and Salvador Dali.

Films are to entertain. Film makers cannot be required to entertain each and every member of the viewing public with each film. That said, there is no rule specifying just how a film must entertain us, nor is there a rule limiting any of us to being entertained in a specific form. We can be entertained by purest brain candy, the most convoluted mystery, brilliant wit, even by being frightened witless or moved to tears. In this case, I took my entertainment from the unadulterated, hedonistic beauty - both of sight and sound - offered up in a blaze of brave disregard for bourgeois ideals, and I'm not the least apologetic.

Yes, it did enrich my life, just by the sheer beauty and excess of it.

Peter Greenaway is one of the great filmmakers, with an original and personal vision. This movie is a marvelous mixture of Shakespeare, visual poetry, music, art ... a feast for the imagination.

Having said that, I must add that I watched it with my wife whose succinct comment was "pretentious". Well, yes, it is a little pretentious, and there are spots that move along too slowly, so you can't just "let it happen" as you do with most movies. This one requires you to pay attention.

It includes what must be the longest single pan to the side ever filmed. I'm not sure how long it was, but it went on forever. I guess it must have gone more than 360 degrees, circled back to the original spot, where new sets had replaced the old. I'm not sure. But it is dazzling. Actually, you can take virtually any frame from this movie and make it into a poster.

Films have been around for about a century, and there isn't much around that doesn't recycle old material. Peter Greenaway is an exception. Like him or not, he's a dyed-in-the-wool original.