Prospero's Books

I'm attracted to competence, and especially when the vision is unusual and moving. But I love self-referential art, in this case a movie that includes as part (in fact the center) of its message some perspective on what the movie is all about.

This film is one of my most valued experiences, and here, I'll just write about the self-reference. For this, you have to know the context of the play itself. `The Tempest' was written at the end of Shakespeare's career. Earlier, he had composed some of the richest drama that may ever be created. In so doing, the technique -- at least in the great plays -- was to grapple with great forces and ideas and project then into stories. The theatric convention of the days was one of sparse presentation: few props, sets, costumes.

But towards the end of Shakespeare's life, the conventions changed. Ben Jonson and Inigo Jones had introduced the notion of lush, magical special effects, and even popularized productions that consisted of nothing at all but the effects themselves. Shakespeare's prior efforts were deep structures which use the sparse conventions of the theater, without undue obfuscation from those. But here he was asked to produce, even compete, using techniques whose very nature is to distract. So he wrote a play ABOUT visual effects that obfuscate and manipulate, while USING visual effects to the same end.

But there's a deeper irony. Some think Prospero was modeled after John Dee, but this is likely not so, Instead the model was Magus Thomas Harriot who actually did visit the New World and report strange happenings. (In the winter of 1585, he wintered with Algonquian priests probably on, certainly near the land I'm writing from.) Harriot was the age's greatest scientist, but we hardly know him because he never wrote any books as he was under constant examination for heresy. There's lots to his story, all which Shakespeare would have known and partly lived, and the notion of Prospero's Books would have been especially rich at the time of writing.

Cinema is a medium which is all effects, nothing but illusion, and thus is nearly impossible to use as a lens for true visions of the world. So here we have Greenaway's film in which illusion is the point of the immensely clever theatric notion of Prospero's Books. The books are both the illusions and the distorted lens, and turned here into a means to make a film purely about what it means to be a film, and to do so with specific reference to Shakespeare's structure about the similar problem in the effect-laden theater. Moreover, Shakespeare's reference is to Harriot's earlier, similar conundrum between the motions of the great world and the imperfect lens of logic that is required to capture some image of those laws in books.

It's all so well conceived. I'll let others comment on the execution, which seems masterful to me. This film will live very long, and you will be less impoverished by seeing/experiencing it.

This film is one of the very few examples of a cinema as a visual art and that is why it irritates so many people. It's very sad but one doesn't need a screen to follow 99,9 % of the movies made for the last one hundred years of the history of cinematography: you can simply broadcast them on radio. But this one belongs to 0,1 %(as well as Fellini's Otto e Mezzo, or Paradzhanov's Sayat Nova, for example) that you really have to WATCH. So try to perceive "Prospero's Books" not just as an illustrative material to some pieces of literature, but as an art exhibition in motion. Maybe that will make it easier for you, dear Hollywood junk viewer.

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.

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.

This is Peter Greenaway's most humane and enthralling feature, a visual tour-de-force which re-interprets Shakespeare's 'The Tempest' through the books of magic with which Prospero creates his realm. Sir John Gielgud gives a moving, heartfelt farewell performance in the title role, Michael Clarke is a sinuous, demonic Caliban, and Michael Nyman's score is fittingly triumphant. One sequence - the Masque - even turns the film into an opera.

Although the visuals are overloaded to a level of decadence rarely seen on film, it is always with a purpose. One quibble; Prospero's overlaying of his own voice on the characters makes some of the dialogue difficult to follow, especially if you are unfamiliar with the source material. The film demands to be seen on a wide screen.