M Is for Man, Music, Mozart

Ben: I can't begin to tell you how much I admire your work here. Your dancing, the music, and visuals all fit together in a most creative manner. I have taught film for the past 20 years, and have always presented Greenaway as one of the greatest (if not the greatest) of our time. He is so complex and abstract that many don't get it, and most don't bother to try. The drama (which is always well made in his films) is never the point. It is the feeling that we get through his creative blending of characters, visuals, and music that is always what he seems to be going for. After all, he is a painter, and approaches film from a painter's point of view, and an abstract painter at that. We can observe the quiet death of opera, ballet, and the concert hall over the 2nd half of the century, and see film take over as the leading art form to include music. This incredible ballet, of which you are so much a part, is without question one of the finest ballets of the 2nd half of the century, all the more important as it has been preserved on film. Thank you so very much for your outstanding contribution here. You are a very great artist, my friend; and like many before you, misunderstood by most.

I have resisted Greenaway's insistence on nudity for his performers almost from the beginning but he was right and I was wrong, because I was thinking in stage terms and he in visual-art terms. I misunderstood Helen Mirren exposing her amazing breasts in The Cook, Juliette Stevenson her steel-spring body in Drowning by Numbers, Joan Plowright's refusal to bare all in the same film, John Gielgud's courageous self-exposure in Propero's Books. When one performs for Greenaway, one crosses a threshold, one leaves the stage and enters the frame. I still do not know if he is a great artist but my opinion is irrelevant, he is a necessary one for our time. I salute him.

I was one of the countless ones who was very nearly ruined for new music and the visual arts by the advent of MTV. Just as avid readers hate the film versions of their favorite books, videos killed the buzz of music for me --- the video that invented itself in my head through the natural flow of the music was always infinitely better than (and unfortunately always replaced by) the video I saw on TV. And now, the "music" industry has morphed into a "writhing super model" industry where those with the most talent don't stand a chance: It's a beauty contest. Imagine my delight and surprise when I accidentally encountered this video / music / dance piece for TV, developed nearly a decade ago. I've never seen a more perfectly synthesized work for the visual arts. It combines visuals, music, and dance in a single-minded vision that seems sprung whole and phoenix-like from the spoils of our decadent popular culture. How on Earth did Greenaway and Andriessen and Craft manage to combine their extraordinary talents so seamlessly to create such a dazzling and unique and unified work of art? A work of art that lies shamelessly orthogonal to the hideous and vulgar and trite trends currently celebrated by our popular culture? My faith in the ability of man to eternally invent new expressions of beauty in life is restored.

What I know about dance (contemporary or otherwise) wouldn't even fill the back of a postage stamp, but even in my ignorance I could appreciate and even marvel at the extraordinary choreography and performance skills on display in this truly stunning film. Ben Craft is as lithe as an eel, never making a clunky or awkward movement even when twisted into painful- looking contortions (at one point, he seems to be taking his entire body weight on his head and one shoulder). The two naked female dancers are no less agile and balletic, describing devils, lovers, Beethovian geniuses, and even a sperm fertilising an egg, with an almost arrogant aplomb.

On its own, the choreography, performances, and stunning musical score would hold your attention. But seeing it all run through the visionary imagination of Peter Greenaway takes its all to a whole new level. The anatomical engravings of Vesalius come hypnotically to life, then crash into the wild and bawdy world of Hogarth. Information flickers and flashes across the screen. Reality twists and morphs as in a dream. The dancers leave behind visual echoes of parts of their body as they whirl about the screen. Multiple images pile up, transform, over- lap, and then vanish. The art direction and cinematography are gorgeous throughout.

This is art, in the very best sense of the word - it excites, it inspires, it dazzles, and it makes you glad to be alive in a world where such work is possible. See it if you can, even if you prefer Hollywood movies to art-house. Forget your preconceptions, open your imagination, and take the plunge with this unique film!

I'm not familiar with Greenaway's other work; I mostly experienced this for Louis Andriessen's score (I'm a fan, and this isn't his best work, but it does have its moments). As for the film itself, let me say this: I like difficult art, and difficult cinema. I spend many hours justifying the existence of difficult art to others who are not quite so adventurous. I enjoy emotional distance and ambiguous meaning, taken even to Euro-trash extremes. And yet, I found this film to be the worst, most pretentious piece of crap I've ever seen in my life. It is very unattractive visually, and the film has dated very, very poorly in terms of its overall look. (Yes, you can tell this was made for TV...) Greenaway never knows when to get out of the way and let the images just breathe on their own... there is far too much information on screen at all times. If a first run through his completely awful text (which might pass as "edgy prose" in my junior high diary), set to Andriessen's music, wasn't enough for you, don't worry... he'll display the whole thing from start to finish in a slow side-scroll that features such high-tech effects as digitally-generated drop shadow. And his attempts at "choreography" are so banal in spots that you'll want to laugh out loud. Now I absolutely have to see another Greenaway film to see if they're all this bad. As for yourself, don't bother.