DISSERTATION Titel der Dissertation Towards an Encyclopaedia as a Web of Knowledge. A Systematic Analysis of Paradigmatic Classes, Continuities, and Unifying Forces in the Work of Peter Greenaway Verfasser Mag. phil. Marc Orel angestrebter akademischer Grad Doktor der Philosophie (Dr. phil.) Wien, 2011 Studienkennzahl lt. Studienblatt: A 343 Studienrichtung lt. Studienblatt: Anglistik und Amerikanistik Betreuerin: Ao. Univ.-Prof. Mag. Dr. Monika Seidl To my parents… TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements __________________________________________________ VI List of Abbreviations and Short Titles _____________________________________ VII Preface _________________________________________________________ VIII 1. PROLOGUE ________________________________________________ 1 1.1. Peter Greenaway: A Brief Retrospective _______________________________ 1 1.2. Classifying Greenaway’s Work _____________________________________ 17 1.3. Introducing an Encyclopaedic Approach ______________________________ 25 2. THE ENCYCLOPAEDIA ______________________________________ 62 A 62 Literature 214 Air 62 M 214 Alphabet 70 Maps 214 Anatomy 81 Mathematics 225 Animals 92 Medicine 225 Architecture 92 Myth/ology 225 B 105 N 235 Biography 105 Nudity 235 Birds 112 Numbers 246 Body 112 O 258 Books 122 Ornithology 258 C 134 P 266 Cartography 134 Plants 266 Characters 134 Pornography 266 Conspiracy 147 R 267 D 158 Religion 267 Death 158 S 279 Dissection 168 Science 279 Drowning 168 Sex/uality 279 F 169 Stories 289 Flight 169 T 290 Food 169 Taboo 290 G 181 Theology 299 Games 181 V 299 Gardens 189 Violence 299 Geography 189 W 312 H 190 Water 312 History 190 Writing 323 L 202 Z 334 Landscape 202 Zoo/logy 334 Libraries 214 3. EPILOGUE ______________________________________________ 349 Catalogue of Works ________________________________________________ 361 Bibliography _____________________________________________________ 372 List of Illustrations _________________________________________________ 412 Appendix ________________________________________________________ 417 Index of Names ___________________________________________________ 423 Abstracts ________________________________________________________ 428 Curriculum Vitae __________________________________________________ 430 VI Acknowledgements Acknowledgements Without the effort and help from some extraordinary individuals this study would not have been possible. First and foremost, I would like to thank my supervisor, Professor Monika Seidl, for giving me the opportunity to write this doctoral dissertation, for her advice, humour, and necessary corrections. I also would like to express my sincere gratitude to Dr. Deen Larsen for his proofreading, helpful suggestions, and detailed comments on the manuscript. On a personal note, I wish to thank Theresa for her enduring patience and unselfish support in times of need and doubt. I also owe a debt of gratitude to Peter Greenaway for his generous permission to reproduce images of his works. As to the use of copyright material in general, I have made every effort to trace copyright owners and gain their permission for the use of images in my study. Despite this effort, in a number of cases it has proven impossible to trace these owners. Therefore I will be grateful for any information concerning copyright violations. List of Abbreviations and Short Titles VII List of Abbreviations and Short Titles Audience The Audience of Mâcon Baby The Baby of Mâcon Belly The Belly of an Architect Compton Luper at Compton Verney Cook The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover Dante A TV Dante. Cantos 1–8 Draughtsman The Draughtsman’s Contract Drowning Drowning by Numbers Eight Eight & a Half Women Flying Out Flying out of this World Flying Over Flying over Water Fort Asperen Fort Asperen Ark – A Peter Greenaway Flood Warning Goltzius Goltzius & The Pelican Company House H is for House . The Reincarnation of an Ornithologist M Is for Man M Is for Man, Music, Mozart 100 Allegories 100 Allegories to Represent the World 100 Objects 100 Objects to Represent the World Peopling Peopling the Palaces at Venaria Reale Pillow The Pillow Book Prospero Prospero’s Books Rosa The Death of a Composer. Rosa, a Horse Drama Seine Death in the Seine Stairs Geneva The Stairs 1. Geneva: The Location Stairs Munich The Stairs 2. Munich: Projection TLS The Tulse Luper Suitcases Tulse 1 The Tulse Luper Suitcases, Part 1: The Moab Story Tulse 2 The Tulse Luper Suitcases, Part 2: Vaux to the Sea Tulse 3 The Tulse Luper Suitcases, Part 3: From Sark to Finish Uranium Children of Uranium Walk A Walk through H Zed A Zed and Two Noughts *All referring to works by Peter Greenaway. For full references see the Catalogue of Works. VIII Preface Preface The idea for a dissertation project on Peter Greenaway’s work was born out of a state of bewilderment. Bewildered and discontented with the lack of attention paid to this versatile artist, I was thinking about a biographical study on his life and work that had the presumptuous aim of rescuing Greenaway from oblivion. But, obviously enough, such a personal approach would have failed to maintain the emotional distance necessary for a critical investigation of the artist’s massive body of works and would have been perceived as a mere act of homage and appreciation. Instead, I have taken a structuralist perspective of sorts, from which I try to seize Greenaway’s oeuvre in its totality – by decomposing it into its constituent elements, which will be, re-organised and assembled into an encyclopaedia, the centrepiece of my study. Prior to that, the introductory Prologue will present, as its first section, a brief retrospective that outlines Greenaway’s long-standing career and looks at the vicissitudes of his reputation as an artist and filmmaker. (In my attempt to trace the critical reception of his works, I have limited myself to the Anglo-American world, though to a certain extent German reviews will also be taken into account.) The second section of the Prologue will be concerned with the question how Greenaway’s oeuvre can be classified (and has been classified by critics) in terms of artistic traditions and will discuss some of the main stylistic peculiarities of his art. The third section will introduce my encyclopaedic approach to the artist’s work. It will give some insight into the general principles of the encyclopaedia as a mode of representing knowledge, a thorough treatment of Greenaway’s penchant for encyclopaedic thought, and a description of the artist’s own encyclopaedism. Among the concerns of this section will be the idea of collecting in general, collecting as artistic practice, and Greenaway’s art as an art of collecting, as well as the role of organising principles in his work. Then, the Encyclopaedia, as the main body of my study, will offer a systematic survey of the artist’s work, which takes the form of a selective collection of Greenaway’s main subjects and themes, structured according to the letters of the alphabet. The concluding Epilogue will provide not so much a summarising conclusion as a series of “afterthoughts” contemplating on the implications of Greenaway’s encyclopaedism and its relation to the audience. PROLOGUE 1 1. PROLOGUE 1.1. Peter Greenaway: A Brief Retrospective Peter Greenaway’s art is not too fashionable these days. Once referred to as a luminary in the field of art-house cinema, today most of his huge creative output tends to be cut off from public discourse and is systematically overlooked by critics. Especially in the United Kingdom, from where he exiled himself in the late 1990s for the Netherlands, Welsh-born Greenaway has almost fallen into a state of oblivion; it is telling that in 2007 his name did not appear on the top 21 list of British directors of all time by the Daily Telegraph . 1 Some thirty years ago, when he had successfully entered the British film scene with the win of the BFI award for Best Film for his epic 1980 mock-documentary, Falls ,2 and the surprise success of his first feature film, Draughtsman, in 1982, 3 Greenaway’s name was top of mind among film critics and cinemagoers. Seven years later, in 1989, it was the artist’s commercially most successful film, Cook ,4 which finally acquainted the general public with his work. 1 The ranking was led by Alfred Hitchcock, Charlie Chaplin, and Michael Powell. In addition to Greenaway, other illustrious filmmakers, such as Derek Jarman and Alan Parker, did not make it into the list. For full details, see The Top 21 British Directors of All Time . 2 In spite of its excessive three-hour length, Falls was praised by critics as an ‘masochistically fascinating’ (Heller; my translation) film whose ‘rewards are real’ (Canby, Falls ). Its director was described enthusiastically as ‘a genuine wit with a grand imagination’ (Canby, Falls ) and ‘the most inscrutable, brilliant and possibly deranged mind in modern cinema’ (Howe, Falls ). 3 The film was highly acclaimed by the British press as being ‘[b]rilliant and archly humoured’ (The Guardian quoted in Catterall). With the exception of Pauline Kael, judging the film as ‘mannered and idiosyncratic’ (27), American critics were also enthused, describing it as ‘an astonishingly elegant film’ (Canby, Draughtsman ) that is ‘like a crossword puzzle for the senses’ (Ebert, Draughtsman ). However, fellow director Alan Parker condemned the film famously as ‘[a] load of posturing poo poo’ (quoted in Hughes) and threatened to leave the country if Greenaway was allowed to make another film (Parker, in fact, soon left for Hollywood,