I caught this movie after midnight in a public broadcast channel when I was twelve and I thought it was some sort of black magic. Got me into painting, into an art career, made me fall in love with cinema.
I sometimes think that nothing in cinema will ever move or stir me up quite so much as Peter Greenaway in his prime. This, the opening credits, The Cook, The Thief. The lighting of Sacha Vierney. So sublime. I cannot imagine anything better.
One of the best art i have seen in my entire life, along with "the cook...". Impossible to describe the feelings that Mr Greenaway can unfold in the audience
As a student of photography I was advised to I watch this film back in the 1990's. I thought it was the most extraordinary cinematic film I had ever seen. It is definitely a thought provoking film. Greenaway's choice to use Nyman's music, and Sir John Gielgud as Prospero, are perfect. My photography carreer took off in a different and unrestrained direction.
I have watched this movie probably close to 30 times...have and old VHS of it. Need it in a new format. This film should definitely be preserved for the ages.
There's a Japanese blu ray release (not a great transfer, but better than other versions I've seen) as part of a 3-movie box set together with Greenaway's Drowning By Numbers and The Baby of Macon. Not sure how available it is these days.
It is magic. I love the opening scene. Hold on. I love all of it. The music is stunning. I play the cd in the car after a heavy day at work. Thanks to Michael nyman. And of greenaway.
I saw this the year it was released, on a big screen, in a multiplex theater just outside of DC. Same screen I saw the Frank Oz Little Shop of Horrors, as it happens. Half of the audience...who must not have read reviews...got up and left in disgust. "What the hell IS this," I remember a dude saying loudly, as he stormed out. My new girlfriend and I stayed. I'd read The Tempest in preparation, and I was entranced. It remains, to this day, one of the best adaptations of Shakespeare I've ever seen.
If by your art, my dearest father, you have Put the wild waters in this roar, allay them. The sky, it seems, would pour down stinking pitch, but that the sea, mounting to th' welkin's cheek, dashes the fire out. O, I have suffered With those that I saw suffer! A brave vessel, Who had no doubt some noble creature in her, dash'd all to pieces!
I watched some of this film back in School as for GCSE English my teacher had chosen The Tempest for us to study and when we were watching this we were primarily not paying that much attention to the film as with us being a load of 14/15 year old boys we were just laughing our heads off at the nudity. I decided however to revisit this movie earlier this year (having since gone on and studied Media production) and really do appreciate the art that it was put into it and that soundtrack is amazing. Sometimes you don’t appreciate the great films until later in life.
there is a small hidden treat for a careful listener who has seen Drowning by Numbers! At 3:31 when the girl jumping with the string comes into picture you can hear "twentyone organa" or something like that, which is from the opening of Drowning by Numbers where there is a small girl counting stars and jumping with a rope!
Because Greenaway shot it on film and HD but the visual effects were very low resolution compared to now. Someone might very well have to redo them from scratch with modern CGI in order to get a proper restoration.
Right? This is one of those where the art of the movie overpowers the words. So it needs to be watched several time to have a full experience. I remember I was able to borrow it from a local library in the late 90’s early 2000s. May have to wait for TCM to run it.
Not a Cherub but an aerial servant of Prospero. There are three Ariel's in the film of different ages and sometimes seen together but all one being. In the end, Ariel is made free.
I was just here because I had posted telling people to watch this in 3D DLP... if you get a chance to DO TRY IT OUT! It was like watching it for the first time, mindblowing beautiful.
@@gmar7836How sad your life is that you're spreading hate in every comment of this video. Find company while we enjoy this masterpiece of the highest art as a community of Greenaway enthusiasts.
Oh, whaaw. "You can't make a film like this any more" simply is not true. There are plenty of examples of recent filmmakers who have been able to get their singular vision onto the screen. You're just imitating the people who whine about everyone "bEiNg So SeNsItIvE" because some people won't give them pats on the back for being shitheads.
I think maybe this opening sequence is meant to represent Prospero thinking/conjuring up all the elements he (as Shakespeare) will call upon to write his play/story as the master magician of theater.
this is a film of what most of us see shakespeare as, indulgent and impenetratble. props that he put it into visuals. shakespeare is for actors not the audience.
What a crock of sh*t. #MeToo is about the abuse of women by powerful men and the systems that have enabled them. It has nothing to do with paintbox, Shakespeare, copious theatrical nudity and a banging Nyman score.
I saw this film in a now demolished art house theater in Columbus, Ohio when it came out in the early 90s. The woman next to me said that it gave her the most excruciatingly intense migraine headache she had ever experienced in her life, and had to leave quickly about two thirds of the way through. People were milling around in the lobby, looking for any kind of distraction, saying they were afraid to go back in. I think you have to be on a morphine drip to enjoy this thing😵. The best you can say about this film is that it is apparently a "cult" film. I'll assume that by cult they mean, like, the Branch Davidians.......
What determines whether or one “gets” a movie is largely the way in which history has molded their mind. There is something about this which feels almost pre-historical, not quite, as though we were watching something tailored for the ancient Greeks who are about to discover tragedy and theater. I understand if you don’t get it; I don’t entirely either. It’s hard for a movie like this to not come off as pretentious or gross. But the fact that it replicated such stuff “as dreams are made of” (to quote Prospero/Shakespeare) speaks to me on some level. I can’t say I “enjoy” watching it-it is not “fun”-but I am captivated by the world that Greenway has painted
it is undubitably a Meisterwerk but, Greenaway might have halved the budget if he had allowed some spaces for contemplation …. there is too much talking, too much sound (Nyman's score is unseductive, positively painfully awful crap), too much verisimilitude, too many naked bodies … I bleed out of my eyes and ears with too much information .. I can only watch it in small sections .. now if I compare and contrast this film with the film 'PERFUME' what conclusions might I come to ?
@@patriziocuozzo4376 .. it is far too tryhard, far too OTT .. the Draughtsman's contract is a vastly more subtle and witty enterprise .. cool is ostensibly effortless
I agree. I appreciate it more than I like it. This happens to me with many art films. They don’t stay with me. I guess I’m one of those people who likes character arcs and narrative. If the visuals don’t enhance the story than it doesn’t work for me. Moss Hart, award winning playwright, in one of his early successes, had a play that just wasn’t working. After tinkering with it over and over, they discovered the problem - it was overproduced. They cleared it up and it was a hit. I sense that this is what’s going on here. Too much is going on.
One of the worst films of all time, panned by every film critic of the time, and a shameful, pandering contribution by one of the greatest stage and film stars of all time: Sir John Gielgud, may he rest in peace.
I caught this movie after midnight in a public broadcast channel when I was twelve and I thought it was some sort of black magic. Got me into painting, into an art career, made me fall in love with cinema.
Is there some way I can see you art?
Excellent!
Lo viste en em canal 7 o que por que yo si
Great art ,Greenaway and Nyman
I really thin'k this is my favorite opening sequence in any film. The visuals accompanied by Nyman's "Prospero's Magic" is perfection!
It is terrible
Agree
I sometimes think that nothing in cinema will ever move or stir me up quite so much as Peter Greenaway in his prime. This, the opening credits, The Cook, The Thief. The lighting of Sacha Vierney. So sublime. I cannot imagine anything better.
One of the best art i have seen in my entire life, along with "the cook...". Impossible to describe the feelings that Mr Greenaway can unfold in the audience
As a student of photography I was advised to I watch this film back in the 1990's. I thought it was the most extraordinary cinematic film I had ever seen. It is definitely a thought provoking film. Greenaway's choice to use Nyman's music, and Sir John Gielgud as Prospero, are perfect. My photography carreer took off in a different and unrestrained direction.
I have watched this movie probably close to 30 times...have and old VHS of it. Need it in a new format. This film should definitely be preserved for the ages.
There's a Japanese blu ray release (not a great transfer, but better than other versions I've seen) as part of a 3-movie box set together with Greenaway's Drowning By Numbers and The Baby of Macon. Not sure how available it is these days.
It is magic. I love the opening scene. Hold on. I love all of it. The music is stunning. I play the cd in the car after a heavy day at work. Thanks to Michael nyman. And of greenaway.
Watched this movie for the first time in 20 +/- years last night (thank you Vudu/Fandango) such a masterpiece.
I saw this the year it was released, on a big screen, in a multiplex theater just outside of DC. Same screen I saw the Frank Oz Little Shop of Horrors, as it happens. Half of the audience...who must not have read reviews...got up and left in disgust. "What the hell IS this," I remember a dude saying loudly, as he stormed out. My new girlfriend and I stayed. I'd read The Tempest in preparation, and I was entranced. It remains, to this day, one of the best adaptations of Shakespeare I've ever seen.
My favourite things about this movie are the opening credits music and the cinematography.
The only movie I've seen where the magic really feels like "magic"
If by your art, my dearest father,
you have Put the wild waters in this roar,
allay them.
The sky, it seems,
would pour down stinking pitch,
but that the sea, mounting to th' welkin's cheek,
dashes the fire out.
O, I have suffered With those that I saw suffer!
A brave vessel, Who had no
doubt some noble creature in her,
dash'd all to pieces!
It’s crap
I watched some of this film back in School as for GCSE English my teacher had chosen The Tempest for us to study and when we were watching this we were primarily not paying that much attention to the film as with us being a load of 14/15 year old boys we were just laughing our heads off at the nudity.
I decided however to revisit this movie earlier this year (having since gone on and studied Media production) and really do appreciate the art that it was put into it and that soundtrack is amazing. Sometimes you don’t appreciate the great films until later in life.
One of the greatest roles of Sir John Gielgud- he will truly be missed!
the best scores Mr.Nyman.and the best movies Mr.Greenaway.
there is a small hidden treat for a careful listener who has seen Drowning by Numbers! At 3:31 when the girl jumping with the string comes into picture you can hear "twentyone organa" or something like that, which is from the opening of Drowning by Numbers where there is a small girl counting stars and jumping with a rope!
Yes at some point all films by Greenaway became interconnected - the Tulse Luper Directory
The Skipping Girl was a reference to Velázquez
the swan at 3:12 is also likely a reference to Zed & Two Noughts
@@stalfos268 Besides one also to Leda
Truly superb.. what a leap of imagination and creativity
somebody please post as much of this as possible
I still hope that one day it'll come out as a blu ray. Well overdue.
It won’t
WHYYY ISN"T THERE A WIDESCREEN RESTORED DVD RELEASE OF THIS MASTERPIECE?!?!?
There's a pretty good Japanese blu ray but idk how easy it is to find
Thier is,it cost me $100....i believe I ordered it off Amazon
this one *appears* to be widescreen; if you look closely it's be shrunken vertically (1:32), distorting the picture!
Because Greenaway shot it on film and HD but the visual effects were very low resolution compared to now. Someone might very well have to redo them from scratch with modern CGI in order to get a proper restoration.
Right? This is one of those where the art of the movie overpowers the words. So it needs to be watched several time to have a full experience. I remember I was able to borrow it from a local library in the late 90’s early 2000s. May have to wait for TCM to run it.
Greenaway, Gieguld, Rylance, Shakespeare and Nyman - what more could you want? I'd love to see this film again.
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Great way of beginning the Tempest: having a cherub pissing on a ship.
Not a Cherub but an aerial servant of Prospero.
There are three Ariel's in the film of different ages and sometimes seen together but all one being.
In the end, Ariel is made free.
looks like Hieronymus Bosch and Dante's layers of heaven hell as Prospero walks through scene... great film this!
The greatest film of all time.
I was just here because I had posted telling people to watch this in 3D DLP... if you get a chance to DO TRY IT OUT! It was like watching it for the first time, mindblowing beautiful.
Are you high?
@@gmar7836How sad your life is that you're spreading hate in every comment of this video. Find company while we enjoy this masterpiece of the highest art as a community of Greenaway enthusiasts.
I feel God when I see and listen to this art
The 90's were so cool compared to now. You can't make a film like this any more.
Oh, whaaw. "You can't make a film like this any more" simply is not true. There are plenty of examples of recent filmmakers who have been able to get their singular vision onto the screen. You're just imitating the people who whine about everyone "bEiNg So SeNsItIvE" because some people won't give them pats on the back for being shitheads.
@@jackal59 Ok,ok, try making a film like The Genesis Children today and see how long your in business..
@@jackal59Ok Zoomer
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Best opening to a movie ever
I think maybe this opening sequence is meant to represent Prospero thinking/conjuring up all the elements he (as Shakespeare) will call upon to write his play/story as the master magician of theater.
I want that magic cape
A Masterpiece
this is a film of what most of us see shakespeare as, indulgent and impenetratble. props that he put it into visuals. shakespeare is for actors not the audience.
#Shakespeare still works if done well.
My favorite movie ever! What a Renaissance trip. Is it available in its entirety?
Magnificent - I agree
Weird question, but does anyone know what type of bird the sounds at 1:42 are coming from?
This movie is weird af but im not gonna lie this music SLAPS
It reminds me of the a Requiem of a Dream Theme
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wauwwwww!!!
Wor is dis gufffff❤❤❤❤😂😂😂😂😂
One of the weirdest movies ever made. I wonder if Greenaway was influenced by Fellini
Be steadfast .
0:30
The opening was cool but the jump ropes look dumb.
There is so much going on here that would be impossible in a post #MeToo world.
why not tell #MeToo to go screw itself.
What a crock of sh*t. #MeToo is about the abuse of women by powerful men and the systems that have enabled them. It has nothing to do with paintbox, Shakespeare, copious theatrical nudity and a banging Nyman score.
@@sambarlow9359 But if we claim it does, then we can invalidate #MeToo altogether! Err, right?
@@sambarlow9359 Well spoken.
I saw this film in a now demolished art house theater in Columbus, Ohio when it came out in the early 90s. The woman next to me said that it gave her the most excruciatingly intense migraine headache she had ever experienced in her life, and had to leave quickly about two thirds of the way through. People were milling around in the lobby, looking for any kind of distraction, saying they were afraid to go back in. I think you have to be on a morphine drip to enjoy this thing😵. The best you can say about this film is that it is apparently a "cult" film. I'll assume that by cult they mean, like, the Branch Davidians.......
one of my favorite films. wish more directors had taken inspiration from 90s Greenaway. to each their own.
What determines whether or one “gets” a movie is largely the way in which history has molded their mind. There is something about this which feels almost pre-historical, not quite, as though we were watching something tailored for the ancient Greeks who are about to discover tragedy and theater. I understand if you don’t get it; I don’t entirely either. It’s hard for a movie like this to not come off as pretentious or gross. But the fact that it replicated such stuff “as dreams are made of” (to quote Prospero/Shakespeare) speaks to me on some level. I can’t say I “enjoy” watching it-it is not “fun”-but I am captivated by the world that Greenway has painted
it is undubitably a Meisterwerk but, Greenaway might have halved the budget if he had allowed some spaces for contemplation …. there is too much talking, too much sound (Nyman's score is unseductive, positively painfully awful crap), too much verisimilitude, too many naked bodies … I bleed out of my eyes and ears with too much information .. I can only watch it in small sections .. now if I compare and contrast this film with the film 'PERFUME' what conclusions might I come to ?
That you have shit taste?
@@bebaguette766 ... Define 'good taste' ... genius
@@allertonoff4 who enjoy that movie has good taste.
@@patriziocuozzo4376 .. it is far too tryhard, far too OTT .. the Draughtsman's contract is a vastly more subtle and witty enterprise .. cool is ostensibly effortless
I agree. I appreciate it more than I like it. This happens to me with many art films. They don’t stay with me. I guess I’m one of those people who likes character arcs and narrative. If the visuals don’t enhance the story than it doesn’t work for me.
Moss Hart, award winning playwright, in one of his early successes, had a play that just wasn’t working. After tinkering with it over and over, they discovered the problem - it was overproduced. They cleared it up and it was a hit. I sense that this is what’s going on here. Too much is going on.
One of the worst films of all time, panned by every film critic of the time, and a shameful, pandering contribution by one of the greatest stage and film stars of all time: Sir John Gielgud, may he rest in peace.
Keep crying.
Definitely the worst film I have ever seen.
have you seen air bud?
have you seen the Bridesmaids?
No one has asked the relevant question. Where did your good taste go?
Definitely the dumbest comment I've read in a while.
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