Peter Greenaway

Directing

Peter Greenaway

Born April 5, 1942 · Newport, Gwent, Wales, UK (age 84)

Peter Greenaway, CBE (born 5 April 1942) is a Welsh writer-director, painter, and video artist based in Amsterdam. Throughout the late 1960s and '70s, he produced several experimental documentary/mockumentary shorts while working as a film editor for the Central Office of Information. This early period culminated in "The Falls" (1980), a three-hour mockumentary indexing the strange effects of the …

Known For

The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her LoverThe Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover · 1989
The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover
★ 7.31989
MovieCrimeDrama
When churlish mobster Albert Spica acquires an upscale French restaurant in London, he dines there nightly, effectively scaring off the clientele with his bad manners. His wife, Georgina, is especially disgusted by him, and soon begins an affair with regular guest Michael. Despite their best efforts to keep it secret, Spica learns about their trysts, and he plots a terrible revenge.
Eisenstein in GuanajuatoEisenstein in Guanajuato · 2015
Eisenstein in Guanajuato
★ 6.12015
MovieComedyRomance
In 1931, following the success of the film Battleship Potemkin, Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein travels to the city of Guanajuato, Mexico, to shoot a new film. Freshly rejected by Hollywood, Eisenstein soon falls under Mexico’s spell. Chaperoned by his guide Palomino Cañedo, the director opens up to his suppressed fears as he embraces a new world of sensual pleasures and possibilities that will shape the future of his art.
Prospero's BooksProspero's Books · 1991
Prospero's Books
★ 6.81991
MovieDramaFantasy
An exiled magician finds an opportunity for revenge against his enemies muted when his daughter and the son of his chief enemy fall in love in this uniquely structured retelling of the 'The Tempest'.
The Draughtsman's ContractThe Draughtsman's Contract · 1982
The Draughtsman's Contract
★ 7.11982
MovieHistoryMystery
R. Neville, a brash young draftsman, is hired to make a dozen landscape illustrations at the estate of Mr Herbert and his wife Virginia. Aside from monetary compensation, the arrangement includes a sexual liaison offered to Neville by Virginia while her estranged husband is away. But when the murdered body of Mr Herbert is discovered at the estate, mysterious clues found in Neville's drawings point to the identity of the killer.
Drowning by NumbersDrowning by Numbers · 1988
Drowning by Numbers
★ 7.01988
MovieComedyCrime
Cissie Colpitts drowns her cheating husband and, in the ensuing cover-up, enlists the help of lonely coroner Henry Madgett, an old friend with a longstanding weakness for her charms. But when Cissie's daughter and granddaughter—both also named Cissie Colpitts—decide to resort to the same methods for solving conflicts with their own frustrating husbands, the women and their repeated appeals for help begin to wear on Madgett's conscience.
Lumière & CompanyLumière & Company · 1995
Lumière & Company
★ 6.41995
MovieDramaDocumentary
40 international directors were asked to make a short film using the original Cinematographe invented by the Lumière Brothers, working under conditions similar to those of 1895. There were three rules: (1) The film could be no longer than 52 seconds, (2) no synchronized sound was permitted, and (3) no more than three takes.
The Belly of an ArchitectThe Belly of an Architect · 1987
The Belly of an Architect
★ 6.81987
MovieDrama
Stourley Kracklite, a driven, detail-obsessed architect, travels from America to Rome with his much younger wife, Louisa, to oversee an architectural homage to a personal hero, 18th-century master builder Etienne-Louis Boullée. En route by train, Stourley and Louisa conceive a much-wanted child — but Stourley's obsession with his wife's expanding belly, her perceived infidelity, and his own recurrent bouts of abdominal pain reach epic and dangerous proportions.
The Pillow BookThe Pillow Book · 1995
The Pillow Book
★ 6.31995
MovieDramaRomance
Nagito has a fetish for calligraphy on the human body and meets her ideal soulmate Jerome, an English translator sent to Japan. However, once Nagiko's father's gay publisher rejoins the scene, the story is overtaken by treachery and bloodlust.

Filmography

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Cinema16: British Short FilmsCinema16: British Short Films · 2003
Cinema16: British Short Films
★ 5.22003
Movie
This critically acclaimed DVD contains 16 of the best classic and award winning British short films and delivers a snapshot of British cinema past and present. It includes films from Britain's most exciting new talent alongside early shorts from it's most successful filmmakers' amongst them Chris Nolan (Memento, Insomnia, Batman Begins), Ridley Scott (Gladiator, Alien), Mike Leigh (Secrets and Lies) and Stephen Daldry (Billy Elliot, The Hours). 01 About a Girl - Brian Percival 02 Boy & Bicycle - Ridley Scott 03 Dear Phone - Peter Greenaway 04 Doodlebug - Christopher Nolan 05 Eight - Stephen Daldry 06 Gasman - Lynne Ramsay 07 Girl Chewing Gum - John Smith 08 Home - Morag McKinnon 09 Joyride - Jim Gillespie 10 Inside Out - Tom & Charles Guard 11 Je T’aime John Wayne - Toby Macdonald 12 The Sheep Thief - Asif Kapadia 13 The Short & Curlies - Mike Leigh 14 Telling Lies - Simon Ellis 15 UK Images - Martin Parr 16 Who’s My Favourite Girl? - Adrian J. McDowall

Director

A Life in Suitcases: A History of Tulse LuperA Life in Suitcases: A History of Tulse Luper · 2005
A Life in Suitcases: A History of Tulse Luper
★ 5.82005
MovieHistoryAdventure
A comic study of 20th-century history, reconstructing the life of writer, creator and professional prisoner Tulse Luper. Born in 1911 Newport and last heard of in 1989, Luper’s life is pieced together from the evidence found in 92 suitcases scattered across the globe. A Life in Suitcases condenses the six-hour trilogy into a single two-hour feature, and in doing so, accentuates the project as a filmic essay in multiple narratives, listings, sidebars, footnotes, commentaries and anecdotes; a project for an Information Age ready to understand that there never is a phenomenon called History, there can only be Historians, gatekeepers to vested interests.

Director