Prospero's Books

Gosh, this was awful. The possibility for a visually interesting movie is totally lost when there's not rhyme or reason to the organization of the visuals or their relation to the story. And John Gielgud voice-over on all parts? What were they thinking?

This is by far the worst film I've ever seen. If you're considering watching this horrid piece of trash, please do yourself a favor and take a nap or a bubble bath instead. Do ANYTHING except watch this film. As far as 'artistic vision' goes, this film contains none of it. It is artsy and weird for the sake of being artsy and weird. It's not challenging or provocative or interesting in any way. WORST MOVIE EVER.

Once upon a time, Peter Greenaway was considered a serious artist. 1991's Prospero's Books ended that. To understand this, let's remember that in the 1960s and 1970s, Greenaway became known for some witty, short films playing with several of his obsessions, like counting, classification, sexuality, etc. He graduated to feature length films in the 1980s: after the (unwatchable) The Falls, he made a series of fine, intelligent, cerebral (if sometimes hard to take) art movies: The Draughtsman's Contract, A Zed and Two Noughts, The Belly of an Architect, Drowning by Numbers. These four movies, made back to back, are his best in a 40-plus year career. Then, in 1989, came The Cook, The Thief, his Wife and Her Lover, his most successful film so far, and a truly success de scandal, with his brilliant but often shocking images. After The Cook, everyone called him a genius, and he might have believed those accolades, since right after that he made one of the most self-indulgent (and unwatchable) films ever made: Prospero's Books. An adaptation (for lack of a better word) of Shakespeare's The Tempest, made at the request of its star, the octogenarian John Gielgud (who have played the part of Prospero on stage, and had unsuccessfully asked a number of prominent directors to bring the play with him to the screen), this film is truly terrible: shot entirely on a sound stage, is a parade of naked people, awful use of digital imagery (which has rapidly look obsolete with the passage of time), and poor old Gielgud speaking all the parts (!). The movie looks as the filming of a Shakespeare play as made by an idiot savant, except that this idiot doesn't even look here to be very savant. Not surprisingly, few people liked Prospero's Books. After this fiasco, Greenaway has continued making movies, as well as exhibitions for museums, but with the exception of The Pillow Book, almost no one has watched them, or care for them.

I came at this film with high expectations. I was aware of Greenaway's work and 'The Tempest' and was interested in an adaptation. I first wanted to switch off after ten minutes, but felt that it would be unfair. There was a representation of a storm, but where in your mind do you conceive a small boy peeing over a toy boat? It is symbolic of what? I continued another ten minutes my finger twitching over the 'off' button, somewhere something would capture my interest. This is not Shakespeare, it is not cinema. There is a time and place for it, but I will not waste my time and there is no place for it in my studies of Shakespeare. After twenty five minutes I gave up and that was the end. I then read all the comments on this website and the pretentiousness of the film is only matched by its defendants. 'Its a painting.....then put it in a gallery', 'it's a ballet.....keep it on the stage then'. Shakespeare can be done intelligently, and the plays were performed to mass audiences, they were accessible, and this version helps put a wedge between Shakespeare and the general population at large - and I do not think that the Bard would be happy with that.

Imagine if William Shakespeare, Leonardi DaVinci, Sigmond Freud, and Jean Luc Goddard all met in a dark alley, got drunk together, and made a film. If you could image the result, you would then get an idea of what this movie is about. Told with the help multiple on-screen images and the strength of Sir John Guilgud narration and acting skills, Greenaway brings a new face to Shakespeare's "The Tempest." This film is innovative, sensual, and challenging as Shakespeare intended. I would warn that this film sparks a cast of about 100+ naked people. Although it is nudity used in the best taste possible, this is not a film to be showing to the High School English class.

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.

I love Shakespeare, to read and to see it performed. I also loved Prospero's Books. Granted, I've only watched it twice as yet, and will undoubtedly indulge in a course of dyed-in-the-wool over-intellectualization and cerebral gymnastics during some future viewing, but these first two viewings (with a lovely bottle of Beringer Brothers White Zinfandel) were utterly given over to happily losing all perspective and immersing myself into the fantastical visual orgy spread before me. But then, I also like Heironymus Bosch and Salvador Dali. Films are to entertain. Film makers cannot be required to entertain each and every member of the viewing public with each film. That said, there is no rule specifying just how a film must entertain us, nor is there a rule limiting any of us to being entertained in a specific form. We can be entertained by purest brain candy, the most convoluted mystery, brilliant wit, even by being frightened witless or moved to tears. In this case, I took my entertainment from the unadulterated, hedonistic beauty - both of sight and sound - offered up in a blaze of brave disregard for bourgeois ideals, and I'm not the least apologetic. Yes, it did enrich my life, just by the sheer beauty and excess of it.

Shakespeare is without peer, the man of whom Harold Bloom said he invented humanity. `The Tempest' is his richest and essentially his last play, clearly about himself and his career. John Gielgud is the finest Shakespearean actor of our age. Greenaway is the most creative, lush and introspective filmmaker working. This film is important. I've already had one comment some time back. But on reviewing, there are two things I'd like to point you to when you see it. Prospero is based on Shakespeare himself of course, but also on Thomas Harriot, who was a Kabbalist. Harriot had led a mission to the new world in 1585, where he wintered over with Algonquian priests. He came back convinced of having discovered a new cosmology which he never published (because of continuing trials for heresy). But he did share with Galileo, Kepler and Descartes. Shakespeare satirized Harriot in `Love's Labors Lost' as Holofernes, because Harriot was then allied with an opposing clique (including rival poet Marlowe). But they became close as events unfolded. The first point is to look for Thomas Harriot's only published work, about his trip to Virginia. It is the Book of Utopias, with the paintings by artist John White. Just after that the sprites act out the Indian magical circle described by Harriot. Second: Harriot's Kabbalah is based on 21 paths that the magician can open, and one that opens automatically as part of the game of life. Here, Greenaway has Prospero open the 21 books in weaving his magic. When he closes them, the spell recedes. The 22nd is the Book of Games, which the lovers open and close. Kabbalah provides for two `invisible' paths for creating magical artifacts. This we have in the Folio and The Tempest, numbers 23 and 24. Gielgud suggested the collaboration, and we suppose the scholarship was a joint project. But this is deep work indeed, the only production I know that understood what the play is all about. Greenaway says: "Theres a project, I'd like very much to do, called Prospero's Creatures' about what happened before the beginning. Sort of a prelude to The Tempest. And I've also written a play called Miranda, about what happens afterwards on the ship on the way home. It's about what happens to innocence and how it has to be destroyed." We can only hope.

I saw this movie when it was released, and my distaste for it has stuck with me all these years. Here's why: Greenaway's goal seems to be to take every literary image in the Tempest and make it literal. If a character were to say, "my heart takes flight," we'd be shown an actual human heart, with pigeon wings attached, flapping across the screen. This process makes for some lush tableaux, but ultimately it's a facile exercise. And it becomes deadly boring. I don't begrudge the pleasure other viewers found in this movie, but it's worth knowing that not everyone in the audience was enraptured.