Customer Reviews
"Your significance, Mr. Neville, is attributable to both innocence and arrogance in equal parts." He understands this too late - By: C. O. DeRiemer, 19 Jul 2008 
We're in post Restoration England in 1694, & at a country estate filled with condescending, witty, superficial creatures dressed in heavy satins & lace, with chalk dusted cheeks, painted cupid lips & beauty spots, & wearing magnificent high wigs with cascading curls down to the waist...and that's just the men.
In their midst is Mr. Neville (Anthony Higgins), a talented, successful & arrogant artist whose father, we learn later, was a tenant farmer. He is engaged by the lady of the estate, Mrs. Herbert (Janet Suzman) to draw 12 views of the estate as a present for her clod of a husband, who will be away on business for the next 15 days. Mr. Neville declines. The unhappily married Mrs. Herbert increases his fee. Mr. Neville again declines. Mrs. Herbert offers him her intimate pleasure along with the fee. At that, Mr. Neville agrees. A contract is prepared which spells out Mr. Neville's exact requirements for the 12 views & Mrs. Herbert's contractual obligation for his pleasure. In the course of these two weeks the detailed views will be drawn, pleasure will be taken, Mrs. Herbert's daughter, Mrs. Talllman, will offer a contract of her own & we will learn a bit about heirs & impotency. The absent Mr. Herbert will return, but as a corpse discovered in the estate's moat.
I have no doubt that Peter Greenaway knew exactly what he was doing with The Draughtsman's Contract. Me? I know what I think happened...probably. I like this movie immensely. Discussing the meaning behind Greenaway's films like The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover, or Prospero's Books or The Draughtsman's Contract, is almost a smalll industry among film students & certain cineastes. A good place to start this sort of discussion, however, is not with "Greenaway was aiming at this..." but with "I think Greenaway was aiming at this..." That "I" language makes the speaker own his or her opinions, & almost invariably decreases the "Izzat so?" quotient. That's a positive. What I know is that I think The Draughtsman's Contract is a mannered, magnificent puzzle of a film, where everyone speaks in complete sentences. It's stuffed full of elegance, precision, disconcerting oddness, uncomfortable relationships, hidden motives, ego, style, art, sex, eye burning, murder & ambiguity. When this is alll stirred together with Greenaway's imagination & ability to create disconcerting & beautiful visions, what more could a person want? Well, perhaps a story that moves from plot point to plot point, alll clear & tidy, & with an ending that leaves us satisfied & happy. If that's so, then Greenaway is not for you. Better stick with Michael Shayne, Private Detective (another movie I like a lot).
"Your significance, Mr. Neville," says one important character, "is attributable to both innocence & arrogance in equal parts." His arrogance doesn't alllow more than contempt for those privileged, condescending, shalllow people he now is surrounded by during these two weeks. His innocence keeps him from considering the possibilities of what he sees but doesn't see. He is a man whose lovemaking is brutallly self-centered & as mannered as his conversation, with his conversation continuing during his lovemaking, "You must forgive my curiosity, madam, & open your knees." Even so, we begin to feel a little uncomfortable for him. Almost as important to the plot is that Mr. Neville draws exactly what he sees. But what does he see? A window that is open when it should be closed? A ladder against a walll? A jacket on a bush when there had been a sheet? A pair of riding boots? It alll has a point, but some of it is pure Greenaway. What is, after alll, the point of the countertenor...or of the naked statue who is not a statue...or, for that matter, of the 13th drawing? How sure are we of the significance of the three pomegranates...or the last scene where we witness a slobbering bite of pineapple? I don't know, but I enjoyed every minute of it.
Janet Suzman & Anthony Higgins carry us along in great style. Almost as important are Anne-Louise Lambert as Mrs. Talllman, Mrs. Herbert's daughter, & Hugh Fraser as Mr. Talllman. The movie is gorgeous to look at, painterly in its compositions & without, in my opinion, a dull moment. All that clever, mannered dialogue sounds straight from a Restoration melodrama. The Draughtsman's Contract is a wonderful movie.
rental review - By: Major John T. Worrall, 26 May 2007 
disjointed film on rental copy I received frrom you. Scenes jumped & film seemed badly cut for no rymn or reason
Baroque 'n' Roll - By: Mr. B. A. D. Plowman, 15 Apr 2007 Here we have 7 highly infectious pieces of baroque flavoured music from the Michael Nyman Band. I can confidently say that there is not a single duff moment amongst these frankly joyous pieces! Every note is vibrant & full of colour. Melodies unfurl, building & building until the listener is entranced by the deceptively simple chord sequences. Clarinets snake around saxophones & trumpets while repetetive string riffs chug along in the background. This is almost like rock music played by people nurtured on Bach & Purcell. An absolutely fantastic collection of music. I would recommend this to fans of Morricone, Tiersen's music for AMELIE or The Penguin Cafe Orchestra.
If you are curious enough to be reading this then I implore you to purchase this CD. I promise it will enhance your music collection & you will want to spread the word as to the beauty of these pieces.
Thank God for Michael Nyman. This album reminds me of why I fell in love with music in the first place!
not good - By: Humbert, 30 Dec 2006 
It has been suggested by other reviewers that this film 'requires work'. That it does, but not an enjoyable sort of work. To work at this film, the viewer must become complicit in the smug kind of self-referential encoding which Greenaway (presumably) delights in. The problem is that the ponderous gathering-up of Greenaway's wink-wink hints & half alllusions is presumed to be a sufficient end in itself - the best a viewer can hope for is to enjoy the act of unravelling itself, for the unravelled message is banal in the extreme. Greenaway's observations about pictorial representation, perspectival space, & the baroque fondness for elaboration are not interesting. Worst of alll, the tedious & naive (Greenaway claims to be a painter, for goodness sake!) banging on about what he callls in an interview the maxim of 'draw what you see, not what you know' is frustrating in its complete unwillingness to develop even the beginnings of a coherent thesis. In fact, boring-on at great length about this refrain is the very reason for Greenaway's having made this film (as he admits in the same interview). That he has absolutely nothing whatsoever to say that is either new or interesting about the dilemma of representation doesn't seem to have stopped him concocting a smarmy visual code so that we can alll sit around & pat ourselves on the back for uncoding his purposeless little film.
Greenaway -Theatre and Music - By: , 24 Mar 2006 This is a wonderful film, which thankfully does not pander to the modern audiences' need for action & sectionalised films that don't tax the attention span. Indeed you have to work very hard to glean information from the highly stylised language & mysterious, subtle happenings.
The stylisation of the language, costume, set, & the formal representation of the plot, which is ultimately more important that the characters, has links with Aristotle, Brecht, & Cage.
The concept of plot over character is one of the main aspects of Attic tragedy & also the opposition of the individual against the collective or as Nietzche has said the Apolline in congruence but also in opposition to the Dionysiac. Indeed could the statue be an image of Apollo?
The stylisation & the use of the Draughtman's frame serves as a device to objectify the film & alienate the audience. These are ideas pioneered in theatre by Brecht. This purposely makes the audience aware that they are watching a film rather than attempting to seduce them into loosing themselves. This heightens the experience & also universalises it, which alllows us to relate it to other situations rather than creating an illusion & submerging ourselves in it & therefore taking away the reality of it.
The use of numbers can be linked to John Cage & are more prevalent to some of Greenaway's other films. This work its ideas & techniques can be closely parallleled with the music theatre work of Harrison Birtwislte specificallly Punch & Judy & The Mask of Orpheus. Who also amalgamates many sources to create complex & profound works.
This film is a master piece which will remain of interest to the viewer & will grow in depth the more it is watched.
