The Belly of an Architect, 1987

March 10th, 2006 · No Comments · Artists

Belly
“Good architecture should always be applauded.”

Peter Greenaway’s majestic film The Belly of an Architect (1987) kills any desire I have to make a feature-length movie. As with many Greenaway works, I find myself bloated at the halfway point, staggering along without any remaining guard. I’m a beaten boxer, both eyes swollen shut, waiting for the final blow.

Greenaway, formally trained as a painter, tightly choreographs the movement of his actors as much as most directors spend on dialog. Where a character moves delivers as much content as the words they say: The Belly of an Architect is as much a performance as it is a movie.

On my top 100 films of all time, I rank it as number thirty-three, ahead of Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead and just behind My Dinner with Andre.

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