Digging Into 'The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover'

Peter Greenaway is not an easy filmmaker to get into and, one suspects, that’s just the way he likes it. Given that his films are filled to the corners of every frame with detailed references to paintings, literature, theatre, natural history, and a plethora of inside jokes, his work has often attracted the charge of elitism. And that’s all before you get to his disapproval, sometimes even outright contempt, for cinema focused around narrative, text, and script. “All screenwriters should be shot,” he proclaimed his 2016 BAFTA interview ‘Peter Greenaway: A Life in Pictures’. He smiled as he said it, but he would clearly rather to shoot a phone book than someone else’s screenplay.
His 1989 film The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover is savage and sadistic, beautiful and brilliant. Whether or not it functions as a metaphor for Thatcher’s Britain, as some claim, it certainly works as an expression of Greenaway’s style, and love, of art - fine art, to be precise. The framing tableaux, shifting swathes of colour, exhibition-style set decoration, and the wall-sized Frans Hals portrait looming over all proceedings all harks back to his lifelong desire to see “paintings with soundtracks”. And while Michael Nyman’s relentless score accompanies vast sections of the film, so too do the fearless performances of actors like Helen Mirren and Michael Gambon (anyone who knows him as gentle Albus Dumbledore from Harry Potter is in for a severe shock at a villain to rival Voldemort himself), and the gruesome, Jacobean-like revenge drama they enact... all while outfitted in costumes by Jean Paul Gaultier.
It’s arguably this fusion of narrative alongside Greenaway’s image-based cinema that has made it - perhaps alongside The Draughtsman’s Contract - his most accessible and acclaimed feature. A filmmaker as uncompromising as Greenaway would doubtless claim that this proves his point, that audiences flounder without the safety net of story, and that’s why this film (and not, say, his multi-part, multimedia experience The Tulse Luper Suitcases) is his most popular work. But there’s an opposing argument: that image-based cinema needn’t dismiss narrative entirely. And surely a lover of symmetry like Greenaway might find something valid in such a counterbalancing claim.
Watch Now: Greenaway’s The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover is now available for streaming through October 31, and Fandor has plenty of other favorites streaming 24/7 on our Greenaway Playlist!

[@CuShorts]

Gambons performance here is so amazingly stunning. And, honestly, in my opinion, one of the greatest performances of all time.

[@gerardothielen4310]

Totally agree.

[@mournblade1066]

This is one of the most haunting films I have ever seen. Only David Lynch's _Blue Velvet_ and _Mulholland Drive_ come anywhere close. It sticks with me for days--sometimes weeks--after I watch it.

[@fire.walk.with.me.430]

i feel like he and lynch are in a very unique category of filmmakers who are uncompromisingly themselves, they're totally different but have a similar sensibility for striking imagery and "moving paintings"

[@nebojsasavic6262]

Most memorable moments in cinema are those in which a picture (shot) matches the sound (music) perfectly

[@frankunodostres473]

spoilers... i think I'm still gonna watch this movie. I feel like it's one of those movies good enough to not get ruined by spoilers

[@CraigJClark]

You are correct.

[@Preeno]

Michael Gambon's finest performance ever IMO

[@jonahmad7237]

If you haven't seen this wonderful masterpiece in film-making, you haven't lived. Simple as that.

[@Vytautas4Xfiles]

I saw this movie as a smal child (5-6?), the end scene where the lover is cooked and eaten is still stuck in my brain more than 25 years later (I'm 31 now). But I also recall the sadness and despair of the wife. Feelings in this move are presented in such pore and understandible way that even children are able to see and feel them. A very interesting movie indeed. An art, in moving pictures.

[@hyrocoaster]

@@Vytautas4Xfiles puh, I think I would not have survived watching this movie at that age. I am 28 and I found it pretty hard to watch because of its brutality.

[@cjeeeeee]

I was born today then

[@darklp2703]

AHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAH

[@jonahmad7237]

@@darklp2703 You okay hun?

[@timothythompson6343]

There is a reason why we refer to movies, cinema, film as the "motion pictures," sometimes. I find myself surprised that I agree with him...or that statement does not seem so bold to me that we needn't a "text-based cinema." I love me a good script and good acting, and they are elements that do contribute to some of my favorite films! But I think the medium of film is what is captured in the picture; that seems to be the most important thing. Great analysis of this film, too!

[@michelangelo713]

Kubrick echoes in his shot are clear; this is a masterpiece

[@stewartbloomfield8035]

So agree.

[@MrDarrylR]

The lineage is really to Alain Resnais. Cinematographer Sasha Vierny, who shot most of Resnais's features from 1959 to 1984, notably Greenaway's favorite film Last Year at Marienbad, (1961), went on to shoot all of Greenaway's narrative features from A Zed & Two Noughts (1985) to 8 ½ Women (1999).

[@adarshjose3891]

A movie which I will never forget probably as any other viewer

[@Thesortvokter]

People left the cinema in disgust at the first screening I went to, lol

[@l0ok5ko0l]

R.I.P. Michael. You are much loved.

[@pepsipimpin6010]

Dumbledore had kind of a wild life before getting his tenure innit?

[@Horror-Man]

One of my favorite films of all time and one horror directors could learn a lot from.

[@GoreVidalComicbooks]

I saw the film in Austin, Texas when it was released in the U.S. It was given a non-rating which was the equivalent of Rated X and most chain movie theaters couldn't show it. Art theaters or independent ones could if they chose to which where I saw this masterpiece of film making. I'd never seen a Greenway film before nor had head Nyman's music. From the opening credits with Nyman's score at full volume sitting in that movie theater was initially arresting and soon mesmerizing as the images appeared. I saw it multiple times, thinking I'd never see it ever again once it was gone from the theater. It remains one of my favorite films of all time.

[@matildah7374]

Wonderful comment. I feel exactly the same. Greetings from Germany.

[@GoreVidalComicbooks]

@@matildah7374 Thank you and best to you from Texas.

[@rosemarycalogero7017]

I saw this movie when it came out and people were leaving ...I stayed a submitted myself to the torture! Loved the ending!

[@deraykrause4517]

haha same, I saw it twice and both times an older couple got up and left during the opening scene. Not sure what they were expecting as it was rated NC-17, but whatever.

[@Sean-wq5fg]

I absolutely love this film. Unfortunately, I’ve never shown it to a friend or lover who appreciated it.

[@DavidJSullivan8]

Well done. One of the best ever made. Thank you.

[@lrinconrubio]

An absolute masterpiece.

[@cielodennis9204]

I love Peter Greenaway very deeply. He is a mad genious. Can anyone recomend me more filmakers like him? I love film masterpieces!

[@cielodennis9204]

@apostolic Ive seen only two of these! Thank you so much for the list. I will watch the rest.

[@robinllevine]

@@cielodennis9204 Derek Jarman, Kenneth Anger, Jan Svankmajer, Guy Maddin, Masaki Kobayashi's Kwaidan, Bernardo Bertolucci's The Conformist. But there is nobody like Greenaway.

[@codytierson845]

Ken Russell's The Devils gives me similar vibes.

[@rodrigovalerosancho2234]

Alexei German’s Hard To Be A God. And if you can handle it, try also Krustalyov My. Car.

[@MrDarrylR]

Greenaway is singular. Nobody else plays as many visual games. The modern director I see the most affinity in is Peter Strickland (The Duke of Burgundy, Berberian Sound Studio, In Fabric), who write similar arch dialogue, and whose films are all hermetic universes that don't really converse with most cinema. And Strickland too, is playing a game, though a still stranger one, of inventing the sort of background that could explain the behavior of characters in 70s exploitation and genre film.

[@Oldag75]

Gambon absolutely dominated his every scene. I know it's sick to suggest this, but it must have been enjoyable for an actor to go wild and be such an evil loud villain.

[@shellyboggs9093]

One of my top favorites

[@BrazyBlazer]

Masterpiece

[@lizzy1974]

Masterpiece!

[@paulstein4164]

Brilliant..!!

[@2FRESH-4U]

I was nine years old when my mom rented this movie and was like no censorship in my house

[@Numenor76]

"..paintings didn't had soundtracks" ...I was actually mesmerized almost by the soundtrack of "Taboo" TV Series. The music is always on spot, it has an a momentum and it always give you the sense of urgency when it needs to. It has this Sicario-like almost feel. Love it!

[@vishalrana1552]

I thought of correcting you but as a proceeded with reading a lot of them came up

[@connorjh49]

Am i the only one that balled watching this movie, contrasting the horrific with the beautiful are the most effected films I’ve ever seen

[@Stratmanable]

"Bawled". "Affected" Or. "Effective".

[@bhedgepig9653]

Watch this film and see how people are often perfectly composed in threes. Along with the soundtrack, Then even twos and then back to threes again. Nyman and Greenaway are constantly working perfectly together.

[@Stratmanable]

They haven't worked together for years. They had a falling out.

[@bhedgepig9653]

@@Stratmanable Bit of a shame learning that. They were a good pair.

[@boombang5750]

I am normal boy of 21 century, I see Professor Dumbledore in the video thumbnail I click.

[@boombang5750]

I am an ordinary boy of 21 Century, I see Professor Dumbledore, I click.

[@NSCretzu]

Holy shit, never connected the dots!

[@Thesortvokter]

@@NSCretzu lol

[@annabarr1304]

I saw him speak once and he also said paintings show you a perspective you might not have imagined when you read the description

[@ListenUpMusic]

Hroooooooo THANK YOU! MASTER!

[@liamsbackyard2635]

Feel like Wes Anderson watched this

[@FredSmith110]

"In the beginning was the Word" is actually from St John's Gospel, which is the New Testament.

[@Stratmanable]

Everybody knows that. Idiot.

[@Thesortvokter]

This movie is just a fucking EXPLOSION!!!!!

[@deadlegs187]

Thanks for this.

[@knutkatastrophe2722]

Brillant

[@5hiv4Hulk]

Fantastic. Love to see a video on 'Hiroshima Mon Amour'

[@CuShorts]

Please Criterion PLEASE

[@RubenVuittonet]

I have always thought this motion juxtaposes those who consider themselves "elevated" (read noble, high-minded, lofty) versus they way they deem to have got themselves that way. Modern history, especially, documents a fair number of thugs who deemed themselves holding (or having earned) niches in high society, without the inconvenience of distancing themselves from the means of their ascension.

[@Stratmanable]

Gosh. If it hadn't been for you I never would've been able to figure out what "elevated" means. You condescending, pseudointellelectual ballbag.

[@sirlordhenrymortimer6620]

Do a vedio on holy motors

[@dorissorana]

Ari Aster's inspiration for Hereditary

[@carolleenkelmann3829]

Different. Can't say I agree with him (Peter Greenaway.) but I like the ideas of "Art" and experimenting with canvases and colours he presents. Never saw this in the '80's and now Gambon has passed away, not that makes any difference to the film or filmmaking.

[@jimmy66406]

Fricassied mummies

[@stewartbloomfield8035]

The only director close to Stanley Kubrick.....there are no others...look at the tracking shots....everything like a painting. Stew fmj crew.

[@harrygiles1779]

where can i fine this movie?

[@ernestoalmada2127]

Peacock, it’s free. I downloaded it from KZbin ads and found some hidden gems.

[@weird_cds8206]

This movie ruined Albus Dumbledore for me forever, I can never watch Harry Potter 3--7 with the same eyes again.

[@studywithmir1994]

**SPOILERS**

[@FilmThePoliceFTP]

Such a strange movie

[@mgmom1694]

Too bad he will be spending eternity regretting every bit of it. In the beginning was the Word. Not an image.

[@DeidreL9]

Huh?

[@aby110]

Very frustrating to watch but very cathartic ending (could've been a bit more brutal though)