Since the 1960s, British multi-media artist Peter Greenaway has shocked and intrigued audiences with his avant-garde approach to filmmaking and other artistic ventures. From early experimental films to provocative features, Greenaway has deployed strategies associated with structuralist cinema, only to challenge or critique the very limits of that cinema and of film in general. In this collection of essays, scholars from a variety of disciplines explore various postmodern and poststructuralist aspects of Greenaway's films, starting with his early shorts and delving into his feature-length works, including The Draughtman's Contract, The Belly of an Architect, A Zed and Two Noughts, The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, The Baby of M%con, and The Pillow Book. Other artistic productions, including his paintings and installations are also discussed. These essays examine the filmmaker's position within British and avant-garde cinema and his interest in constructing and deconstructing representational systems. In the years since the first edition of this book, Greenaway has enjoyed continued success in creating hybridized media projects for the stage and screen, as evidenced by additional essays for this revised edition. A new chapter addresses how Dutch political events and Dutch art have been crucial in shaping Greenaway's aesthetic, focusing on The Draughtsman's Contract, the 1991 opera Writing to Vermeer, and Nightwatching, the audio-visual installation and 2007 film of the same name, which were inspired by Rembrandt's Night Watch. Also new to this collection is an essay that examines Greenaway's most ambitious endeavor to date, The Tulse Luper Suitcases, which exists as four feature films, multiple websites, an online game, several books and installations, and a number of theatrical events. Peter Greenaway's Postmodern/Poststructuralist Cinema, Revised Edition explores the cultural, historical, and philosophical implications of this hybrid artist whose paintings, drawings, exhibitions, installations, and operatic productions are an intrinsic part of his work in film. This collection of diverse essays, which includes two texts by Greenaway, two interviews with the director, and a revised filmography, will interest students, teachers, critics and lovers of both postmodern art and cinema.

Peter Greenaway has an international reputation as one of the most innovative, stylish and intelligent of contemporary film-makers. His eight feature films, from The Draughtsman's Contract to The Pillow Book, have variously, and sometimes simultaneously, prompted controversy, infamy, acclaim and delight. However, Greenaway is an artist whose work also includes painting; collage; experimental TV; the novel/opera Rosa; and numerous exhibitions/installations, including The Stairs, a continuing series of ten projects in ten cities exploring the basic components of cinema. Being Naked Playing Dead explores the complete oeuvre, but centres firmly on Greenaway's insistence that his is 'a cinema of ideas not plots'. Each film is discussed within a thematic analysis of the full range of Greenaway's output and the wider contexts within which it is conceived. In conclusion there are two extended interviews, making this book essential reading for all Greenaway enthusiasts.

Morality plays were the main form of theatre in England between about 1400 and 1600. They usually portrayed a representative Christian figure locked in spiritual conflict. They have recently been revived as early examples of living theatre.

This extensively illustrated book examines Greenaway's vision from a number of perspectives and traces a shift of sensibility in his work. David Pascoe examines not only Greenaway's films, but also his paintings, exhibitions and installations. "[Pascoe] tirelessly explicates the numerology and mytho-mania that are the film-maker's organising principles"—The Guardian "A supremely intelligent, utterly tuned-in, definitive exploration of the ultimate British auteur's back catalogue, helpfully illustrated at every opportunity. . . illuminating"—Empire

Critical Cinema: Beyond the Theory of Practice purges the obstructive line between the making of and the theorising on film, uniting theory and practice in order to move beyond the commercial confines of Hollywood. Opening with an introduction by Bill Nichols, one of the world's leading writers on nonfiction film, this volume features contributions by such prominent authors as Noel Burch, Laura Mulvey, Peter Wollen, Brian Winston and Patrick Fuery. Seminal filmmakers such as Peter Greenaway and Mike Figgis also contribute to the debate, making this book a critical text for students, academics, and independent filmmakers as well as for any reader interested in new perspectives on culture and film.

In this intellectually groundbreaking work, Timothy Murray investigates a paradox embodied in the book's title: What is the relationship between digital, in the form of new media art, and baroque, a highly developed early modern philosophy of art? Making an exquisite and unexpected connection between the old and the new, Digital Baroque analyzes the philosophical paradigms that inform contemporary screen arts. Examining a wide range of art forms, Murray reflects on the rhetorical, emotive, and social forces inherent in the screen arts' dialog with early modern concepts. Among the works discussed are digitally oriented films by Peter Greenaway, Jean-Luc Godard, and Chris Marker; video installations by Thierry Kuntzel, Keith Piper, and Renate Ferro; and interactive media works by Toni Dove, David Rokeby, and Jill Scott. Sophisticated readings reveal the electronic psychosocial webs and digital representations that link text, film, and computer. Murray puts forth an innovative Deleuzian psychophilosophical approach--one that argues that understanding new media art requires a fundamental conceptual shift from linear visual projection to nonlinear temporal fields intrinsic to the digital form.