Prospero's Books is a 1991 British avant-garde film adaptation of William Shakespeare's The Tempest, written and directed by Peter Greenaway. Sir John Gielgud plays Prospero, the protagonist who provides the off-screen narration and the voices to the other story characters. As noted by Peter Conrad in The New York Times on 17 November 1991, Greenaway intended the film “as an homage to the actor and to his 'mastery of illusion.' In the film, Prospero is Shakespeare, and having rehearsed the action inside his head, speaking the lines of all the other characters, he concludes the film by sitting down to write The Tempest.”

Stylistically, Prospero's Books is narratively and cinematically innovative in its techniques, combining mime, dance, opera, and animation. About a tenth of the movie was made on Japanese high definition television (HDTV). Edited in Japan, it makes extensive use of digital image manipulation (using Hi-Vision video inserts and the Quantel Paintbox system), often overlaying multiple moving and still pictures with animations. Michael Nyman composed the musical score and Karine Saporta choreographed the dance. The film is also notable for its extensive use of nudity, reminiscent of Renaissance paintings of mythological characters. The nude actors and extras represent a cross-section of male and female humanity.

Plot

Prospero's Books is a complex tale based upon William Shakespeare's The Tempest. Miranda, the daughter of Prospero, an exiled magician, falls in love with Ferdinand, the son of his enemy; while the sorcerer's sprite, Ariel, convinces him to abandon revenge against the traitors from his earlier life. In the film, Prospero is Shakespeare himself, conceiving, designing, rehearsing, directing and performing the story's action as it unfolds and in the end, sitting down to write the completed work. Greenaway calls the film "basically a soliloquy of one man in an artificial world."

  1. A Book of Water
  2. A Book of Mirrors
  3. A Book of Mythologies
  4. A Primer of the Small Stars
  5. An Atlas Belonging to Orpheus
  6. A Harsh Book of Geometry
  7. The Book of Colours
  8. The Vesalius Anatomy of Birth
  9. An Alphabetical Inventory of the Dead
  10. A Book of Travellers' Tales
  11. The Book of the Earth
  12. A Book of Architecture and Other Music
  13. The Ninety-Two Conceits of the Minotaur
  14. The Book of Languages
  15. End-plants
  16. A Book of Love
  17. A Bestiary of Past, Present and Future Animals
  18. The Book of Utopias
  19. The Book of Universal Cosmography
  20. Lore of Ruins
  21. The Autobiographies of Pasiphae and Semiramis
  22. A Book of Motion
  23. The Book of Games
  24. Thirty-Six Plays

Cast

Production and financing

Gielgud is quoted as saying that a film of The Tempest (with him as Prospero) was his life's ambition, as he had been in four stage productions in 1931, 1940, 1957, and 1974. He had approached Alain Resnais, Ingmar Bergman, Akira Kurosawa, and Orson Welles about directing him in it, with Benjamin Britten to compose its score, and Albert Finney as Caliban, before Greenaway agreed. The closest earlier attempts came to being made was in 1967, with Welles both directing and playing Caliban. But after the commercial failure of their film collaboration, Chimes at Midnight, financing for a cinematic Tempest collapsed.

"I don't know whether Greenaway ever saw me in it on stage, I didn't dare to ask him," Sir John told Conrad,

thumb|right|The film uses layered, detailed imagery. Here, a procession of gift-givers (walking right to left) present gifts to a couple in love. A close-up of each gift is inset and overlaid in the middle 80% of the frame. Actors are in varying amounts and styles of dress.

Reception

Several critics noted the pervasive nudity of Prospero's Books. Roger Ebert gave the work three stars out of four and argued, "Most of the reviews of this film have missed the point; this is not a narrative, it need not make sense, and it is not 'too difficult' because it could not have been any less so. It is simply a work of original art, which Greenaway asks us to accept or reject on his own terms."

Douglas M. Lanier argues that nudity is used in service of making the human body a "medium" distinguishing Prospero's Books from the textuality of Shakespeare's work. Most of the nudity is embodied by the spirits that Prospero controls, implying thematic significance.

Box office

The film grossed £579,487 at the UK box office.

Soundtrack

This was the last of the collaborations between director Peter Greenaway and composer Michael Nyman. Most of the film's music cues, (excepting Ariel's songs and the Masque) are from an earlier concert, La Traversée de Paris and the score from A Zed & Two Noughts. The soundtrack album is Nyman's sixteenth release.

Track listing

  1. Full fathom five* – 1:58
  2. Prospero's curse – 2:38
  3. While you here do snoring lie* – 1:06
  4. Prospero's Magic – 5:11
  5. Miranda – 3:54
  6. Twelve years since – 2:45
  7. Come unto these yellow sands* – 3:44
  8. History of Sycorax – 3:25
  9. Come and go* – 1:16
  10. Cornfield – 6:26
  11. Where the bee sucks* – 4:48
  12. Caliban's pit – 2:56
  13. Reconciliation – 2:31
  14. THE MASQUE+ – 12:12

Performers

  • Sarah Leonard, Ariel*
  • Marie Angel, Iris+
  • Ute Lemper, Ceres+
  • Deborah Conway, Juno+

Michael Nyman Band

  • Alexander Balanescu, violin
  • Jonathan Carney, violin, viola
  • Elisabeth Perry, violin
  • Clare Connors, violin
  • Kate Musker, viola
  • Tony Hinnigan, cello
  • Justin Pearson, cello
  • Paul Morgan, double bass
  • Tim Amhurst, double bass
  • Lynda Houghton, double bass
  • Martin Elliott, bass guitar
  • David Rix, clarinet, bass clarinet
  • John Harle, soprano & alto saxophone
  • David Roach, soprano & alto saxophone
  • Jamie Talbot, soprano & alto saxophone
  • Andrew Findon, tenor & baritone saxophone, piccolo, flute
  • Graham Ashton, trumpet
  • Richard Clews, horn
  • Marjorie Dunn, horn
  • Nigel Barr, bass trombone
  • Steve Saunders, bass trombone
  • Michael Nyman, piano & musical direction

Technical

  • Produced by David Cunningham
  • Engineer: Michael J. Dutton
  • Assistant engineer: Dillon Gallagher (PRT), Chris Brown (Abbey Road Studios)
  • Mixed by Michael J. Dutton, Michael Nyman, and David Cunningham at PRT Studios and Abbey Road Studios
  • Edited at Abbey Road Studios by Peter Mew
  • Art Direction: Ann Bradbeer
  • Photography: Marc Guillamot
  • Design: Creative Partnership
  • Artist representative: Don Mousseau

Notes

References