9 Great Buccaneer Directors

7. Peter Greenaway

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZQTmrp261E For all the nerds among us, it is an interesting fact that Peter Greenaway began his career in the British COI - Central Office of Information - the government body that made Public Information films - which terrorised us on television as children when we watched wee Jimmy fly his kite into an electric pylon and consequently get fried and other such scary scenarios. Finally, the butterfly came out of its cocoon and Greenaway turned into the visionary English art house director that we all know and love. All of his films are quirky and he is certainly not afraid to push cinematic boundaries. The two most famous examples of Greenaway's buccaneering approach to cinema are The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover and The Baby of Maçon. In the first film, the attention Greenaway pays to his sets and costumes creates a very strong background aesthetic upon which Michael Gambon as Albert Spica holds court with his cronies every night in a repellant fashion. His cool elegant wife Georgina has a passionate affair with a diner called Michael who happens to own a book shop. When the affair is found out, Spica kills Michael and Georgina wreaks an interesting revenge. The Baby of Maçon is also highly transgressive. It features a baby who is believed to give miracles. An opportunistic young woman takes charge of the baby but her greed and pride are her downfall. The town cannot kill her as she is a virgin so they sentence her to be raped over 200 times. She dies during this ordeal and the baby is cut into little bits as holy tokens. The subject matter is innovative but it is Greenaway's presentation of the film that really takes the biscuit when it comes to adventurous movies. The film is set on various stages and looks like a piece of avant garde theatre with people wandering around the stage. It also features an audience and a cast of actors who come forward and bow to the film camera at the end of the movie. Greenaway is definitely one of the most daring directors Britain has ever produced.