South Atlantic Modern Language Association
"The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, & Her Lover": Making Sense of Postmodernism
Author(s): Nicholas O. Pagan
Source: South Atlantic Review, Vol. 60, No. 1 (Jan., 1995), pp. 43-55
Published by: South Atlantic Modern Language Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3200712
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The Cook theThief,
His Wife, & Her Lover:
MakingSenseofPostmodernism
NICHOLAS
0. PAGAN
SPEAKING OF AMERICANS,PeterGreenaway
contendsthat
linear
at
"they'reextremelygood makingstraightforward, narrative
movies,whichentertainsuperbly.But they veryrarelydo anything
else"(Smith59). Clearly,Greenawayhimselfhas no interestin trying to outdoAmericanfilmmakersat whattheydo best:entertaining an entertainment-dependent
society.Instead,he offersa formof
cinemathat manyobservershavebeen quickto classifyunderthe
rubricof postmodernism.
Therehas been a good dealof talkabout
The label,however,tendsto be glibly
Greenaway's
postmodernism.
appliedwithoutanyattemptto pin downthe meaningof this most
beforewe can
slipperyof terms.We needto definepostmodernism
to
trace
its
in
a
film.
attempt
preserve Greenaway
Onewayto approachthe questionof cinematicpostmodernism
is
to exploreits connections
withavant-garde
orcounter-cinema.
Withoutmuchdifficulty,
be
conceived
as
postmodernism
may
sharingsome
characteristics
with the avant-gardethat opposeit to mainstream
cinema.These include"narrative
intransitivity"
(gaps,interruptions,
anddigressionsascontrastedto clearcausaldevelopment
of the story
line) and Brechtianestrangement(an alienationeffectratherthan
the vieweridentification
with characters
soughtby traditionalfilmsome
of
the
makers).1Although
parallelsbetweenpostmodernism
and the avant-gardeareuseful,postmodernism
does not sharethe
desire"toconnectwith the experienceof
avant-garde's
overarching
particularclassesandto placethat experiencewithinnew explanatory models" (Lapsey and Westlake 205). In other words,
44
Nicholas 0. Pagan
postmodernism is far less interested in the viewer's socio-political
situation.
This last point is preciselyone of FredricJameson'smain objections to postmodernism.Jamesonarguesthat as we move from modernism to postmodernism, subjects or recognizable selves become
fragmentedand that which we hold most dearly-the recognizably
human-is replacedby an essentialtrivializationand a failureto represent an audience'scurrentsituation.Furthermore,in the period of
what he calls "late capitalism"we are unable to perceive a coherent
representationof our past. With postmodernism,depth is replaced
by surface,"categoriesof time"become less importantthan "categories of space,"and it seems that we risk losing the past altogether.2
Jameson'sposition maybest be representedby the phrase,"waning
of affect in postmodern culture."Postmodernismis unable to affect
us as modernism did because it seems to involve the eclipse of the
distinctivelyhuman. Furthermore,it is not just a question of lack of
clear narrative development and loss of empathy for characters;
postmodernism eschews the distinctive style, the "individual
brushstroke,"characteristicof the great modernistslike Hitchcock,
Bergman, and Antonioni. This is all in accordwith Jameson'ssuggestion that postmodernismbrings in its wake a curtailmentof emotion, a dissolution of feeling.Jameson'sdefinition of postmodernism
is immenselyhelpful,but this last point is debatable.He fails to take
adequate account of the pleasure and pain associated with
postmodernism.
According to Peter Wollen, traditionalcinema offers "entertainment, aiming to satisfythe spectator,"whereasthe avant-gardecinema produces "provocation,aiming to dissatisfy and hence change
the spectator"(Readings87). He arguesthat althoughthere is "asuspicion of the need for fantasy" in an avant-gardefilm like Godard's
Ventd'Est,part of the viewer'sdissatisfactionresultsfrom the nature
of the fantasiesinvokedwhich are"entirelysado-masochisticin content" (89). Furthermore,"thissame fantasycontent seems to govern
the relationshipbetween spectator and filmmaker"(88). Thus, an
avant-gardefilmmakerlike Godardattempts"toproducea collective
working relationshipbetween filmmakerand audience,in which the
spectatorcan collaboratein the production/consumptionof meaning" (89). Being put to work in this mannerentails a degree of pleasure or pain commensuratewith the viewer'swillingness or reluctance to get involved.
SouthAtlantic Review
45
Like Godard,Greenawayconjuresup sado-masochisticfantasies.
The thief characterin The Cook,theThief,His Wife,& HerLover,for
example, constantly abuses the people around him both physically
and verbally.Viewers may indeed feel that they too are victimswilling victims if they remainin their seats-of sadism:in this case,
the sadismof the filmmakerwho seems to go out of his way to shock
and disgust.3 The pain provokedby the abusive language and the
graphicscenes of tortureand exploitationis compoundedby the feeling that all is not clear.The viewer is going to have to work to make
some sense of the film.
Looking at the title, TheCook,theThief,His Wife&Her Lover,we
may feel that at least there will be distinctive characters.This title,
however, does not offer us a pair of names like RomeoandJuliet,
ButchCassidyand the SundanceKid, Stanleyand Iris, or Thelmaand
Louise;instead it offers us four charactersdefined by function. The
title lists without naming. We can assume,though, that the thief is
gangsterAlbert Spica (Michael Gambon);his wife, Georgina(Helen
Mirren);the cook, FrenchmanRichardBorst (RichardBohringer);
and the lover,Michael (Alan Howard), a bookkeeper.Perhaps the
names of the charactersdo not appearin the title because,unlike the
characterswhose names figure in the titles of the films and plays
listed above,these charactersare for their creator(and possibly their
audience)relativelyunimportant.This, then, is in keeping both with
the move toward the estrangementsought by avant-gardecinema
and that towardthe dissolutionof the self describedbyJameson as a
featureof postmodernism.
I will arguethat in Greenaway'sfilm the charactersare displaced
to a large extent by certain activities that I shall call semic threads,
adopting for each the progressiveform of the verb (the gerund) because of the suggestionof ongoing, continuousaction.I will focus on
four particularactivities:speaking,eating, reading,and filming. Although Jameson describes postmodernism as "essentiallya visual
culture,wired for sound-but one where the linguistic element... is
slack and flabby,and not to be made interestingwithout ingenuity,
daring, and keen motivation"(Postmodernism299), I believe that
Greenawayhelps us to appreciatethat postmodernismis not thinkable in terms of the dominance of one mode (the visual). Indeed,
Greenawaydisplaysconsiderableingenuity in weaving together the
visual and the linguistic in ways that are not always obvious. The
Cook,the Thiefis not a hodge-podge where "anythinggoes"(this is a
46
Nicholas 0. Pagan
frequent criticismof postmodernism),but an extraordinarilycoherent and aesthetically pleasing artifact interlaced by semic threads
that are constantlyat work (or at play) connecting image and word.
What may make the film postmodern,though, is not the viewer's
pleasurein perceivinga coherentpatternindicatedby the play of the
semic threadsbut the viewer'sexperienceof such a bizarrecombination of pleasureand pain. While viewers may derive pleasurefrom
The Cook,theThief'sbeauty (not to mention its offbeat humor),they
may well feel some annoyancewith the film for embodying beauty
simply for its own sake and imparting"no knowledge about reality
(experience)"(Lyotard78). 4The Cook,theThiefshocks,horrifies,and
frustrateswith its failure or refusaleither to representconvincingly
our currentexperienceor to convey any coherentsense of or nostalgia for the past.
Nevertheless,the plot of TheCook,the Thiefis quite coherent and
more amenableto summarythan most avant-gardefilms.The movie
begins on a Thursdaywith the arrivalof two vans (one containing
meat, the other fish) along with carsbringing Georgina,Albert, and
membersof his gang to his restaurant,Le Hollandais.After smearing Roy, one of his subordinates,with dog shit, Albert enters the
restaurantto dine with his wife and the other membersof his gang.
While Albert holds forth in his customarilyvulgar and relentless
fashion, Georgina slips off to the bathroomand without speakingor
being spoken to has sex with a stranger(Michael) whom had just
seen sitting by himself at a table reading.On Friday,presumablythe
next day, Georgina and her lover again have sex in the restaurant;
this time in one of the pantries-the place is suggested to them by
the head chef, Richard.
Later, outside the restaurant,Albert mistreatsGeorgina and the
kitchenboy,Pup. On Saturday,Albert bringsthe reader/loveroverto
the gang's table and introduces him to Georgina. Her disclosures
concerninggynecological problemsprovokeAlbert's ire once more;
furtherbullying and abuse ensues. Sunday sees Albert and his cronies diningwithTerryFitch,the leaderof anothergang.After Patricia,
the girlfriend of one of Albert's men, leaves the dining area with
Fitch, she observes Michael and Georgina through a window. On
Monday, Patriciais unable to resist revealingwhat she has seen to
Albertwho, afterpushing a forkthroughthe girl'scheek, pronounces
that he will kill and eat Michael. Thanks to Richard,Michael and
Georgina are then able to escape in one of the vans and seek refuge
South Atlantic Review
47
in the book depository where Michael works. Pup is able to bring
them some refreshmentsbut is latertorturedby havingbuttons from
his clothing forced down his throat. Later he finds himself in the
hospitalwhere Georginavisits him. Meanwhile, Albert and his men
find Michael and kill him by stuffing him with pages from books.
After spending the night with Michael'scorpse,Georgina returnsto
the restaurantand asks Richardto cook Michael.
In the finalscene,Albertis confrontedin the diningareaby a procession containingsome of his victims,includingPup (in a wheelchair),
Patricia(withfaceheavilybandaged),andRoy (who serveshim a drink).
Georgina,then,revealsto Albertthe corpseof his latestvictim,Michael,
who hasbeen dutifullycookedby Richardand appearsheresurrounded
by carefullyarrangedvegetables.Albertis dispossessedof his gun,which
is handed to Georgina.She then ordersher husbandat gun point to
completehis vow to kill andeat Michael.Albertvomits,butwith trembling hands is able to removea forkfulof meat from the carcass.He
places this in his mouth and begins to chew. "Bob appetit!"declares
"It'sFrench."She then shoots him and
Georgina,addingsarcastically,
him
a
cannibal.
pronounces
Considering the similarity between his name and the word
Albert Spica is appropriatelyresponsiblefor most of the
"speaker,"
in
speaking this film. The similarityin the name is especiallyobvious when the nameis pronouncedby Richard,who has a thick French
accent:"Mr.Speaker"(which,incidentally,soundslike the namegiven
to the masterof ceremoniesin the British House of Commons). A.
Spica is above all a speaker.Although Albert does not acknowledge
the pleasuresof speaking (he says early in the film: "moneyis my
business;eating my pleasure")and says that he is alwayshungry,it is
just as true to say that he is alwaysspeaking.As he speaks,he cannot
tolerate any dissent, anything that will interruptthe relentlessflow
of words from his mouth-and his mouth alone, for he is incapable
of dialogue. He knows only'monologue.Albert'smonologue, which
revelsin puns and is constantlyripewith vulgarities,never shies from
verbal abuse and is supplemented occasionally by acts of physical
abuse.Albert'ssmearingRoy with dog shit and pissing on him at the
beginning of the film is a grim harbingerof much worse to come.
Albert'smost violent outburstsfrequentlyresultfrom his inability
to tolerate any blending of activitiesthat he considers
incompatible.
He himself suggeststhat sometimes Georgina (he calls her
Georgie)
behaveslike a bloke."Whatdaysarethose then Albert?"asksMichael,
48
Nicholas 0. Pagan
"What'sit like?"Albert explodesat the hint of homosexuality.In the
kitchenhe finds Pup, the soprano,washing dishes."Youngmanwashing dishes.That's woman'swork,"exclaimsAlbert and furtherabuse
follows. Perhapsthe most strikingexample,however,of Albert'sinabilityto toleratethe blending of activitiescan be seen in his reaction
to the man reading in the restaurant."This isn't a library.This is a
restaurant,"he tells the customer.Picking up one of the volumes
from Michael's table, without bothering even to see what kind of
book it may be, he deliberatelylets it fall to the floor. It seems all
rightto combinebooks and food on his terms,or perhapshe is merely
ridiculingthe whole idea of blendingthe incompatiblewhen he hands
the book to Richard,saying,"This needs cooking;grill it with some
mashed peas."Viewers will have noticed earlierthat Michael's eating is impeded by his reading:concentratingso hard on his book, he
allows food to fall from his spoon and accidentallyplaces the empty
spoon in his mouth. For Albert, eating must prevail over reading,
must replacereading:the pleasuresof the palate are infinitely superior to the pleasuresof the written text.
The following evening he will again confront the reader,repeating, "This is a restaurant,not a library."He specifies that here "the
only thing you'reallowed to read is the menu"and explains that by
reading he insults the chef. On this occasion Albert even seems to
give the readeradvicefor his own good. He apparentlysympathizes
with the reader'scondition. "Youreadbecauseyou'vegot nobody to
talkto,"suggestsAlbert,and he invitesMichael overto his own table.
In so doing, he more or less forcesMichael to move from eating and
reading to speaking;and this will include speaking to Georginawith whom up to this point, although they are lovers, Michael has
not exchanged a single word.
Offered the opportunity to speak, Michael has the chance to
create a discourse of his own; as a reader,Michael has always been
a consumer of others' discourses. Even Georgina is unable to understand Michael's pleasure in reading. Having escaped the restaurant in the van full of rotting meat, she and Michael enter the
book depository. She asks him, "What good are all these books to
you? You can't eat them. How can they make you happy?""I've
always found them very reasonable,"replies Michael, "They don't
change their minds while you're not looking." It seems that
Michael regardsthe texts he readsas essentially static, having stable
fixed meanings (the one on the French Revolution is his apparent
SouthAtlantic Review
49
favorite).These texts, then, are not postmodern. The bookkeeper's
passive reading (which suggests that intentionality is somehow
independent of his reading and is fixed within the pages of the
book) is a far cry from the active reading encouraged, for example,
by Roland Barthes. "The goal of literary work (of literature as
work),"says Barthes, "is to make the reader no longer a consumer,
but a producer of the text" (S/Z 4).
Michael is literallykilled by being forced to consume.The obvious irony in Georgina'sremarkthat Michael cannot eat the books is
that Michael will eat the texts he reads,for Albert's men stuff him
with pages from his books until he suffocates.Albert declaresgleefully that "he [Michael] was stuffed with the tools of his trade."In
fact, the reader'sabsorptionof old texts has been taken to an absurd
extreme. Michael is punished for being a readerwho merely consumes without producingany new texts. Like the inert viewer of an
avant-gardeor postmodernfilm, he has refusedto move from consumption to the actual productionof meaning.The reader-as-consumer, according to Barthes, is "intransitive" and "serious."
Greenaway'sjoke, then, is at the expense of this serious reader.If all
Michael has done with texts is consume them, the perverselogic of
the film dictates his consumptionby the very texts that he reads.
Albert calls the killing of Michael "arevenge killing, an affairof
the heart,a crime of passion."But Georginadecides to exacther own
revenge by forcing Albert to eat his victim, as in fact he had promised upon finding out that Michael was his wife'slover:"I'llkill him
and then I'll eat him!"Greenawayadmitsthat the image of Georgina
forcingAlbert into cannibalismis "preposterous"
(Hagen 73). Surely,
the strayingfrom verisimilitudeis entirely to be expected given the
director'swell-known aversionto realism.In conversationwith Gavin
Smith, for example,Greenawaysaid:
My cinema is deliberately artificial, and it's always selfreflexive. Every time you watch a Greenaway movie,
you know you are definitely and absolutely only watching a movie. It's not a slice of life, not a window on the
world ... I do not think that ... realism is even valid in
the cinema. Put up a camera and everything changes.
Pursuit of realism seems to me a dead end. ("Food for
Thought" 59)
50
Nicholas 0. Pagan
Greenaway,though, may be mistaken if he thinks he can escape
realismaltogether.Jameson'sconceptionof the interrelationsbetween
realism, modernism, and postmodernism is useful here. Jameson
shrewdly suggests that it is misleading to talk about realism, modernism,and postmodernismas existingindependentlyof one another.
In fact, these three terms representthree stages in the evolution of
capitalism;and "the three stages are not symmetrical,but dialectical
in their relationshipto each other"(Signatures157). 6Thus, although
we may imagine that we can escape postmodernism and find ourselves in realism or that we can move from realism into
postmodernism,it is not a question of moving backwardor forward
in time, but of existing constantlywithin the dialectic.At a particular stage of the dialectic,the tell-tale signs of postmodernismremain
for Jameson the eclipse of the individual self and a privileging of
space ratherthan time, but a work can never be purelypostmodern
any more than it can be purelymodernist.
Georgina'sserving up her lover for Albert's supperis unrealistic,
but Albert's reaction is exactly what we would expect. Confronted
with the prospect of eating his enemy, Albert is finally speechless.
He vomits, but then takes a mouthful and tries to eat. Speakingcannot absorbreadinginto itself; so with the gun shot, speaking,reading, eating, and the film itself end. The curtainsdrawn back at the
beginning are now closed.
Although speaking,reading,and eating haveobviouslytakenplace
within the film, the film has also foregroundeditself as film, and so
filming constitutes a fourth semic thread-one that makes the other
threadspossible. In an interviewwith Gavin Smith, Greenawayhas
indicated that his films are "alwaysself-reflexive"(59). Perhapsthe
most strikingexampleof this self-reflexivityoccurswhen Michael is
telling Georgina about a film he saw in which the main character
didn't speak for a long time and when he does, Michael, who up to
that point "hadbeen completelyabsorbedas to what would happen,"
loses all interest in the film. Michael insists, however,that this does
not mean that now he has spoken he has lost all interestin Georgina;
accordingto Michael their situation and the situationof watching a
film are totally different.Nevertheless,the character'sinsistencethat
his situationhas nothing to do with film remindsus that he is partof
a film and that we (an audience) arewatching a film.
Moreover, our roles as spectators or voyeurs are implicated in
Georgina's subsequent remark to Richard that she needs her
SouthAtlantic Review
51
lovemakingwith Michael to be observed:"How could I know that it
was real,"says Georgina, "unless someone was watching?"In the
Smith interview Greenaway describes Richard, "the perfectionist
cook,"as "obviouslythe filmmakerwho invites the diners to come
and sit down, who invites the viewers to come into the cinema:this
is the meal I'm going to preparefor you"(56). 7
Postmodernism shares with modernism a self-reflexivity unknown to realism (where the medium'sability to reflect the world
outside it should not be brought into question by drawing attention to its own nature). Greenaway may not be going as far as
Godard, who sometimes actually shows the camera on screen,
thus making it abundantly clear to the audience that they are
watching a film that can never achieve pure representation. As
Wollen points out, Godard decided "to consider a film as a process of writing in images, ratherthan a representationof the world"
(82-83). This does not mean though that one can avoid representing the world altogether. The Cook,the Thief gives us some
(but not much) sense of contemporary London's underworld of
gangsters and pimps, and history is evoked, especially by the most
pervasive backdrop to the film, Frans Hals's painting, Banquet of
the Officersof the Saint GeorgeGuardCompany.
Hals's painting shows some citizen-soldiers sitting or standing
behind an elegantly laid-out dining table. In a review published in
TheNation, Stewart Klawansexplainsthat the officers in the painting "riskedtheir lives to free Holland from the double yoke of the
HapsburgEmpireand the Spanishmonarchy."Klawansalso informs
us that "thoughthe figureswere made individually... Hals had the
novel inspirationof groupingthem casuallyaroundthe table,so that
it looks and even feels as if they were painted together"(646).
We may think that the need of the figures in the painting to escape political oppressionis mirroredin the characters'need (particularlyGeorgina's)to escapethe tyrannyof Albert Spica.Forme, however,that the soldiersin Hals's 1616 paintingwere painted separately
and then placed together by the artist is even more poignant; the
painting may be taken as emblematic of the film itself in that both
bring together disparateelements that create a new and unforseen
whole. This is precisely what postmodernism and to some extent
modernism attempt to do. Rather than holding a mirrorup to the
world and trying to comment on history,Peter Greenaway'sart tries
to mark"thesite of the struggleof the emergenceof somethingnew."8
52
Nicholas 0. Pagan
Greenaway may be thought of as "the clever cook," described by
Albert, who "putsunlikely things together."9
History is also evoked by the principal sets in Greenaway'sfilm,
which suggest different historical periods: the sumptuous dining
area is almost Victorian, the kitchen where fowl are being plucked
seems from an even earlier period, the bathrooms contemporary
or futuristic. Thus the film presents a mishmash of historical periods. Each period's locale is characterized by its own color: red
for the dining area, green for the kitchen, and white for the toilet. "We used the colors of the painting," explains Greenaway,"to
code the rest of the film" (De Feo 31). As the characters move
from one area to another, their costumes remain the same-except for Georgina's, which chameleon-like and in an anti-realist
fashion changes to match its environment. Unlike a painting that
has been signed and is therefore regarded as a finished product, a
film can present a change of color of an object or person before
the viewer's very eyes. Such a change is not a function of the
character'sbehavior and cannot be explained in terms of plot; it is
for artistic effect, another pointer to the film as film. Moreover,
the filmmaker'srefusal to stick with any one color for Georgina's
clothing as she moves from one part of the restaurantto another
corresponds to his refusal to remain within any one historical period or indeed any one genre (for the film combines elements from
Jacobean revenge tragedy, Rabelaisian comedy, and the contemporary thriller).
Jameson fears the eclipse or disappearance of history in
postmodernism. For Jameson, if history is evoked by
postmodernism, it can only be through the "complacent play of
historical allusion"("Politics"105). Jean Baudrillardsimilarly argues that because postmodern culture is made up of pieces of the
past: "All that remains to be done is to play with the pieces. Playing with the pieces-that is postmodernism" (Best and Kellner
128). It may be true that rather than presenting history in any
kind of straightforwardmanner (whatever that means), The Cook,
the Thief merely plays with history. Yet, at the same time,
Greenaway'sfilm can help us appreciatethat history can only come
to us in a piecemeal fashion. This does not mean that history
disappears.To play with history is not to lose a sense of history.
The most serious problem may be a loss of a sense of the present.
The film, in fact, may be seen as raising the question: to what
South Atlantic Review
53
extent is the present knowable or to what extent can the present
be thought of as existing outside of history? Jameson himself argues that "the grasping of the present from within is the most
problematical task that the mind can face"("Afterword"383-84).
Greenawayfinds a humorousway of merging bits of history with
the present and makes a joke about our ability to assimilateit. "The
French Revolution,"says Albert referring to Michael's grotesque
murder,"waseasierto swallow than Napoleon."If Greenaway'sfilm
is postmodern (at least in the Jamesonian sense), then rather than
askingviewersto swallowhistory,we would expectthat the film urges
them to focus on the present-or the spatialratherthan the temporal. No doubt the artinessof the carefullylaid out menus may seem
more compelling than the temporalindicators,that is to say,the day
of the week to which each menu corresponds,and many individual
framed shots, like Hals's Banquetof the Officersof the Saint George
GuardCompany,may strikeviewersas a feast for the eyes. It comes as
no surpriseto see stills from the film in art and photographyjournals
and to learnthat Greenawayhimself startedout as a painter"making
canvasses'with an intellectual,academicbias,'which he showed in
London galleriesin the mid-60's"(De Feo 31). Although Greenaway
has now written and directedseveralfilms, it is in TheCook,theThief
that he most clearlybringspainting to the cinema or makesa cinema
of painting.1l It is not simply a question of appealing to the eye,
however,but rather,as I have argued,of allowing four semic threads
to interactwith one another in an ongoing process that spills over
from the linguistic to the visual and vice-versa.
The linkagesbetween word and image providea coherenceto the
film that may make us wonder if it is valid to describe the film as
postmodern. Jameson argues that "we are within the culture of
postmodernismto the point where its facile repudiationis as impossible as any equallyfacile celebrationof it is complacentand corrupt"
("Politics"111); but given his dialecticalapproachto realism,modernism,and postmodernism,surelythis has to mean that a work can
never be unequivocallyor uniformallypostmodern.
It is useful, though, to think of Greenaway'sfilm as "production"
ratherthan as "product."12
Although the film may not move us as
more traditionalfilms have done (and it may be more likely to provoke a sense of outrage ratherthan well-being), we may still be left
admiringthe ingenuity and subtletyinvolved in the process.Indeed,
The Cook,the Thief,His Wife& Her Lover takes us into a space of
54
Nicholas O. Pagan
ongoing production, a space of incessant activityfrom which some
audiences (those perhaps too enmeshed in realism) will recoil in
horror,but where others, though not immune to the pain, will perceive a call to create dishes of their own.
Eastern MediterraneanUniversity
in the TurkishRepublicof Northern Cyprus
NOTES
1
For a more extensive treatment of the oppositions between counter-cinema
and mainstreamcinema, see Wollen, "Goddardand counter cinema: Ventd'Est."
2 See
especially "Postmodernism,or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism"
which
is reprinted in the book with the same title, Postmodernism,Or,
(1984)
The CulturalLogic of Late Capitalism (1991).
3 One of my colleagues told me that he stormed out of the movie theater,
that this was the most relentlesslydisgusting film he had ever seen.
thinking
4
Lyotardemploys the Kantian distinction between the beautiful and the sublime. With the former,pleasurecomes about through the perception of harmony
between "the capacity to conceive and the capacity to present an object corresponding to the concept" (77). With the sublime, in contrast, the disparity between conception and object because of the imagination'sfailure to find an object to match the concept gives rise to an emotion which involves both pleasure
and pain (The PostmodernCondition 77-78).
5
Greenaway himself has used the eating/reading distinction to describe the
movement from The Cook,the Thief to his next film, Prospero'sBooks. "'You
are what you eat' was the last film," he says, "in the next film it's 'You are what
you read"'(Hagen 74).
6 See also "Postmodernism,or the Cultural Logic" 78.
7
Greenawaymakesthe samepoint in the interviewwith GaryIndiana(121); and
in a telephone interviewcited by Howie Movschovitz, he pursuesthe analogyby
suggestingthat "theCook ... remainscold and distantfrom the others,interestedin
his art more than human interactions"("Directoraimed to show cause-and-effect
brutalityin Cook,Thief 9F). Greenawaymakesa similarobservationaboutthe architect in Belly of an Architect:"forarchitectread filmmaker"(Smith 56).
8The
phraseis takenfromLindaHutcheon,who sees this struggleat workin what
she calls"thosealmostundefinableandcertainlybizarreworkslikeTerryGilliam'sBrazil" (4-5).
9 Albert declaresthat "What you've got to realize is that the clever cook puts
unlikely things together:like duck and orange, like pineapple and ham. It's called
artistry."
10Notice that a blendingof historicalperiodsalsotakesplacein the music.Michael
Nyman'sarrangementof music borrowedfrom Henry Purcell'sopera,KingArthur,
combinesthe baroquewith contemporaryrock-the lattermost strikinglypresentin
the saxophoneplaying.I am indebtedto David Badagnanifor this observation.
South Atlantic Review
55
1 It could be argued that with his next film, Prosperos
Books,Greenawaygoes
even furtherin this direction.Here Greenawaymakes the visualimageryeven more
sophisticatedby using the latest film/computertechnologyto superimposeframeson
frames,thus creatingmultilayeredimages.
12 The distinctionis made by Roland Barthes."The text is a productivity,"
says
Barthes,". .. the verytheaterof a productionwherethe producerand the consumerof
a text meet: the text 'works'.. . . Even when written(fixed),it does not stop working,
maintaininga processof production."With a traditionalnotion of text there is, according to Barthes, the idea that "significationappearsembalmedin the work-asproduct.""Butonce the text is conceivedas production(and no longer as product),"
Barthesclaims,"it is necessaryto cast off the monological,legal status of signification, and to pluralizeit" (36-37).
WORKSCiTED
Best, Steven and Douglas Kellner. PostmodernTheory:Critical Interrogations.
New York:Guilford, 1991.
Barthes, Roland. S/Z. Trans. Richard Miller. New York:Hill and Wang, 1974.
. "Theory of the Text." Untying the Text. A PoststructuralistReader. Ed.
Robert Young. Boston: Routledge, 1981. 31-47.
De Feo, Ronald. "Fantasyin Crimson."Art News 89 (1990): 31.
Hagen, Charles. "Peter Greenawayand the Erotics of Form:An Interview with
Charles Hagen." Aperture121 (1990): 72-74.
Hutcheon, Linda. A Poetics of Postmodernism:History, Theory,Fiction. New
York: Routledge, 1988.
Indiana, Gary. Interview of Peter Greenaway.Interview (March 1990): 120-21.
Jameson, Fredric. "Afterword-Marxism and Postmodernism." Postmodernism/
Jameson/Critique.Ed. Douglas Kellner.Washington, DC: Maissoneuve, 1989.
."Postmodernism,or the CulturalLogic of Late Capitalism."New Left Review 46 (1984): 53-92.
. Postmodernism,Or, the CulturalLogic of Late Capitalism.Durham: Duke
UP, 1991.
Signaturesof the Visible.New York: Routledge, 1990.
- . "The Politics of Theory." The Ideologies of Theory Essays. 1971-1986:
Vol.2: The Syntax of History. Minneapolis: Minnesota UP, 1988.
Klawans, Stewart. rev. of The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover, Crazy
People,Santa Snagre,and O&A. The Nation 250 (May 1990): 644-46.
Lapsley,Richard and Michael Westlake. Film Theory:AnIntroduction.New York:
St. Martins, 1988.
Lyotard,Jean-Francois. The PostmodernCondition:A Reporton Knowledge.Minneapolis: Minnesota UP, 1984.
Movshovitz, Howie. "Directoraimed to show cause-and-effect brutalityin Cook,
Thief" Denver Post 6 April 1990: 9F.
Smith, Gavin. "Foodfor Thought." Film Comment(May 1990): 54-60.
Wollen, Peter. "Godardand counter-cinema: Ventd'Est."Readingsand Writings.
London: Verso, 1982.