CineQuiz

Peter Greenaway

Peter Greenaway is known for The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989), The Draughtsman's Contract (1982), Drowning by Numbers (1988).

Biography

Peter Greenaway, CBE (born 5 April 1942) is a Welsh writer-director, painter, and video artist based in Amsterdam. Throughout the late 1960s and '70s, he produced several experimental documentary/mockumentary shorts while working as a film editor for the Central Office of Information. This early period culminated in "The Falls" (1980), a three-hour mockumentary indexing the strange effects of the VUE (the Violent Unknown Event) on 92 people whose names begin with the letters F-A-L-L. He made his dramatic feature film debut with "The Draughtsman's Contract" (1982), and throughout the 1980s directed a string of critically acclaimed and frequently controversial films: "A Zed & Two Noughts" (1985), "The Belly of an Architect" (1987), "Drowning by Numbers" (1988), and his best-known work, the vicious Thatcher-era satire "The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover" (1989). In the 1990s, he directed the Shakespeare adaptation "Prospero's Books" (1991), controversial religious satire "The Baby of Mâcon" (1993), erotic drama "The Pillow Book" (1996), and "8½ Women" (1999), an homage to the films of Federico Fellini, a major influence on Greenaway. In the early 2000s, Greenaway embarked on the ambitious "Tulse Luper" project, a multimedia body of historical fiction revolving around the life of the eponymous fictional hero. In addition to novels, CD-ROMs, online material, and a touring exhibition, the project spawned a trilogy of feature films: "The Tulse Luper Suitcases, Part 1: The Moab Story" (2003), "The Tulse Luper Suitcases, Part 2: Vaux to the Sea" (2004), and "The Tulse Luper Suitcases, Part 3: From Sark to the Finish" (2004). The trilogy was followed by a fourth feature, "A Life in Suitcases" (2005), which abridges the Tulse Luper saga into a single film. Since the mid 2000s, Greenaway's film work has focused on idiosyncratic, heavily fictionalised biopics dedicated to some of his favourite artists: Dutch Golden Age painter Rembrandt van Rijn in "Nightwatching" (2007), Dutch Baroque engraver Hendrik Goltzius in "Goltzius and the Pelican Company" (2012), Soviet Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein in "Eisenstein in Guanajuato" (2015), and Romanian-French sculptor Constantin Brâncuși in "Walking to Paris" (TBD). Greenaway has lived and worked in Amsterdam since the mid 1990s. He is married to artist Saskia Boddeke, with whom he has two children. He also has two children from a previous marriage to potter Carol Greenaway.

Questions about Peter Greenaway

How many Peter Greenaway films are in the catalogue?

The CineQuiz catalogue has 44 films with Peter Greenaway, from 1973 to 2025.

What is the best rated Peter Greenaway film?

The best rated Peter Greenaway film in the catalogue is The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989), rated 7.3.

What was the first Peter Greenaway film?

The first Peter Greenaway film in the catalogue is The Draughtsman's Contract, from 1982.

Who has Peter Greenaway worked with the most?

In the catalogue, Peter Greenaway shares the most credits with Kees Kasander (8 films), Sacha Vierny (8 films) and John Wilson (5 films).

People data: TMDb.

AWARDS 7 Wins 2 Nominations

Known for

Trivia

Also works as
theatre director · film director · writer · experimental artist · screenwriter · painter · film editor · cinematographer · television director · director · visual artist · librettist · filmmaker · exhibition curator
Studied at
Forest School · Walthamstow College of Art
Spouse
Saskia Boddeke

Trivia from Wikidata, licensed CC0.

Full filmography

55 films — 44 in the catalogue

People data: TMDb.

Cast