The Pillow Book 1996 MA 15+
The Pillow Book 1996 MA 15+
35MM, BLACK AND WHITE AND COLOUR, DOLBY, 126 MINUTES, FRANCE / UK / THE NETHERLANDS / LUXEMBOURG, ENGLISH, CANTONESE, ITALIAN, JAPANESE, MANDARIN, FRENCH (ENGLISH SUBTITLES) / DIRECTOR/SCRIPT: PETER GREENAWAY / BASED ON THE NOVEL BY SEI SHONAGON / CINEMATOGRAPHER: SACHA VIERNY / EDITOR: PETER GREENAWAY, CHRIS WYATT / PRODUCTION DESIGNERS: KOICHI HAMAMURA, WILLEMIJN LOIVERS, HIROTO OONOGI, ANDRÉE PUTMAN, NORIYUKI TANAKA, WILBERT VAN DORP / COSTUME DESIGN: MARTIN MARGIELA, DIEN VAN STRAALEN, KOJI TATSUNO / PRODUCTION CO: KASANDER & WIGMAN PRODUCTIONS, ALPHA FILMS, STUDIO CANAL, CHANNEL FOUR FILMS, DELUX PRODUCTIONS, EURIMAGES, NEDERLANDS FONDS VOOR DE FILM / PRINT SOURCE/RIGHTS: PARK CIRCUS
‘In the West we have continually separated the image and the text, and one would imagine that cinema would be the ideal place in which to remarry these two notions. But alas, it does not seem to have been the case. The Pillow Book is another attempt to readdress my particular anxiety or disenchantment about a cinema which is primarily text before it can be image.’ Peter Greenaway, Bomb Magazine, 1997
The Pillow Book reflects on the anatomical comparison of treating the body like the page of a book, to be read and written on. Drawing inspiration from the 10th Century Japanese manuscript The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon, a female courtier’s observations on daily life and the arts, Peter Greenaway’s film draws together aspects of the Japanese calligraphic tradition with modern day tattooing. Nagiko (Vivian Wu) is a young woman who enjoys the powerful link between flesh and literature, sex and calligraphy. Her life seems defined by two memories: her calligrapher father (Ken Ogata) painting a birthday greeting on her face and witnessing the sexual exchange between her financially dependent father and his Publisher (Yoshi Oida). Escaping an arranged marriage, Nagiko moves to Hong Kong where she takes lovers that remind of her of the pleasures of calligraphy. When she meets English translator Jerome (Ewan McGregor), a great lover but bad calligrapher, she sees an opportunity to enact revenge on the Publisher who demeaned her father. Nagiko sends Jerome as her book, his body decorated with her own erotic Pillow Book. But when Jerome makes love to the publisher, Nagiko suffers another betrayal, and the film spirals into a dramatic exchange between Nagiko and the Publisher. The Pillow Book combines film and video, paintings and photos, spoken narration and visual texts to create an intricate web of desire and loss, what Sei Shonagon termed “the writing of love and finding it”.
Contact: Fri 2 Oct 8.30pm / Cinema A
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