The Architecture of the Screen

by Graham Cairns

  The same aim of associating the film and its protagonists with the qualities attributed to the setting can be said to influence the use of fixed or slow-moving cameras which ensure that the static, purely symmetrical nature of the architecture filmed takes centre stage. Central to all of this is the cinematography of Sacha Vierny, the cinematographer on films of analogous visual sensitivity such as Hiroshima Mon Amour, Last Year in Marienbad and various Greenaway films throughout the 1980s and 1990s. In The Belly of an Architect, he brings his eye for composition, light and movement to the presentation of some of the world’s most famous ancient buildings and sculptures which he treats as component parts of his cinematographic pictorial compositions, often underlining and drawing out the architecture’s inherent compositional qualities.6 In The Belly of an Architect, this normally involves setting up the point of view in a frontal relationship with the Neoclassical architectural set, so as to emphasise its symmetry and geometrical purity.

  One of the few scenes in which Vierny applies a noticeably moving point of view in these pictorial creations is in the Foro Italico sequence; a scene in which the sports complex built by Mussolini for the fascists in the 1930s becomes the film’s protagonist.7 Vierny allows the camera to pan up and around the building so as to again emphasise its purity, simplicity and aesthetic sobriety. He also keeps his camera a significant distance from the building however, and thus draws our attention to the large expanse of the totally empty plaza around it, in an apparent attempt to awaken images of the former fascist rallies that would have been staged in this ghostly “political theatre”. It is a cinematography that also emphasises the autonomy and isolation of the building as an object; a pure Platonic form, standing alone in its self-contained precision. Repeatedly then, Greenaway and Vierny create pictorial compositions that take the Neoclassical or rationalist qualities of the architecture presented and use the medium of film to underline, and even exaggerate them, as they build up a visual tapestry of direct and indirect references to Boullée.

  Along with Claude Nicolas Ledoux, Boullée was the most famous of the French Neoclassical architects who studied under Jacques-François Blondel, the father of French Neoclassicism.8 Developing Blondel’s strict puritanical aesthetic, Boullée’s work has been referred to as “sterile riches”9 and, although he built very little, he has come to be known as a “visionary architect”10; a creator of monuments that celebrated science, knowledge and death, all issues again dealt with by Greenaway in The Belly of an Architect. Some of his built projects include the salon for the Hôtel de Tourolles and the Hôtel Soult, Paris, both from the 1760s, but his most celebrated projects were developed whilst teaching at the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées, 1778–1788. They include the Conical Cenotaph and surrounding walls, the Truncated Cone Shaped Tower, the Chapel for the Dead (all undated) and the Cenotaph for Isaac Newton, 1784.11 Each of these projects share a series of design features that underlie all his other works and which, consequently, became the basis of the cinematographic presentation of architecture found in The Belly of an Architect.

  Of these characteristics, perhaps the most notable is its truly enormous scale. In his drawings of the Truncated Cone Shaped Tower, we get a sense of this through images of people utterly dwarfed by its massive geometrical form. In drawings of the Cenotaph for Isaac Newton, the same effect is evident in a project whose ambition seems boundless; its spherical construction not only being a complicated technical task, but its scale making it a truly Herculean feat of imagination. This over-scaled monumentality is further emphasised through his use of pure Platonic forms which give the eye little, if any, detail to focus on, and which emphasises the symmetrical spatial arrangements and pure surfaces of his forms. This purity of form was his central concern as is evident from the following description of the sphere as an architectural object. “From whatever side we look at it, no trick of perfection can alter the magnificence of its perfect form. Of all bodies, it offers the largest surface to the eye, and this ends it majesty. It has the utmost simplicity because that surface is flawless and endless. Besides these qualities we must speak of a grace that owes its being to an outline that is as soft and as flowing as it is possible to imagine”.12

  Another much commented characteristic, especially in the employment of Boullée as a precedent for modernism, was his avoidance of standard architectural decoration. When used, “adornment” was often abstract and symbolic in form, as is clearly evident from his sketches of the Cenotaph for Isaac Newton, where Cypress trees enliven the massive geometric ensemble. In his iconic image of the Cone Shaped Tower, the architecture is “adorned” with human figures that seem to snake up the cone to its peak. In his drawings of the Entrance Gate project, a similar use of human figures for decorative purposes is also evident, with “human warriors” surrounding the gateway that dwarfs them and thus operates not only as a symbol of protection and security but also of power.13 In all instances, these elements, whether intended to be incorporated into the design or simply used to enliven its presentation in drawing form, are always secondary to the pure geometric form that predominates.

  Another characteristic that all these projects share is Boullée’s “masterly play of light and shade” which, given the austerity of his decoration and the purity of his formal arrangements, becomes the most evocative aspect of many designs. Particularly evident in his drawings for the Entrance to a Cemetery project, in which the architecture of Ancient Egypt is the inspiration for the design, the backlighting created by the setting sun dramatises the form by casting it in shadow, whilst highlighting its dark outline against the clear sky.14 Also evident in sketches he made of the project, Museum at Whose Centre is a Temple of Fame for Great Men and, obviously, in the interior and exterior sketches of The Cenotaph for Isaac Newton, this use of light to mould, highlight and define the purity of his architectural forms was just another of the factors that led to his association with modernist architecture in the early twentieth century.

  Traces of these architectural characteristics are evident in the scenes described earlier, as well as the scene in which Greenaway most obviously “recreates” a Boullée-like architectural set himself. For the opening of the exhibition, which becomes the film’s climax, Greenaway and Vierny set up a sequence of juxtaposed images which lead to the film’s dualistic finale. Estranged from his wife, who is now the open lover of Caspian, Kracklite makes his way to the exhibition alone. His wife is accompanied by Caspian. The shots of Louisa and Caspian are deep, intense pictorial ensembles. Often backlit, they are a series of strictly controlled, symmetrical compositions that are clearly staged and clearly intended to imbue the architecture filmed with resonances of Boullée (Fig. 4). We are presented with frontal shots of the entrance to the exhibition, through which the exhibition committee, headed by Louisa, file somberly towards the show’s central feature, that is, a replica of Boullée’s most famous work, his Cenotaph for Isaac Newton. When they discuss the final arrangements of the speech in the moments before the inauguration, they are placed in front of, and directly below, an arch of the museum in a perfectly composed and symmetrical cinematic composition.

  Interlaced with these shots are images of the exhibition’s artefacts such as Boullée’s truncated cone which is also backlit for dramatic effect and centrally positioned in front of an arch of the museum to create another cinematographic echo of the architect’s work. When they finally ascend the steps that lead to the platform, from which the inaugural act will take place, the same cinematographic traits are repeated. Placed in yet another perfectly symmetrical composition, Louisa and other committee members are positioned at the head of a set of steps and directly in front of the exhibition’s centrepiece. Once again backlit, they appear as the human figures in Boullée’s drawings of his sparse, geometric and rational Cenotaph. All these architectural references are mimicked in the speech Caspian gives, which is allowed to run over the surface of the images and which, in this case, are the central focus of the sequence.
As we watch the visual series evolve, we are reminded aurally of the references at play: Boullée, Newton, Neoclassicism, modernity, rationalism, passion and emotion.

  Interspersed with this sequence are shots of Louisa, a concomitant sequence of Kracklite entering the exhibition through the back door and preparing for a suicide full of symbolism and “gravitas”. The visual treatment differs in a number of ways; the images are brighter, and Kracklite, dressed in a white suit, is presented as an almost angelic character. He enters by bribing a guard, ascends the back-of-house steps of the museum and finally positions himself directly above the stage set up for the inauguration. At this point, the Kracklite shots take on a similar compositional arrangement. Filmed from above, we are presented with perfectly symmetrical images once more in which the dome of the Cenotaph replica is once again emphasised, and the protagonist, Kracklite in this case, is centrally located against the Platonic background. When shot frontally, a similar compositional arrangement is maintained, only this time it is the Neoclassical set of the museum itself that forms the perfectly symmetrical and “rational” backdrop to the protagonist.

  Leading us towards the inauguration of the exhibition, this dual sequence culminates with Louisa collapsing and giving birth to the baby she has been carrying throughout the film. Seconds after we hear the cries of the new-born baby, Kracklite melodramatically leans backwards out of the centrally placed window and falls to his death (Fig. 5). Although occasionally obvious, and possibly repetitive, this culminating sequence brings together the symbolic and narrative threads of Greenaway’s script, the visual characteristics of Vierny’s cinematography, and the formal properties of Boullée’s architecture, into a filmic whole in which each aspect of the ensemble reinforces the other. Greenaway’s psychological portrayal of his characters, their failings, their aspirations of fame and pretensions of “rationality” are melodramatically underlined by Vierny’s slow, generally static filming and his melodramatic compositions. In their turn, these compositions underline and emphasise the formal properties of the architecture in which it is set, and also those of the architecture it seeks to symbolically represent, that of Etienne-Louis Boullée.

  Figure 4: Final scenes: preparations for opening.

  Figure 5: Final scenes: Kracklite’s suicide.

  The film can thus be read as a typical Greenaway narrative threaded through with references to obsessions; infidelity, Fascism, death and art, in this case. It can also be read as a typical Greenaway multi-layered visual tapestry in which painterly composition, form and colour feed into his unique brand of visual cinema. In addition however, it is also a cinematic engagement with architecture that goes beyond the mere representation of the architecture in which it is set, or the construction of architectural sets reminiscent of a particular architect or style. Here, we have an “architectural cinematography” that takes as its raison d’être the aesthetic, formal and symbolic characteristics of one of the Enlightenment’s most revolutionary thinkers and architects. It is not a value free cinematic portrayal of Neoclassical architecture or the simple creation of architectural sets based on Boullée; but rather an active engagement of the camera with the spaces it films to create a distinct architectural perception on screen. It is a distinctly architectural cinematography that manipulates, and indeed creates, its own on-screen cinematic space.

  Notes

  1For an overview of the films and theories of Peter Greenaway, see; Pascoe, David. Peter Greenaway: Museums and Moving Images, Reaktion Books, London, 1997.

  2This juxtaposition is evident in the film’s opening scene in which the director juxtaposes the conception of a child with images of death. As the opening credits roll we are presented with the image of the film’s protagonist, Stanley Kracklite (Brian Dennehy), and his wife (Chloe Webb), making love on a train as they cross the border into Italy. This scene, which we learn later is one of conception, is interspersed with images of the Italian countryside through which they travel: a sequence that presents us with funeral and cemetery images. It runs throughout this film and many of his other films. See: Willoquet-Maricondi, Paula and Alemany-Galway, Mary. Peter Greenaway’s Postmodern/Poststructuralist Cinema, Scarecrow Press, Plymouth, 2008.

  3For an analysis of this film, see: Ostwald, Michel. “Rising from the Ruins: Interpreting the Missing Formal Device Within The Belly of an Architect”. In: Willoquet-Maricondi, Paula and Alemany-Galway, Mary eds), Peter Greenaway’s Postmodern/Poststructuralist Cinema, Ibid. p. 137–158.

  4This last image takes us back to the French Enlightenment and the values associated with Boullée. Although, in his time, Newton was seen as the prototypical Enlightenment figure, logical, rational and egalitarian, some of his ideas were only belatedly accepted in France. However, once accepted he was widely acclaimed. Boullée himself writing in a description of his Cenotaph project says: “Sublime mind! Vast and profound genius! Divine being! Newton! Accept the homage of my weak talents…” Rosenau, Helen, ed. Boullée’s treatise on architecture: a complete presentation of the “Architecture, essai sur l’art,” which forms part of the Boullée papers (MS 9513) in Bibliotèque Nationale, Paris (London: A. Tiranti, 1953). Cited in: Lemagny, Jean-Claude. Visionary Architects: Boullée, Ledoux, Lequeu, Hennessey & Ingalls, California, 2002. p. 26.

  5In this case the contrast between reason and passion is heightened by Greenaway’s typical use of colour, which introduces another characteristic typical of the director. In this film, there are two primary and secondary colours employed, red and white with occasional shots in which green and black take centre stage. Red seems to symbolise passion and is used as a backdrop, or as the colour of the clothing worn by the characters when angered or intense. White is used to suggest serenity and is again characteristic of both the backdrop and the clothing of the characters when logical, rational debate is brought to the fore. Green is only occasionally introduced and its significance for the director is far from clear. Similarly, black makes an appearance at times as, for example, when Kracklite’s wife reveals that she is leaving him. For Greenaway’s own explanation of the symbolic traits in his work, see: Gras, Vernon, W. Peter Greenaway: Interviews, University Press of Mississippi, Mississippi, 2000.

  6Published information on Sacha Vierny is limited. For information on his work with Peter Greenaway, see: Niogret, Hubert. Entretien avec Sacha Vierny. Positif. No. 302, 1986. p. 46–52; Brandlmeier, Thomas. “Ein-, Durch-und Ausblicke”. Film-dienst. No. 26, 2004. p. 24–26; Cloarec, Nicole. “Lumières et artifices dans le cinéma de Peter Greenaway”. CinémAction. No. 118, 2006. p. 62–71.

  7The purity of form and minimal decoration in this building also reference the traits of Boullée and visually underline one of the film’s subtexts; references to Fascism. Boullée’s work was referenced in the twentieth century by both the fascist regimes of Germany and Italy in the 1930s. Boullée was certainly an inspiration for Hitler’s architect, Albert Speer, whose own architectural creations had all the drama and power found in Boullée’s drawings. In Italy, Mussolini was said to be an admirer of the architect and his influence can certainly be seen in some of the (modernist and Neoclassical) buildings constructed under the auspicious of the El Duce. For a discussion of this, see: Baumgartner, Michael. “A Walk Through R: Peter Greenaway’s Mapping of Rome in The Belly of an Architect”. In: R. Wrigley (ed), Cinematic Rome, Troubador, Leicester, 2008. p. 143–172.

  8Blondel, 1705–1774, was the son of an architect and published what was to become a central book in the establishment of the rules of eighteenth and nineteenth century French architecture; De la Distribution des Maisons de Plaisance, et la Décoration des Edifices en General, 1738. For a basic explanation and introduction to his theories, see: Evers, Bernd and Thoenes, Christoph. Architectural Theory, Taschen, London, 2000. p. 190.

  9Lemagny, Jean-Claude. Visionary Architects: Boullée, Ledoux, Lequeu, Ibid. p. 16.

  10Jean-Claude Lemagny uses the term “visionary” in the title of his book about Boullée, Ledou
x and Lequeq. For an overview and images of the Boullée projects discussed here, see: Lemagny, Jean-Claude. Visionary Architects: Boullée, Ledoux, Lequeu, Ibid. p. 16–65.

  11Boullée’s interest in Newton is satirised to an extent by Greenaway, who uses the English scientist as another way of drawing a parallel between Boullée and his twentieth century prodigy Kracklite. Kracklite has a fetish with the English pound note, a form of currency about to go out of circulation, upon which is an image of Isaac Newton. He references it several times throughout the film and, upon Kracklite’s suicide, it is seen drifting in the air as if to symbolise something related to the ephemeral nature of existence and the dual human qualities of reason and passion that form one of the film’s principal themes.

  12Etienne-Louis Boullee. Quoted in: D. Sylvester (ed), Moonraker, Strangelove and Other Celluloid Dreams: The Visionary Work of Ken Adam, Serpentine Gallery Exhibition Catalogue, London, 1999. p. 15.

  13For more information on these projects, see: Madec, Phillipe, Boullée, (Spanish), Akal, Madrid, 1996; Perouse de Montclos, Jean-Marie. Etienne-Louis Boullee (Italian), Mondadori Electa, Milan, 1998.

  14Lemagny, Jean-Claude. Visionary Architects: Boullée, Ledoux, Lequeu, Ibid. p. 19.

  Playtime: A commentary on the art of the Situationists, the philosophy of Henri Lefebvre and the architecture of the Modern Movement

  Playtime. 1967

  Jaques Tati.