In 1982, when he made ‘The Draughtsman’s Contract‘, Peter Greenaway was 40 years old. You could say it was a debut in a way, as it was his first feature length fiction film. And yet Greenaway was already a mature and multilateral artist. He had studied fine arts, but had been fascinated by architecture and especially cinema. He had worked in film editing and directed numerous experimental short films. He had already made a feature film, ‘The Fall’ in the genre that would be called ‘mockumentary’ some two decades later. ‘The Draughtman’s Contract‘ is a period film, is a detective mystery, a social comedy and an erotic farce, but it is above all the first of a series of films that Greenaway would make over the next decade, films with a unmistakable personal touch, which would establish him as one of the most important directors of his generation in England and world-wide.
The year when the story takes place is clearly stated – 1694 – and this is not an aleatory choice. This is the year in which England, in a period of transition between dynasties, introduces a series of reforms allowing women to enter into contracts and receive inheritances. The main hero, the painter Neville, will conclude a very special contract with Mrs. Herbert, for the two weeks while her husband will be away from home. He will create 12 drawings of their impressive mansion and in return will privately enjoy the lady’s favors to his ‘satisfaction’. Soon after, Mrs. Hebert’s daughter, unsatisfied in her marriage and desiring to get pregnant, will also sign a contract with the multi-talented artist. During the 12 days, however, strange phenomena begin to happen: things appear where they shouldn’t be, a moving statue that changes its place shows up in the garden, etc. All culminate in the disappearance of Mr. Herbert, who soon appears as a corpse. Conveniently for them, the two women inherit everything. The drawings made by the artist become a kind of evidence in the mystery of the killer’s identity. The cuckolded son-in-law and the other men in the women’s entourage will seek revenge on the artist.
‘The Draughtman’s Contract‘ is a complex film that can be seen and interpreted on multiple levels. On the surface it is a detective mystery in period costumes, although the identity of the murderer is very obviously suggested and does not seem to concern the film’s heroes too much. It is also a social satire that says a lot about the relations between social classes, with an obvious sarcasm towards the morals of the nobility. The main theme that preoccupied Greenaway, however, is, as in all his films from this period, art and the relationship between the artist and society. Socially regarded as belonging to the lower classes and forced to struggle to secure economic independence, the artist in the film resorts to other compensatory means through the contract at the heart of the story. The film is imbued with the atmosphere of the Baroque era, from the dialogues which are influenced by the literature and by the epistles of the time recited in the metric of the post-Elizabethan theatre, passing through the music of Michael Nyman who processes Baroque themes and develops them in the style and with the instruments of the period, to to the cinematography that is influenced by the light (and obscure) and by the colors of the paintings of artists such as Caravaggio and Georges de la Tour. The camera is permanently fixed like the draftsman’s easel, and the grids through which the artist sees reality resemble the frame of the camera. The film is an aesthetic delight, with themes and details that resonate with the art of the period in which the story takes place. If there had been movies in the Baroque period, they would probably have looked like this.