Product Description

Standing at a pivotal point in his filmography, poised between his earlier, witty shorts and the unique pleasures of Peter Greenaway’s post-DRAUGHTMAN'S CONTRACT oeuvre, THE FALLS is arguably the most significant film of his prolific career. Shot as a pseudo-documentary, this magnum opus dazzlingly details 92 case histories of people who have been affected by the VUE (Violent Unknown Event)—a mysterious, apocalyptic phenomenon related to birds, flying, and bizarre invented languages. Perfectly paired with it on this disc is VERTICAL FEATURES REMAKE, in which a group of self-important academics argue about the work of Tulse Luper, Greenaway’s best-known fictional character and cinematic alter-ego. Michael Nyman (THE PIANO) provided the score for both films, with back-up from the father of ambient music, Brian Eno. This disc is also available as part of GREENAWAY: THE EARLY FILMS box set.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #70954 in DVD
• Released on: 2006-04-11
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 239 minutes

Amazon.com
This second DVD installment of British avant-garde director Peter Greenaway's collected Early Films journeys into Greenaway's peculiar nerdy humor, which takes absurd satisfaction in cataloguing and bureaucracy. The two films on Early Films 2: The Falls, The Falls and Vertical Feature Remake, are both exhaustively thorough visual catalogues. The Falls features 92 citizens whose surnames begin with the letters FALL, who have suffered through a fictitious event known as the VUE (Violent Unknown Event), and have consequently become obsessed with birds. At three-and-a-half hours long, certain case studies stand out, such as that of Appis Allis Fallabis, who, speaking in Pig Latin, describes how he is "nightly obliged to lubricate himself with Spanish oil" in order to eliminate the ticks, termites, lice, and tapeworms that plague his body as if he were truly avian. The ridiculousness of the characters is carefully balanced by a more serious soundtrack including the divine Brian Eno song, "Golden Hours." Vertical Features Remake, on the other hand, finds common vertical threads throughout the British landscape such as tree trunks, dandelion stalks, telephone poles, and rakes, then re-catalogues the shots into four separate shorts, as though an imaginary bureau called the IRR Records Archives is searching for a way to structure and organize this pointless information. Both films have a sci-fi quality, utilizing their own logic to make sense of invented worlds. Also on the DVD are interviews with Greenaway, in which he discusses not only how and when the movies were made, but also their concepts. Don't let the epic length dissuade you from viewing these clever dips into that giant pool of Greenaway's weird mind. --Trinie Dalton

The New York Times
"Greenaway is a genuine wit with a grand imagination."

All Movie Guide
"Among the most ambitious and controversial filmmakers of his era!"

Customer Reviews

An inventory of future projects
British director Peter Greenaway considers "The falls" the most emblematic film of his career: it's an inventory of his most beloved obssesions; a synthesis of his previous work as filmmaker and a seed of future projects.

THE FALLS ( 1978 ), his first feature length movie, is a catalogue of 92 invented biographies of people whose names begin with the word " falls " and affected by an unknown illness ( the U.V.E. ) in some way connected with birds and flying. This is, in fact, a seminal work of Greenaway's particular mithology and at its time a game of mirror where he blends bizarre situations, human mutations, archive footage, documentary techniques, humourous self-references ( he introduces in a new way stuff of his previous films ) and conceptual playing inside of a structure whose peculiar characteristic and form - as Greenaway has told- can be reformulated and extended "ad infinitum". But the movie is also a sardonic and creative demostration of scepticism where Greenaway plays to rub out the border between fiction and reality. " The falls " is probably the film that better reflects Greenaway's conception of cinema, so as his voluptuous personality and enciclopedic wisdom: his passion for catalogues and dictionaries; his interest in structuralism theorising and conceptual games; his taste in weird artefacts, bizarre invention and the theatre of absurd; his love for painting and barroque visual invention and his miscellaneous erudition and fine humour.

The score has been composed by Michael Nyman.

Parrot, pigeon, puffin, pelican, peregrine, palm cockatoo...
"The Falls": an epic film that is a gargantuan send up of the minutiae of extreme scholarship. The 92 biographies of victims of the Unexplained Violent Event [UVE], which may...or may not...have something to do with birds, proceed with icy, statistical, bureaucratic force. The actual characters are absurd and/or implausible. The balancing act of whit and whimsy and statistical cataloguing is masterful. The UVE is never fully explained even though we have 3 1/2 hours of detailed examination [Clearly more work must be done...AAAAHHHHRRRRGGGGHHHH!]. It's much much much ado about nothing... and hysterical. Even the 92 examples here are connected by cross referencing and roundabout links. It's all very complicated. But of course even though archival footage is used and real people and events are sprinkled throughout, it is all made up. So sit back and just enjoy the ride. It's a film about people who learn Klingon or argue over details in "Lord of the Rings". But also about historians who's expertises are about a single year or event and scholars of single artists or even single works of art. It's about a human activity. It's about being a thinking ape. It's wonderful!