The Belly of an Architect (1987)

User Rating:

6.6/10   

Director:

Peter Greenaway

Writer:

Peter Greenaway (writer)

Release Date:

1 October 1987 (West Germany)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

An American architect arrives in Italy, supervising an exhibiton for a French architect, Boullée, who is famous for his oval structures...

Plot Keywords:

Stomach | Nudity | Cancer | Suicide | Surrealism

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Brian Dennehy	...	Stourley Kracklite
Chloe Webb	...	Louisa Kracklite
Lambert Wilson	...	Caspasian Speckler
Sergio Fantoni	...	Io Speckler
Stefania Casini	...	Flavia Speckler
Vanni Corbellini	...	Frederico
Alfredo Varelli	...	Julio
Geoffrey Copleston	...	Caspetti
Francesco Carnelutti	...	Pastarri
Marino Masé	...	Trettorio
Marne Maitland	...	Battistino
Claudio Spadaro	...	Mori
Rate Furlan	...	Violinist
Julian Jenkins	...	Old Doctor
Enrica Maria Scrivano	...	Mother

Also Known As:

Il ventre dell' architetto (Italy)

Runtime:

USA:118 min

Country:

UK | Italy

Language:

English | Italian

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Certification:

UK:15 | Australia:M | Chile:18 | Finland:K-12 | Sweden:Btl | USA:R | Germany:12

Filming Locations:

Aurelian Walls, Rome, Lazio, Italy

Company:

British Screen Hemdale

Goofs:

Factual errors: A little over 20 minutes in the movie, the main character Kracklite (Brian Dennehy) starts his xerox-obsession with pictures of bellies. He clearly opens the machine, keeps the picture in sight and then makes a copy. That's impossible, in copying the original should face the machine, not the hood.

Quotes:

Caspasian Speckler: Your wife is very beautiful, Signor Kracklite, especially when she is pregnant.
Stourley Kracklite: Yes, that's right. She is pregnant. But not with your child, Speckler.
Caspasian Speckler: True. I'm very grateful to you for that. Your child, shall we say, is the most perfect contraceptive.
[Kracklite turns and punches Speckler in the nose]

Movie Connections:

Referenced in The Tulse Luper Suitcases, Part 3: From Sark to the Finish (2003)

A study of the tortures of unappreciated architects

The ebullient Brian Dennehy gives a fine performance as Stourley Kracklite, an American architect who is in Rome with his younger wife Louisa (Chloe Webb) to arrange an exhibition on the French architect Etienne-Louis Boullée. Kracklite is obsessed with Boullée and even writes letters to him. Kracklite's life soon begins to deteriorate. He starts to suffer excruciating stomach pains and vomits each time he eats. He even thinks that his wife is poisoning him. His wife then falls pregnant and has an affair with Kracklite's rival architect, Caspasian Speckler (Lambert Wilson). Kracklite then sleeps with Speckler's sister, to get some sort of satisfaction. Speckler intrudes while they are having sex, and announces, "having sex with your pregnant wife is perfect, because I don't need to use contraception". Kracklite then punches him on the nose. Speckler's sister then says, "Don't put your blood on my white towel."

The film follows the parallels of these two unappreciated architects from different eras. The film is memorable for Dennehy's (an actor who is also unappreciated) remarkable performance. Also, the beautiful cinematography by Greenaway's trusty DOP Sacha Vierny makes the film very easy to look at. From the ancient architecture of Rome, to a painting-like bowl of figs, it is pristine-looking. Michael Nyman is absent, but the music by Wim Mertens is splendid. This film was made in between A Zed & Two Noughts and Drowning by Numbers, and it is quite unlike those two films, which, I think, are superior to this in the way they offer us a much more enigmatic, abstract concept. But even an ever so slightly lesser Greenaway film is a thing to behold.