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Trained as an artist and practised as an editor, Peter Greenaway is one of the few modern film directors whose work not only demonstrates an appreciation of the history of cinema (indeed, of all the visual arts), but also a fascination with its untapped potential. This is almost inevitable, considering his mentors include Eisenstein, Godard and Hollis Frampton. But it's... [+]

Trained as an artist and practised as an editor, Peter Greenaway is one of the few modern film directors whose work not only demonstrates an appreciation of the history of cinema (indeed, of all the visual arts), but also a fascination with its untapped potential. This is almost inevitable, considering his mentors include Eisenstein, Godard and Hollis Frampton. But it's what Greenaway rejects, as much as what he embraces, that makes him such a distinctive talent.

Conscious of the hold that language and literature have over this essentially visual medium, Greenaway has redefined the way in which intellectual ideas, plot points and character traits can be assimilated into the action. This has prompted some to call him a structuralist - and cite the use of the artist's viewer in The Draughtsman's Contract and the scientific tables in A Zed & Two Noughts as evidence. But his influences and interests are too eclectic for such an easy bracketing. These films eased the avant-gardist into the arthouse mainstream. But rather than assimilate the social, political or aesthetic concerns of European cinéastes, Greenaway chose instead to continue the experiments of his earlier shorts on a larger scale - without having to make any commercial compromises. Thus, he is able to suggest in his sleeve notes for The Draughtsman's Contract that it could have been called Vertical Features Remake.

Greenaway has always been aware of film's status as an artform. Consequently, the depiction of art in such a conspicuous way within The Draughtsman's Contract is quite calculated - `It's to demonstrate artificiality. Cinema is a deeply artificial medium, and I want to show that when you watch a film of mine you are only watching a film.' This also explains the emphasis on Mr Neville's artificial means of achieving authenticity in his drawings, the painterly formalism of the tableaux that comprise the action and the prominence of Michael Nyman's soundtrack, which is anything but background music.

Film is essentially the capture of a moment in light and this concept is also evident throughout A Zed & Two Noughts, which borrows its visual texture from the canvases of Vermeer - a near contemporary of Mr Neville. With personalities as diverse as Jim Davidson and David Attenborough among its cast, this disconcerting study of twinship, preservation and decay incorporated the notions of sex, death, symmetry and number that have become Greenaway's trademark.

With its constant allusions and visual and verbal puns, A Zed & Two Noughts is even more of an cerebral puzzle than The Draughtsman's Contract. But, thanks to Sacha Vierny's lustrous imagery, it's also meticulously composed work of art - whose use of time-lapse photography (invariably accompanied by Nyman's frantic score) again showcases just how little of the moving picture's box of tricks mainstream and arthouse cinema has so far utilised. We shouldn't be surprised - given the advances in technology - to learn, therefore, that Greenaway would be keen to remake the film and extend its games with symbolism, multiple meaning and non-narrative structure. [-]