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)

Beautiful

Greenaway's visuals (which betray his origins as a painter in almost every gorgeously composed shot) are sumptuous. Wim Mertens score is mesmerizing. Add them to Brian Dennehy's towering performance as obsessed, betrayed, and ultimately dying American architect Stourley Kracklite and you have something very special. Kracklite is in Rome battling to put on an exhibition to his idol, 18th century French architect Etienne Louis Boulet. His young wife (Webb) betrays him, the natives scheme to undermine his exhibition and he begins to crumble physically like the ruins of the eternal city around him. The story, largely carried on Dennehy's massive shoulders, is almost incidental to the glorious, poetic footage of Rome. It is so movingly beautiful that, when I finally got around to visiting the city (a trip in no small part inspired by this film) the reality of the place couldn't compete. If you can, watch this on a big screen with the best possible suround-sound. If you can't, watch it anyway.