Prospero’s Books

Synopsis: Feature film based on Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Prospero is given 24 books to lessen the pain of his exile on a barren island. Greenaway interprets The Tempest as a mind reviewing its entire contents, and these books, which include the text of the film, comprise a collection of all knowledge, and also allude to many of Greenaway’s earlier films. A commentary on the play is supplied by images of the books, generated by high-definition television and computer paintbox graphics.
Language: English
Country: France; Great Britain; Italy; Netherlands
Medium: Film
Technical information: Black-and-white / Sound
Year of release: 1991
Duration: 120 mins

Director

Peter Greenaway

Producer

Cinematographer

Screenplay

Music

Art Direction

Eljo Embregts; Wilma Schuemie

Cast

Production type: Fiction Films
Plays: Tempest, The
Subjects: Drama
Keywords: Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)
Related items: Peter Greenaway: Anatomy of a Film-Maker; Walk Through Prospero’s Library, A

General: According to Greenaway, Prospero’s books (the twenty four books given to him by Gonzalo before his exile) were: The Book of Water, A Book of Mirrors, A Book of Mythologies, A Primer of the Small Stars, An Atlas Belonging to Orpheus, A Harsh Book of Geometry, The Book of Colours, The Vesalius Anatomy of Birth, An Alphabetical Inventory of the Dead, A Book of Travellers’ Tales, the Book of the Earth, A Book of Architecture and Other Music, The Ninety-Two Conceits of the Minotaur, The Book of Languages, End-Plants, A Book of Love, A Bestiary of Past, Present and Future Animals, The Book of Utopias, The Book of Universal Cosmography, Love of Ruins, The Autobiographies of Pasiphae and Semiramis, A Book of Motion, The Book of Games, and Thirty-Six Plays (the latter volume with nineteen pages left blank at the front for the inclusion of the first play, ‘The Tempest’).
Figures: $1, 750,301 Total Lifetime Gross (USA) - Box Office Mojo 2005
Reviews: Donaldson, Peter S. ‘Shakespeare in the Age of Post-Mechanical Reproduction: Sexual and Electronic Magic in PROSPERO’S BOOKS’. in Burt, Richard & Boose, Lynda E. Shakespeare the Movie, II: Popularizing the Plays on Film, TV, Video and DVD (New York & London: Routledge, 2003), pp. 105-119.

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Shakespeare, "Prospero’s Books". https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/shakespeare/search/index.php/title/17466 (Accessed 15 Sep 2024)

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