DVD: Goltzius and the Pelican Company

In his director’s interview for Goltzius and the Pelican Company Peter Greenaway describes the public profiles that his films have achieved over the years, dividing them into an effective A and B list. He counts his 1982 The Draughtsman's Contract as his most approachable work, while acknowledging that its follow-up A Zed & Two Noughts was greeted by a really savage critical and popular reaction (though the director himself thinks it’s his best film).

With Goltzius Greenaway is back on form, coming at least close to the four-star mark, and the film achieved acclaim on its release around Europe, which has always been rather more generous than most of the reactions he’s been getting in his native land for years. He hasn’t made a film in the UK since the late Eighties, and is based in Amsterdam – so no surprise with a director whose first training was in the visual arts that Dutch artists have provided him with material. His Rembrandt-themed Nighwatching was one of his best films, while celebrations marking the 500th anniversary of the birth of Hieronymus Bosch in 2016 include a planned film on the artist, as well an opera by Philip Glass, for which Greenaway has written the libretto: he’s long been working as much with theatre and gallery installations as on the screen (the premieres of Goltzius came at the Louvre in Paris and National Gallery in London).

Extras of this quality come along very rarely indeed

The main extra of this DVD release is a truly outstanding interview with Greenaway taken by Trevor Johnston in London in July of this year. At almost exactly an hour in length, it’s a top-class watch in its own right, with the director speaking at length and with distinct humour on all sorts of topics, both related to Goltzius, and his work in general. You can’t imagine any other figure who could devote a whole section of conversation to the subject “The Absence of Pubic Hair in Art”, as well as riffing along on the likes of his favourites Darwin and Eisenstein, pornography and religion, and the trademark visual style of his work, which was influenced in Goltzius by the run-down 1920s Zagreb train depot in which it was shot. (Greenaway pictured at the BFI this year).

That jewel of an extra is accompanied by a briefer series of interviews with Greenaway’s collaborators, including his long-standing Dutch producer Kees Kasander, and new (after taking over the mantle of Michael Nyman) musical collaborator Marco Robino of Italy. Some of the French cast appear too, though there’s nothing from either Ramsey Nasr, the former Dutch Poet Laureate who plays the eponymous printmaker of Greeenaway's film, or F Murray Abraham as his patron, the Margrave.

There are also galleries of sketch designs which illustrate the visual development of the project. Extras of this quality come along very rarely indeed, so full plaudits are due to releasing company Axiom for bringing them together. Given that it seems the British Board of Film Classification is about to bring in new (higher) charges for extras on DVD releases – they're charged by the minute – such lavish quality can only be relished.