Rating: 
Summary: The Belly of An Architect: Art versus Life in Rome
Review: For those viewers who have found Greenaway's films excessive at times, and the metaphors attenuated to the point of losing their dramatic power, you will find "The Belly of An Architect" a superb, cinematic work of art. Like the "Draughtsman's Contract" but far more complex, the conflicts which are at first masked by social and artistic conventions unfold gradually between the layers of visual imagery, dialogue and music. Stourley Kracklite, played so perfectly by Brian Dennehy, is a man with a prodigious ego, lust for life and may seem initially to be less than a sympathetic protagonist. But surrounded by intrigue, opportunism and philistinism, he emerges as a hero. He is an architect, an artist with a vision and a mission.From the beginning, his passion for his intellectual mentor,a fictional 18th century French architect, Etienne-Louis Boullee, and the scientist Sir Isaac Newton, provokes thinly veiled ridicule and skepticism from his Italian colleagues. Even
faced with a young and ruthless nemesis, Kracklite remains indomitable. His belly, the center of gravity, becomes a metaphor for his frailty, his humility and his humanity. What makes this film a work of art, in my opinion,is that you have all the components: A setting that complements the drama, Rome and its magnificent monuments as the backdrop, a strong dramatic situation with several critical issues at stake, including good and evil, characters who elude easy definition at first glance and vary distinctively, and themes that develop and resonate long after you have finished watching. As for the music,
I only wish that Greenaway had recorded a soundtrack. Or if there is one, I haven't found it. "The Belly of An Architect" is the kind of film about art and life, the individual and society, vision and convention, love and betrayal that works so beautifully because its creator has remained focused, in my opinion, on telling a story, infusing it with a sense of both urgency and mystery, and so conveying an unmistakable emotional power as well.
Rating:
Summary: Bitter , bizarre and incisive film!
Review: Greenaway made a real jewel movie with this methaporical and painful story of an architect who goes to Italy with his wife attending a professional request . But in the middle of the immortal treasures of the italñian culture , he will live the most terrible hell since his wife commits adultery and the awful fact , he is dying of cancer .
The anguish of being cheated and the personal pain produced by the disease will turn his life in a tragical context .
The climax sequence is simply anthological ; life and death , but told in such level of merciless dramatism that it will be hard for you to forget it for a long , long time.
Extraordinary acting of Brian Denehy and incredible photography and camera work
Rating:
Summary: A Romantic In Extremis
Review: Greenaway's "Belly of An Architect" is visually stunning and philosophically entertaining. It is about an idealistic American architect whose life swiftly declines at the precise moment he attains his life's ambition. It is about idealism and the worship of forms in contrast to the flux and chaos of life and death. It is about the eternal slipping through the fingers of mortal man. It is about reaching for the heights and developing stomach cancer.
Rating:
Summary: A terrific, incredible feast!
Review: Greenaway's film is a feast for the eyes, and Brian Dennehy's portrayal of Stourley Kracklite, an American architect struggling in Rome, is the best of his career. Chloe Webb, most notable for playing Nancy in Sid and Nancy, is great as Louisa, his adulterous wife. However, the best part of the film is Rome itself -- Greenaway portrays the city in postcard settings, with typical static shots of mesmerizing brilliance. The buildings, such as the Victor Emmanuelle Building (The Wedding Cake), jump off the screen, begging you to visit. The music, by genius Wim Mertens replacing Greenaway-staple Michael Nyman, is haunting yet drills into your subconcious. Quite simply, everything about this film is brilliant, even the subtle irony at the end! My only complaint: it isn't available (yet!) on DVD!
addendum, 1/3/05: They finally did release this on DVD, and it is even more brilliant; the colors of Rome come alive quite nicely on the digital format.
Rating:
Summary: A terrific, incredible feast!
Review: Greenaway's film is a feast for the eyes, and Brian Dennehy's portrayal of Stourley Kracklite, an American architect struggling in Rome, is the best of his career. Chloe Webb, most notable for playing Nancy in Sid and Nancy, is great as Louisa, his adulterous wife. However, the best part of the film is Rome itself -- Greenaway portrays the city in postcard settings, with typical static shots of mesmerizing brilliance. The buildings, such as the Victor Emmanuelle Building (The Wedding Cake), jump off the screen, begging you to visit. The music, by genius Wim Mertens replacing Greenaway-staple Michael Nyman, is haunting yet drills into your subconcious. Quite simply, everything about this film is brilliant, even the subtle irony at the end!
Rating: 
Summary: A bellyful of Belly of an Architect
Review: I hope it is okay to review this movie, since I have only seen about a half hour of it, but I started watching it two times, and just couldn't sit through it. I will try to finish it, and maybe the movie will get better; I want to give it a fair chance. However, my opinions so far are not the same as a positive review I read about it. It's called avant-garde, well if that's avant-garde, give me "Hollywood" any day. First of all, I felt I needed binoculars to watch the movie. I could not understand why the camera was so far away from the actors. This made for very uncomfortable scenes and made me very impatient. I don't mind long shots, but this is ridiculus. Also, I could not understand why Dennehy's caracter was even jealous of his wife; she gave him no need to be jealous; she was very sweet to him. I know I must be missing something, but, then again, I could hardly understand what they were saying because they were all so very far away from me, the viewer! I think Brian Dennehy is a very good actor, but I think the director of this movie did a horrible job directing Brian and all the other actors. I think this director was having a bad day. When I do finish watching this movie, I will give another review.
Rating:
Summary: The most beautiful story by Greenaway
Review: I sat for about 10 minutes in front of the televison after watching this. Simply absorbing what I had seen. This is one of Peter Greenaway's least visual films. But unlike the Draughtsman's Contract, the story steps up in it's place (along with the music.)
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting Portrait
Review: In his most accessible and mainstream film, Peter Greenaway looks at an architect in the days leading up to the grand opening of an elaborate building he has designed. The film looks at all of the nagging doubts that an artist has about life, a legacy, and death. Not for all tastes, but well worth your time. Fans of Greenaway will notice all the usual touches (working art history into the story, for example). One viewer here noted they couldn't get past the first 15 minutes and couldn't understand why the main character was behaving in such a way to his wife -- as in many European films, the characters are a bit more complex and Greenaway takes his time unfolding the character sketches, so the reasons for Denehey's behavior is explained. In all, a very rewarding film for those inclined towards this type of thing.
Rating: 
Summary: Six Pack Sonata
Review: Peter Greenaway, presently a professor of Cinema Studies at EGS, has said," I really don't think that we have seen any cinema yet. I think that we have seen a 100 years of illustrated text."
As a former film editor, he cuts in the camera. He loves long tracking shots, and he usually does them in one take. He will open his scenes in tableau, usually in a long shot, and then he allows it to stir to life. Each frame is a masterwork of color, light, and shadow, and a sumptuous feast of dazzling props.
His cinematographer, the great Sacha Vierny, helps Greenaway's cinematic look and style immensily. He has shot eleven of Greenaway's projects. Vierny composes each frame as if it were to be a Pulitzer prize-winning photograph. Two composers, Glenn Branca and Wim Mertens completed the score. This was the first film score for both men. It soared from Neo-classical to jazz; kind of like Nino Rota-lite.
After seeing a Greenaway film, I always feel rushed, like I have just run a foot race through the Louvre, as if ten times too much visual information has rippled over my retina, and that my visual cortex has only perceived a tiny portion of it; that repeated viewings are in order. I usually feel ignorant of the many classical, historical, and philosophic references. I feel that I need to read more, study more, think more, and that I wish I were smarter than I am. I feel extremely challenged and vastly over-stimulated.
Enter Brian Dennehy as the American architect Stourley Kracklite. He is an accomplished actor, and in this film he was able to grandstand, to perform a one-man show. His bulk and his energy were barely contained in the frame. He seemed to shake those pillars on all those great buildings as if they were bed railings. The movie opens in the heat of a sexual encounter as Kracklite copulates his way into Italy. A minor architect, hailing from Chicago, city of red meat and money. Wide of shoulder, amble of belly, bearded and bellicose, Kracklite swaggered about barking orders. He had come to Rome to set up and oversee an exhibition honoring his artistic hero, the 18th century architect, Etienne Louis Boullee'.
Chloe Webb played his young wife, Louisa. He was 54, and she was 24. They had been married for 7 years. She was not very good in this film. She badly needed direction, but Greenaway was not available for such trivial pursuits. Lambert Wilson, known these days as the French rogue Merovingnian in the MATRIX trilogy, played the handsome wealthy Roman architect, Caspasian Speckler. He was rich, arrogant, randy, and deeply dishonest. He would steal Kracklite's life and his wife. He would wrench the exhibition our of the American's hands, and he would witness the man's rapid deterioration with delight.
Kracklite was striken with stomach cramps immediately upon his arrival. This turned out to be the demon cancer, blossoming in his colon. He snarled, raged, and thrashed about, but to no avail. Cancer would be the victor. Or would it? He had some other ideas on that subject.
Greenaway set up the structure of the film to fit within the cycle of gestion, from conception on the rails to birth during the opening ceremony of the Boullee exhibition. Then he added death to the mix; death coiciding with birth, one making room for the other. This film was not a masterpiece, but it was masterfully constructed. Nor was it a vacuous exercise in esthetics as some critics have labeled it. It is a very good film, filled with plenty of grist and gusto.
Rating:
Summary: A study of the tortures of unappreciated architects
Review: 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 a ever so slightly lesser Greenaway film is a thing to behold.
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