Dear Phone

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🎙️ EPISODE 411: 03.01.22 𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝟏𝟎-𝐕𝐨𝐥𝐮𝐦𝐞 RANKING GREENAWAY 𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 A strange, story-based film which nonetheless incorporates the broad thematic elements of the other 70s shorts. We see handwritten notes in semi-scratched-out chicken scratch intercut with static shots of public phone booths (the classic British red, Dr. Who variety). These narrated notes all tangentially reference phones and making phone calls: forgetting phone numbers, the price of making a phone call, not being able to make a phone call, insulting the operator, phone sex, phones being sweaty and gross because of phone sex, the societal and cultural importance of the telephone as an invention, discrimination against male operators, workers' rights, the spread of infection via public phones, obsessive compulsive disorder, telephoning as a fine art, etc. At the halfway point, this character's interest in the phone becomes fanatical, an obsession. A love affair with this tool of communication itself instead of the service it provides. This is a brilliant and funny and very idiosyncratic look at obsession.

Greenaway will eventually go on to call for the death of all screenwriters (facetiously!) but the truth of the matter is that he was great at it. He's a funny and engrossing writer, creating rich worlds without much effort.

CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ EPISODE 411B - (YOU ARE HERE) - EPISODE 411D ⫸

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A short film by Peter Greenaway, available in the collection GREENAWAY: THE SHORTS. A narrator relates a variety of peculiar stories involving characters with the initials HC and their dealings with telephones. These are interspersed with artistic shots of telephone boxes in a variety of locations. It was released on January 1, 1976.