Vertical Features Remake

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🎙️ EPISODE 411: 03.01.22 𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝟏𝟎-𝐕𝐨𝐥𝐮𝐦𝐞 RANKING GREENAWAY 𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 This precursor to Peter Greenaway's grand entry into feature filmmaking — 1980's mammoth The Falls — is arguably his best and most notable short (and one of the longest at 45 minutes). We are properly introduced to the fictional character Tulse Luper here (he is also 'in' A Walk Through H, the obsessive and eccentric stand-in for Greenaway's, uh, ummm, obsessions and eccentricities? This multifaceted and deeply layered on a conceptual level. It is helmed in his classic mockumentary style as the reclamation and restoration project of a lost, never assembled film by Luper. The "remake" here is actually "remakes," plural: four attempts, using structuralist though fictional notes and graphs as a guide, to literally remake the work Vertical Features.

The footage is all static shots of found features in the English landscape, such as fences, trees and posts. Each "attempt" is buffered by more analysis of the Luper ephemera (all hand-drawn or designed by Greenaway himself). Each time the restoration team is presented with new material or instructions to remake the film in a more accurate way. We see here the beginning of a fascinating preoccupation with structure, lists, rules, and form, and how those things work to bring meaning to a piece, or — perhaps — completely destroy meaning and intention in the end. It's about how artist intent is only a tiny fraction of the experience. So much of the Greenaway output feels aloof and asinine on the surface, about subjects no one possibly could have any interest in. But it isn't about trees or birds or vertical features. It's about filmmaking itself. We sit in a dark room and submit to the recorded images on the rectangle in front of our faces. We want to be passively entertained or engaged. We don't want to think about what decisions were made in the process of assembling the film, not while we're watching anyway. And this is exactly what Greenaway is forcing us to do in the most literal way possible.

Also, the synth-laden soundtrack when the title card drops sounds so much like Uncut Gems, right?

CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ EPISODE 411G - (YOU ARE HERE) - EPISODE 412 ⫸

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Vertical Features Remake (1978) is a short film by Peter Greenaway. It portrays the work of a fictional Institute of Reclamation and Restoration as they attempt to assemble raw footage taken by ornithologist Tulse Luper into a short film, in accordance with his notes and structuralist film theory. The footage consists mostly of vertical landscape features, such as trees and posts, shot in the English landscape. It contains four restoration attempts, each with a documentary-like introduction. It was released on January 1, 1978.