Super Greenaway Bros.

Peter Greenaway's next film is Nightwatching, a film about Rembrandt, his painting The Night Watch (or more correctly The Company of Captain Frans Banning Cocq and Lieutenant Willem van Ruytenhurch) and it's purpose as an accusation of murder. I imagine the story of the murder is woven in too.

To accompany the film, Greenaway has also made a documentary he's calling J'Accuse, which not only refers to the above painting, but also examines the contemporary slide in visual literacy. I have to say, I know exactly what he means - a medium as rich in potential as film and we get more Michael Bays than Terry Gilliams, more Darren Lynn Bousmans than Alfred Hitchcocks, more Stephen Spielbergs than Dario Argentos? Something's up. There have been too many empty images that require little or no investment on the part of the audience, and in return offer the audience even less - in Soap Operas, Reality TV and bland Game Shows and Talk Shows. Not to say these things can't have other merits, just that their visual component is, typically, verging on the superfluous.

After the film and the documentary the third piece in the set (gotta catch 'em all) is a videogame. Yep - you herad that right. Peter Greenaway is working on a videogame. Of course, you can expect something rather more Myst than, say, Yoshi's Island DS, but all the same, videogames need more Peter Greenaway and less Crash Bandicoot.

Screen Daily don't have many details, but the game does apparently involve the solving of a (the?) murder.

One day, I hope, videogames will be free of the ridiculous limitations that hold them back these days - namely, the expectations of mindless Playstation zombies - and 'games' as powerful and purposeful as the best films will be with us. I see the Nintendo Wii as a deep stride in that direction, and I hope, one day, to be playing games by the new, interactive equivalents of Peter Greenaway, Maya Derren, David Lynch, Joel and Ethan Coen, Mark Romanek, Jean Vigo...