The Draughtsman's Contract (1982)

'Two parterre and a drive of orange trees...'

‘From two o’ clock until four o’ clock in the afternoon, the front of the house that faces West will be kept clear…’

The Nineteen Eighties. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. To understand this curious decade, think shift of seismic plates. Two forces moving in opposite directions, yet, strangely, part of the same. Like the Yin and the Yang. One force edgy, spiky, radical, controversial and confrontational: Punk, The New Romantics, Mrs Thatcher and The Big Bang; Channel 4's After Dark, Vivienne Westwood and Katharine Hamnett, Loads of Money. The other force, conservative (with a small c): Colefax & Fowler, Chintz, Sloane Rangers, The Raj Revival, the Bentley Mulsanne Turbo, Gary Rhodes; Bread and Butter Pudding and Brideshead; The World of Interiors.

The mid-to-late 1980s is a Golden Age of British Cinema, especially independent British Cinema. Remember Colin Welland’s ‘The British are Coming!’? At the 1982 Oscars? There’s a notable outbreak of British cinematic creativity in the first half of that contrarian decade: The Long Good Friday (1980), The Elephant Man (1980), Chariots of Fire (1981), Gregory’s Girl (1981), The Return of a Soldier (1982), Local Hero (1983), Another Country (1984), My Beautiful Laundrette (1985), Room with a View (1985), Dance with a Stranger (1985) and Dreamchild (1985)- all of which we’ll be covering in future newsletters.

'I would favour you myself above two parterre and a drive of orange trees…’

I saw The Draughtsman's Contract when it first came out. With my Hampstead Aunt. At that art-house cinema in Belsize Park. I'm not going to pretend that I understood it; I didn't. But the plot, without giving too much away, goes something like this. Mrs Herbert (Janet Suzman) hires Mr ‘Cock o’ the South’ Neville (Anthony Higgens), a conceited young painter and draughtsman, to ‘manufacture’ twelve drawings of her Wiltshire country house (actually Groombridge Place, Kent)- including the ‘estate, gardens, park and outlying buildings’- over the course of twelve days. In return, there’s an additional clause. ‘And to agree to meet Mr Neville in private and to comply with his requests concerning his pleasure with me.’ Which does exactly what it says on the parchment. In the meantime, Mrs Herbert’s Germanic son-in-law, Mr Talmann (in a lovely guttural performance from Cap’n Hastings himself, Hugh Fraser) stalks the gardens with a cryptic sneer on his face and Mrs Talmann (played by Anne Louise Lambert, star of the rather wonderful Picnic at Hanging Rock) and whippet hatch a devious plot.

‘A pox on you, Mr Neville!’

With hindsight, the thing to grasp is that it's not an accurate period depiction of the late 17th century. Director, Peter Greenaway, I think, removed a scene with the be-wigged fops talking to each other on gargantuan mobile phones. Another scene (subsequently deleted, I gather) had a painting in the manner of Roy Lichtenstein (Wham, Bam! Thank You Ma’am!) set against the panelled walls of Groombridge Place. Still, it’s the most accessible of Peter Greenaway’s films; certainly when compared to Zed and Two Noughts (1985), The Belly of an Architect (1987) or Prospero's Books (1991), the latter with its detailed transcriptions of 16th century magical texts juxtaposed against a tantalising glimpse of Sir John Gielgud's naked derrière, floundering in a tank of tepid water.

‘Property Porn: A house, a horse, a garden, a wife…’

The Draughtsman’s Contract is set in the dog days of 1694. The late 17th century is, of course, a fascinating period in British history, one rarely depicted on the silver screen. Luxury takes hold (‘a politer way of living’), The Bank of England is born, and following the Glorious Revolution of 1688, England- later Great Britain- begins its ascent up the slippery pole of world domination. The East India Company and All That. The Draughtsman’s Contract was released in the same year as The Falklands War, at a time of Britain's parallel reawakening in the 1980s; certainly a time of renewed self-confidence on the world stage. Intentionally- or unintentionally- it captures that early Eighties zeitgeist- alongside that very English obsession with property rights. Nothing like a Trollopean feud with your neighbour over the Cupressocyparis Leylandii.

But despite its intellectual undertones- its art-history references, to Caravaggio, de la Tour, Rembrandt and Vermeer- and Peter Greenaway’s obsession with decay, contrast and duality, The Draughtsman’s Contract can be enjoyed as an historical thriller- as a Country House Whodunnit (Dorothy L. Sayers meets The Beggar’s Opera) explaining not only its modest box office success, but its continued popularity amongst a wider audience. It has that certain something.

‘Dorothy L. Sayers meets The Beggar’s Opera…’

What else? Michael Nymans' brilliant, spiky score (Chasing Sheep is best left to Shepherds) is a lift from Henry Purcell’s semi-opera, King Arthur (1691). But you knew that; subsequently used by the ever-sophisticated Pet Shop Boys in Love is a Bourgeois Construct (2013). And visually, and despite its presumed low budget (made for an estimated £320,000), The Draughtsman’s Contract looks terrific; shot, surprisingly, on grainy Super 16mm, blown up to a painterly 35mm for cinema release.

And the living statue? That’s a Red Herring.

The Draughtsman’s Contract (1982), director: Peter Greenaway, is available to download via Amazon Prime Video. And there’s an excellent DVD, digitally restored by the BFI in 2003, also available on Blu-Ray.

I hope you enjoyed this review. I'm posting a film recommendation every Friday morning (London time) so please join me over the coming weeks. It’s going to be fun.

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