Alan Parker once claimed he’d leave the country if Peter Greenaway made another movie: “A load of posturing poo-poo”
Hollywood is full of strong personalities, so it only makes sense that some pretty harsh exchanges between filmmakers have been made over the years, even if some of them are nothing but hot air.
While certain directors seem to have a problem with each other, looking at the constant disagreements that have floated between Quentin Tarantino and Spike Lee, some feuds are much more one-sided. I mean, the legendary French director Jacques Rivette once said that James Cameron “can’t direct his way out of a paper bag.” You’ve got to let the Celine and Julie Go Boating director have that one, come on.
One of the most interesting instances of an auteur absolutely despising another, however, comes in the form of a certain mainstream director’s hatred for avant-garde master Peter Greenaway.
While Greenaway has always been busy doing his own thing, whether he’s exploring the bizarre intersection between food, sex, and violence in one of Britain’s strangest films or bringing lavish costumes to a period murder mystery in the form of The Draughtsman’s Contract, a certain filmmaker has had a lot to say about him.
When Derbyshire-born Alan Parker, the brains behind the popular flicks such as Fame, Mississippi Burning, Midnight Express, and Evita, saw The Draughtsman’s Contract, he instantly hated it, declaring it a pretentious mess. Specifically, he called it “a load of posturing poo-poo.” That’s one way to put it, I guess.
Welsh filmmaker Greenaway has always pushed boundaries within his work, boldly playing with form and visuals to create some pretty transgressive and endlessly impressive pieces of work dating back to the 1960s. But Parker can’t stand this brand of experimental filmmaking that seems to alienate certain viewers, preferring instead to make the kinds of movies that find no trouble securing an audience and scoring a good profit.
Parker hated Greenaway’s expressive and unconventional approach to filmmaking so much that he once somewhat jokingly claimed that he’d leave the country and have his children educated in America if Greenaway made another movie. He attacked the director’s work in his documentary A Turnip Head’s Guide to British Cinema, and he even made posters that said ‘Instant narcolepsy – see a Greenaway film.’
There were stark differences in the two filmmakers’ approaches to creating art, and it seems like Parker was particularly passionate about making his hatred of Greenaway’s arty-farty approach, as he might put it, known. But Parker has always opted for safe, accessible, Hollywood-appeasing filmmaking. Where’s the fun in that? Director Alex Cox summed him up well, calling his work “straightforwardly detestable: dishonest, propagandistic, authority-loving crap of the ilk of Mississippi Burning.”
Greenaway has never slated Parker’s unoriginal cinematic bores because he knows that he makes the more interesting movies. That’s enough. Parker somehow felt the need to constantly admonish Greenaway’s work, and perhaps it was out of insecurity. Whatever the reason, at least we got the phrase “a load of posturing poo-poo” out of his intense dislike.
