Vertical Features Remake

Vertical Features Remake (1978) is a film by Peter Greenaway. It contains the following four film-within-a-films, each with a documentary-like introduction:

Vertical Features Remake

121 images, divided into eleven groups of eleven images. The first image is eleven frames long, and each successive image is one frame longer than the proceeding one. This means that the 121nd image is precisely 131 frames long. Each of the eleven images within a group share the same locality, time of day and season. There are only natural, diegetic sounds.

Vertical Features Remake 2

121 images, divided into eleven groups of eleven images. Each image in the first group lasts for eleven frames, each image in the second group lasts for twenty-two frames, each image in the third group lasts for thirty-three frames, and so on. This structure retains the progressive elongation of the first Vertical Features Remake. Again, the images within a particular group share a common space and time. A chord is played at the beginning of each group.

Vertical Features Remake 3

121 images, divided into eleven groups of eleven images. The odd number images in the first group last for 121 frames, and the even number images last for 11 frames. In the second group, the odd number images last for 110 frames, and the even number images last for 22 frames, and so on. Thus the sixth, central group, contains eleven images, each played for 66 frames. It is the even number frames of groups 7-11 which progressively lengthen, and the odd number images which progressively shorten. So the first and eleventh images of the eleventh group last for eleven frames. Within a group, the shorter scenes share a common locality, time of day, and season, and the alternate, longer images also share a space and time (but one different to the longer images). The shorter images are accompanied by one chord, and the longer images are accompanied by the same number of chords as that group is in the series: for example, the six images of twenty-two frames in the second group are each accompanied by two chords.

Vertical Features Remake 4

The structure of this remake is freer, or more complex, or both. There are forty-one groups. (It will be remembered that Erhaus Bewler Falluper interviewed forty-one people in The Falls, and also that the last-but-one edition of the Standard Directory produced by the committee investigating the V.U.E. (Violent Unknown Event) contained exactly twice that number of biographies. This is almost certainly a coincidence.) Each group, listed chronologically, contains the following number of

11, 9*, 11, 1, 11, 7, 11, 3, 11, 5, 11, 5, 11, 3, 11, 7, 11, 1, 11, 9, 1,9, 11, 1, 11, 7, 11, 3*, 11, 5, 11, 5*, 11, 3, 11, 7, 11, 1, 11, 9*, 11

Each image in the groups of eleven lasts for eleven frames and the group is accompanied by continuous music of fast tempo. Each image in the other groups lasts for 121 frames, and each is accompanied by a musical motif. The exceptions, highlighted by asterisks, are:

9* : Contains only three images, but the first is accompanied by three motifs, the second by one motif, and the third by four motifs. 4+1+4=9.3* : Contains only one image, but is accompanied by three motifs.5* : Contains only three images. The first is accompanied by one motif, the second by three motifs, and the third by one motif. 1+3+1=5.

Note also that:
1. The above list is symmetrical.
2. The central image (highlighted in bold) is in the position of what would have been the eleventh group of eleven, and is accompanied by the music which normally accompanies the groups of eleven images. Being an image of birds, it also highlights the central importance of ornithology in T.L.'s vision.

References

External links

* [http://www.petergreenaway.org.uk/vfr.htm petergreenaway.org.uk]

*
* [http://greenaway.bfi.org.uk/material.php?theme=1&title=vertical&type=Introduction British Film Institute]