Fairly soon after the release of "Prospero's Books" John Gielgud realeased a book on his life. In the book he realates his experience of working with Peter Greenaway on "Prospero's Books".
The following is an extract from Acting Shakespeare, by John Gielgud with John Miller, Charles Scribner's Sons New York, 1991:
I always had a great ambition to film _The Tempest_, but I could not find a director until I happened to meet Peter Greenaway. I had been fascinated by his films, especially _The Draughtsman's Contract_, which I saw two or three times. He was a completely new personality, as you could feel from the way in which his films were photographed and acted.
Then, out of the blue, Peter Greenaway rang me up to ask if I would appear for three or four days in a television film of Dante's Inferno (titled A TV DANTE)... Then, while we were having lunch one day, I said "You know, the one thing I long to do is to make a film of The Tempest." Three months later I received from him a detailed script, devised for the screen, and containing the first part of the play, up to the meeting of Ferdinand and Miranda. A few months later he had completed the whole shooting script and sent it to me. It made an enormously thick volume, with every kind of detailed description of how the film was to be shot. The scenario is, I think, extraordinarily original and daring. It consists entirely of Shakespeare's text: there is not a word in it that is not in the play. But then he suddenly said, "Why don't know play all the parts?" I replied, "You must be mad. What about Miranda and Ariel?" I didn't really understand what he was driving at.... Gielgud had been attempting to interest other directors in _The Tempest_ for a while -- Akiro Kurosawa and Ingmar Bergman never answered; Peter Brook only worked with his own company; Gielgud didn't like Derek Jarman's ideas; Peter Sellars was willing, but the financing fell through.
...
We filmed in Amsterdam in the spring of 1990 and the final editing was being completed in Japan in 1991. It is a perfectly authentic version of the play, but completely fantasised and elaborated by Greenaway in his own particular way. I imagine, from what little I have seen of it so far, that what might emerge is a kind of mimed ballet of the action, with Shakespeare's words spoken over it. On the screen you see Prospero beginning to become inspired to write the play.
... The suggestion to use flashbacks to show the early life of Prospero and Miranda was Gielgud's.
As I write this, I have not yet seen the film, only an hour of clips, and there is an enormous amount of editing still to be done, with magic effects of all kinds. Until it is finished I have no means of judging how it has succeeded. But I am perfectly sure that it will be very beautiful to look at. Of course, Greenaway is a painter himself, influenced by Tintoretto and Titian and all the great Renaissance painters, and he organises and choreographs all his scenes with remarkable taste and feeling for depth and colour.
He was working with a crew, most of whom he had used in his other films, and a superlative French lighting man, Sacha Vierny, whose work is most imaginative, mysterious, and striking. There are magnificent sets and costumes, mostly in the Renaissance style, designed by two Dutchmen, Ben Van Os and Jan Raelfs, who have created the Renaissance palace which Prospero has built in his imagination. It was fascinating to be given the opportunity of trying to play this great part, which I now know so very well, after playing it four or five times in the theatre. With Greenaway I had the same feeling that I had with Peter Brook, with Granville-Barker, and with Lindsay ANderson and Peter Hall, the feeling that I could trust their judgment and criticism and put myself entirely into their hands. I had the same experience with Alain Resnais in 1972, when I did the film Providence, which I came to regard as the only screen performance I could be proud of. I found that Greenaway is a great admirer of Resnais, and has never met him because he regards his work so highly.
...
We had another long scene in which Greenaway wanted me to walk with people standing beside me, and when I said I could not see it that way, he understood and changed it at once. We were in great sympathy over everything, and the few times I did suggest or alter something he immediately understood what I was driving at.
Above all, I was greatly impressed by his control. A very quiet man who never raises his voice, he walked about the studio all day long, never sat down, and seemed to work equally easily with the sound man who was British, the lighting man who was French, all the crew who were of mixed nationalities, including a lot of Dutchmen, and the whole cast, extras of every nationality, all very obedient, even when working overtime. They did not seem to mind taking all their clothes off to play the visonary and mythological characters. Unlike the atmosphere on most film sets, no one ever had to shout for quiet; there was no hammering or tantrums or bad behaviour. The whole thing was wonderfully organised, and I greatly hoped that the final result would be all that it seemed to promise while we were shooting it.
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