A Zed And Two Noughts
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''A Zed & Two Noughts'' is a 1985 film written and directed by
Peter Greenaway Peter Greenaway, (born 5 April 1942) is a British film director, screenwriter and artist. His films are noted for the distinct influence of Renaissance and Baroque painting, and Mannerist painting in particular. Common traits in his films a ...
. This film was Greenaway's first collaboration with cinematographer
Sacha Vierny Sacha Vierny (10 August 1919 – 15 May 2001) was a French cinematographer. He was born in Bois-le-Roi, Seine-et-Marne, Île-de-France, France, and died in Paris, France, at the age of 81. He is most famous for his work with Alain Resnais – espe ...
, who went on to shoot virtually all of Greenaway's work in the 1980s and 1990s, until Vierny's death. Greenaway referred to Vierny as his "most important collaborator". The film deals with twin zoologists who, after losing both their wives in a car accident, develop an obsession with animal decomposition.


Plot

Twin zoologists, Oswald and Oliver Deuce ( Brian Deacon and
Eric Deacon Eric Cecil Deacon (born 25 May 1950 in Oxford) is an English actor and writer perhaps best known for his role in the 1985 film '' A Zed & Two Noughts'', directed by Peter Greenaway, in which he acted alongside his brother Brian. He trained as ...
), are at work studying the behaviour of animals at a zoo when both their wives are killed in a car crash involving a large swan which crashes through the car windscreen. The woman who was driving the car, Alba Bewick (
Andréa Ferréol Andréa Ferréol (born Andrée Louise Ferréol; 6 January 1947) is a French actress and officer of the Ordre national du Mérite (2009). Her debut was in the 1973 film '' La Grande bouffe'', which made a big scandal at the Cannes Film Festival. ...
), is not killed, but has a leg amputated. Venus de Milo (
Frances Barber Frances Barber (née Brookes, born 13 May 1958) is an English actress. She received Olivier Award nominations for her work in the plays '' Camille'' (1985), and '' Uncle Vanya'' (1997). Her film appearances include three collaborations with ...
), a prostitute and storyteller who plies her trade at the zoo, attempts to forge a relationship with the twins, ostensibly to help them recover from their loss. Meanwhile, Oswald and Oliver gradually become obsessed with images of growth and decay, watching videos on the origins of life and creating
time-lapse Time-lapse photography is a technique in which the frequency at which film frames are captured (the frame rate) is much lower than the frequency used to view the sequence. When played at normal speed, time appears to be moving faster and th ...
video of decomposing life forms. They begin this latter task with a green apple, bitten into and rotting before their camera lens. The twins' descent sees them become romantically involved with Alba, and increasingly attached to one another. Venus de Milo remains involved with them enough to observe their obsessions grow: they take to video-taping the decomposition of prawns, and they take a personal interest in Alba's childhood, going so far as to ask her to show them a field seen in a photograph on her bedside table. They become obsessed with snails, and they take advantage of their contacts at the zoo to create decomposition videos of more and more complex animals, moving gradually up the food chain. Excerpts from Sir
David Attenborough Sir David Frederick Attenborough (; born 8 May 1926) is an English broadcaster, biologist, natural historian and writer. He is best known for writing and presenting, in conjunction with the BBC Studios Natural History Unit, the nine nature d ...
's TV series '' Life on Earth'', including his narration, are featured in the film. Alba becomes a subject for the experiments of her surgeon, who eventually amputates her other leg, claiming it is putting stress on her spine. His true motive is to fashion Alba into a subject of his recreations of
Johannes Vermeer Johannes Vermeer ( , ; see below; also known as Jan Vermeer; October 1632 – 15 December 1675) was a Dutch painter who specialized in domestic interior scenes of middle-class life. He is considered one of the greatest painters of the Dutch ...
paintings; Venus de Milo participates in this process, as well. Ultimately, the Deuce brothers' obsession with decay leads them to the top of the food chain, and to a complex life-and-death negotiation with Alba herself. The brothers' project seems the only possible emotional investment for either of them, so Alba offers herself as the final specimen to be photographed in its decay. However her family intervenes before the brothers can claim her, so they are forced to find another way to create their final time-lapse video. They do so by returning to the field of Alba's childhood and setting up the necessary equipment to facilitate and capture their own decomposition. A huge infestation of
snail A snail is a shelled gastropod. The name is most often applied to land snails, terrestrial molluscs, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod molluscs. However, the common name ''snail'' is also used for most of the members of the molluscan class Gas ...
s covers the equipment and bodies, however, and finally shorts out the electrical system, halting their grand project.


Cast


Reception

The film received generally positive reviews, holding a 75% on aggregator
Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...
from 20 reviews.
Philip French Philip Neville French (28 August 1933 – 27 October 2015) was an English film critic and radio producer. French began his career in journalism in the late 1950s, before eventually becoming a BBC Radio producer, and later a film critic. H ...
of ''
The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. First published in 1791, it is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper. In 1993 it was acquired by Guardian Media Group Limited, and operated as a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' ...
'' wrote, "The energy is immense, the appearance of the film consistently sleek and visually exciting."
Jonathan Rosenbaum Jonathan Rosenbaum (born February 27, 1943) is an American film critic and author. Rosenbaum was the head film critic for '' The Chicago Reader'' from 1987 to 2008. He has published and edited numerous books about cinema and has contributed to ...
considers it to be "the boldest and arguably the best of Peter Greenaway's fiction features". Not all reviews were positive, however.
Vincent Canby Vincent Canby (July 27, 1924 – October 15, 2000) was an American film and theatre critic who was the chief film critic for ''The New York Times'' from 1969 until the early 1990s, then its chief theatre critic from 1994 until his death in 2000. ...
of ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'' called it "pretentious, humorless and, worst of all, more boring than a retrospective devoted to television weather forecasts delivered over a 30-year period at 11 P.M., Eastern standard time."
Philip Hoffman Philip Hoffman or other variants may refer to: Actors *Philip Seymour Hoffman (1967–2014), Academy Award-winning American actor *Philip Hoffman (Broadway actor) (born 1954), Broadway actor in ''Into the Woods'' Politicians *Philip Hoffman (Brit ...
's 1986 documentary film '' ?O, Zoo!: The Making of a Fiction Film'' was based in part around the making of ''A Zed & Two Noughts''.Robert Everett-Green, "Celluloid experiments". ''
The Globe and Mail ''The Globe and Mail'' is a Newspapers in Canada, Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in Western Canada, western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of more than 6 million in 2024, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on week ...
'', September 6, 1986.


Soundtrack

Elements of Michael Nyman's score invoke the " Dies Irae" section from
Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber correctly ''Biber von Bibern'' ( bapt. 12 August 1644, Stráž pod Ralskem – 3 May 1704, Salzburg) was a Bohemian-Austrian composer and violinist. Biber worked in Graz and Kroměříž before he illegally left ...
's ''Requiem ex F con terza minore''. The "Angelfish Decay"/"Swan Rot"/"L'Escargot" theme was originally written for ''Childs Play'', a dance work commissioned by
Lucinda Childs Lucinda Childs (born June 26, 1940) is an American postmodern dancer and choreographer. Her compositions are known for their minimalistic movements yet complex transitions. Childs is most famous for being able to turn the slightest movements into ...
. Performance of the soundtrack is credited to Nyman,
Alexander Balanescu Alexander () is a male name of Greek origin. The most prominent bearer of the name is Alexander the Great, the king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia who created one of the largest empires in ancient history. Variants listed here are A ...
, Elisabeth Perry, Sarah Leonard and "The Zoo Orchestra". While the score is in the Michael Nyman Band's repertoire, particularly "Time Lapse" and "Prawn Watching", they do not perform on the soundtrack. Musicians credited on the film's closing credits are (in alphabetical order) Arno Bons, Gerard Bouwhuis, Bas Dekker, Pieter Gouderjaan, Rob Hageman, John Helstone, Jan Jansen, Sofia Kiss, Henk Leether, Beverly Lund, Gerrit Oloeman, Jelle Schouten, Jorn Shroeder, Peter Stan, Win Steinman, Leo Van Oostron, Marien Van Staalen, Adri Van Velson, Peter Veenhuizen, Lene Te Voortwis, Frans Vreugdenhil, and Gerbrand Westveen.


Track listing

#"Angelfish Decay" #"Car Crash" #"Time Lapse" #"Prawn Watching" #"Bisocosis Populi" #"Swan Rot" #"Delft Waltz" #"Up for Crabs" #"Vermeer's Wife" #"Venus de Milo" #"Lady in the Red Hat" #"L'Escargot" *Produced by David Cunningham *Recorded at VARA Studio, Berry Street Studio and
Olympic Studios Olympic Studios was a British independent recording studio based on Church Road, Barnes, Church Road, Barnes, London, Barnes, London. It is best known for its recordings of many artists throughout the late 1960s to the first decade of the 21st ...
*Mixed at Olympic Studios *Digital editing at Finesplice *Mastered by Tim Young and Michael J. Dutton The album was issued on
compact disc The compact disc (CD) is a Digital media, digital optical disc data storage format co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. It employs the Compact Disc Digital Audio (CD-DA) standard and was capable of hol ...
in the United States on 4 June 1991, with a new cover featuring Ferreol in-between the Deacons in bed, and the title spelled ''A Zed And Two Noughts''. The original LP cover showed a zebra in a cage, as does the UK CD. A
digitally remastered A remaster is a change in the sound or image quality of previously created forms of media, whether audiophonic, cinematic, or videographic. The resulting product is said to be remastered. The terms digital remastering and digitally remastere ...
edition was released in the United States with the 1991 cover on 29 March 2004.


References


External links


A Zed & Two Noughts at petergreenaway.org.uk

Unofficial Peter Greenaway fan site
*

review a
The Film Walrus
{{DEFAULTSORT:Zed And Two Noughts, A 1985 films 1985 comedy-drama films British comedy-drama films British independent films Dutch avant-garde and experimental films Dutch comedy-drama films Dutch independent films English-language Dutch films Films directed by Peter Greenaway Films scored by Michael Nyman Films about twin brothers Films set in zoos 1980s English-language films 1980s British films English-language comedy-drama films