Prospero's Books

1991
R
2h 4m

IMDb RATING

6.8/10

6.8K

YOUR RATING

John Gielgud, Isabelle Pasco, Mark Rylance, and Michael Clark in Prospero's Books (1991)

The magician Prospero attempts to stop his daughter's affair with an enemy.

Play trailer1:14

1 Video

29 Photos

Drama Fantasy

The magician Prospero attempts to stop his daughter's affair with an enemy.The magician Prospero attempts to stop his daughter's affair with an enemy.The magician Prospero attempts to stop his daughter's affair with an enemy.

Director
- Peter Greenaway
Writers
- William Shakespeare
- Peter Greenaway
Stars

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

6.8/10

6.8K

YOUR RATING

Director
- Peter Greenaway
Writers
- William Shakespeare
- Peter Greenaway
Stars

See production info at IMDbPro

Nominated for 1 BAFTA Award
- 3 wins & 4 nominations total

Videos1

Trailer 1:14

Trailer

Photos29

+ 23

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Storyline

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Did you know

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Trivia
Prospero was Sir John Gielgud's favorite stage role and he had attempted to mount a movie of Shakespeare's "The Tempest" for decades, contacting Orson Welles, Akira Kurosawa, and Ingmar Bergman about directing, and Welles and Albert Finney about playing Caliban. The version with Welles directing and playing Caliban was in preparation until the financial failure of Welles' and Gielgud's movie of Falstaff (1966) forced the project to fall through, where it laid dormant until Gielgud finally convinced Peter Greenaway to make this version.

Alternate versions
The German DVD version has two title cards before the opening credits explaining prior events and the premise of the film.

Connections
Featured in Siskel & Ebert: Paradise/Livin' Large/The Fisher King/The Indian Runner (1991)

Soundtracks
Prospero's Magic
Written by Michael Nyman

User reviews90

Review

Featured review

The best motion picture ever made in the history of cinematography

This film is one of the very few examples of a cinema as a visual art and that is why it irritates so many people. It's very sad but one doesn't need a screen to follow 99,9 % of the movies made for the last one hundred years of the history of cinematography: you can simply broadcast them on radio. But this one belongs to 0,1 %(as well as Fellini's Otto e Mezzo, or Paradzhanov's Sayat Nova, for example) that you really have to WATCH. So try to perceive "Prospero's Books" not just as an illustrative material to some pieces of literature, but as an art exhibition in motion. Maybe that will make it easier for you, dear Hollywood junk viewer.