Peter Greenaway - NIGHT WATCHING

Martin Freeman as Rembrandt van Rijn

The year 1642 marks the turning point in the life of the famous Dutch painter, Rembrandt, turning him from a wealthy respected celebrity into a discredited pauper.

At the insistence of his pregnant wife Saskia, Rembrandt has reluctantly agreed to paint the Amsterdam Musketeer Militia in a group portrait that will later become to be known as The Nightwatch.

He soon discovers that there is a conspiracy afoot with the Amsterdam merchants playing at soldiers maneuvering for financial advantage and personal power in, that time, the richest city in the Western World.

Rembrandt stumbles on a foul murder.

Confident in the birth of a longed-for son and heir, Rembrandt is determined to expose the conspiring murderers and builds his accusation meticulously in the form of the commissioned painting, uncovering the seamy and hypocritical side to Dutch Society in the Golden Age.

Rembrandt reveals the accusation of murder in the painting and the conspirators plan revenge:

They set out to discredit him at home and abroad.
They plant a treacherous mistress, Geertje, to seduce him.
They try to blind him.

They plan his social and financial ruin, and to create the circumstances for his slide into penury, insult his young mistress Hendrickje, conspire to destroy his son, and bring Rembrandt to his knees.

The bold and courageous painting of the Nightwatch, exceptional in aesthetics and content, is Rembrandt's most celebrated painting, it consolidated his reputation as a master-painter but it also destroyed him socially and financially.

Category:

Autos & Vehicles

Tags:

• NIGHT
• WATCHING
• Rembrandt

[SimStarProductions]

* respect for him as an actor. As was the actress who played his wife (i forget her name). Quality acting from the pair! And this comes from a drama student Superb but sadly underrated movie.

[SimStarProductions]

When i watched this film on the telly, i had no idea of what to expect. I didn't know greenaway, i hadn't seen the trailer or heard anything about it, didn't know much about rembrandt. The only reason i watched it was for martin freeman. In the beginning, i wasn't sure what to make of it. But i found i simply couldnt tear my eyes away. The whole film was just stunning! Every shot was a painting come to life. I felt like i was at the theatre. Martin freeman was FANTASTIC and i gained EVAN MORE r

[findegorgorito]

All good except for the English attitude of a... Dutch artist? it is giving us, yet again –this is common nowadays from British films– a rewriting and thus a wrong picture of the past, based on our present, to make it... appealing? I thought Peter G. was a great film maker... he was!

[Jh8hyrtf]

Amazing film! Saw it a couple of days ago and haven't stopped thinking about it since.

Strangely, this trailer doesn't do the movie justice. It's much richer and less 'Hollywood' than you'd guess from this trailer.

[mstreetdallas]

One of the most visually stunning films I have ever seen. The costumes are a treat to the eye. The scenes are lighted in a manner that cleverly imitates the lighting in Rembrandt's paintings. Martin Freeman made Rembrandt come alive in my imagination. And I gained a new appreciation of a period of history, the 1600s, that is almost never depicted in today's movies. I could watch it over and over, just to delight my eyes!

Ken Lampton, 3/2/10

[katysteinert]

Good Story line, Well directed and well deserve movie at Online/Movie/Cafe/dot/com ( Remove / )

[strbt]

well. yeah. compared to draughtsmens contract, they could have used better language. but its dutch. its hard to imagine ...

[Svea69]

why are they using our days language in a movie from playing in 1642? it feels wrong hearing the characters saying "fu*k" and stuff like that and it probably would have worked without words like this

[Ocendesert]

This was finally released last month. I've watched it several times, and I really love this film. There are the typical Greenaway staples of money, nudity, bodily functions, brutal language mixed with poetry, and scenes of incredible, old-master beauty. It is also an interesting bit of fiction that makes you look at The Nightwatch, and other Rembrandts, with fresh eyes. One could make a good case for some of Greenaway's explanations for elements in The Nightwatch.

[Teraconseliad]

That looks like some phenomenal cinematography... I dont know about the rest of it, however.