Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover

Theatrical Release Date: 1990 04 06 (USA)

UPC: 013131139198

Studio: Anchor Bay

MPAA Rating: NC17   Contains:[Graphic Violence, Strong Sexual Content, Not For Children, Profanity]

Summary: This is probably Peter Greenaway's most famous (or infamous) film, which first shocked audiences at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival and then on both sides of the Atlantic. A gang leader (Michael Gambon), accompanied by his wife (Helen Mirren) and his associates, entertains himself every night in a fancy French restaurant that he has recently bought. Having tired of her sadistic, boorish husband, the wife finds herself a lover (Alan Howard) and makes love to him in the restaurant's coziest places with the silent permission of the cook (Richard Bohringer). Though less cerebral than Greenaway's other films, featuring deadly passions reminiscent of Jacobean revenge tragedies of the early 17th century, the picture still offers the director's usual ironic and paradoxical comments on the relations between eating and sex, love and death. The film is at once funny and horrific, and those who are not used to Greenaway's peculiar style might be even disgusted or shocked; however, one might mention Sacha Vierny's brilliant camerawork, Jean-Paul Gaultier's gaudily stylized costumes, and Michael Nyman's somber, pulsating music, which will haunt the viewer long after the film's end. ~ Yuri German, Rovi

Category: Comedy Drama

Awards: Best Foreign Film – Independent Spirit Awards Film Presented – Telluride Film Festival

Features: Widescreen presentation [2.35:1] enhanced for 16x9 TVs
Theatrical trailers

Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover

Format: DVD

Release Date: 03/13/2001

Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 Cinemascope

Audio: DDS2.0 Dolby Digital w/ 4 channels

Runtime: 124 Minutes

Sides: 1

Number of Discs: 1

Language(s) English

Region: USA & territories, Canada

Chapters: Chapter Selections
0. Chapter Selections
0. Menu Group #1 with 31 chapter(s) covering 02:04:04
1. Program Start/Main Titles [1:54]
2. A Good Dinner [3:20]
3. The Kitchen And The Cook [5:17]
4. Quality & Protection [2:57]
5. A True Gourmet [3:47]
6. The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, And Her Lover [5:14]
7. Restroom Rendezvous [6:36]
8. Friday Night Feast [3:10]
9. Passion in the Pantry [4:03]
10. Lewd & Crude [5:08]
11. Degradation [3:24]
12. Sensual Saturday [6:06]
13. Polite Conversation [5:09]
14. Marital Strife [1:30]
15. Sunday Special [4:54]
16. The Floor Show [5:19]
17. Prying Eyes [1:51]
18. Monday Madness [4:02]
19. Jealous Rampage [3:35]
20. Filth & Freedom [4:04]
21. Tuesday For Two [2:25]
22. Brutal Interrogation [4:46]
23. The Thief's Revenge [3:41]
24. Farewell, Lover [4:39]
25. At Each Other's Throats [2:09]
26. Georgina's Confession [3:31]
27. What The Cook Saw [9:15]
28. Friday's Private Function [2:51]
29. A Meal From Hell [6:03]
30. End Credits [3:06]

Tom Wiener

Filmmaker Peter Greenaway's most notorious film in a career marked by audacity, The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover includes scenes of intense and shocking brutality and humiliation, fevered sexual encounters, and a final act of forced cannibalism. But what is most striking about the film is its visual style. Shot by the late, legendary Sacha Vierny in glorious widescreen compositions (this is a film that demands to be seen on video in a letterboxed edition), The Cook often unfolds like a medieval tapestry, as Vierny's camera tracks from one room of the restaurant, where most of the story takes place, to another. The characters are more types than flesh-and-blood people, as the title suggests. Michael Gambon gets to have the most fun out of his Thief, bellowing and flailing about. As in many other Greenaway films, the actors serve merely as game pieces to be moved about on a brilliantly designed board, but here, Greenaway offers a more linear story about the ways good people accommodate evil. If nothing else, The Cook is his most accessible film -- albeit for those with strong stomachs. ~ Tom Wiener, Rovi

Cast and Crew: Diane Langton  Actor 
Hywel William Ellis  Actor 
John Mullis  Actor 
Paul Russell  Actor 
Alex Fraser  Actor 
Ian Dury  Actor 
Janet Henfrey  Actor 
Michael Maguire  Actor 
Karrie Pagano  Actor 
Ben Stoneham  Actor 
Pauline Mayer  Actor 
Andy Wilson  Actor 
Michael Clark  Actor 
Sophie Goodchild  Actor 
Arnie Breevelt  Actor 
Tim Geary  Actor 
Alex Kingston  Actor 
Prudence Oliver  Actor 
Ian Sears  Actor 
Nick Brozovic  Actor 
Elmer Gillespie  Actor 
Gary Logan  Actor 
Roger Lloyd Pack  Actor 
Tony Alleff  Actor 
Brenda Edwards  Actor 
Peter Rush  Actor 
Willie Ross  Actor 
Bob Goody  Actor 
Sue Maund  Actor 
Saffron Rainey  Actor 
Patricia Walters  Actor 
Pascale Dauman  Producer 
Daniel Toscan du Plantier  Producer 
Peter Greenaway  Director 
Peter Greenaway  Screenwriter 
Kees Kasander  Producer 
Michael Nyman  Composer (Music Score) 
Denis Wigman  Producer 
Richard Bohringer  Actor 
Michael Gambon  Actor 
Helen Mirren  Actor 
Alan Howard  Actor 
Tim Roth  Actor 
Ciarán Hinds  Actor 
Liz Smith  Actor 
Gary Olsen  Actor 
Ewan Stewart  Actor 
Roger Ashton-Griffiths  Actor 
Ron Cook  Actor 

Country: France,Netherlands,UK