SOURCE: Greenaway, Peter, and Karen Jaehne. “The Draughtsman's Contract: An Interview with Peter Greenaway.” Cineaste 13, no. 2 (1984): 13–15.

In the following interview, Greenaway discusses The Draughtsman's Contract, focusing on the film's emphasis on dialogue and language.

[Jaehne:] Many of the new British filmmakers are focusing on chapters in history that appear to be “turning points”—Ghandi's India, England between two wars in Chariots of Fire. The Draughtsman's Contract is also a historical recreation—in fact, so deliberately so that you appear to be making or, rather, overstating a point. What is the context?

[Greenaway:] The narrative structure of the movie covers a number of themes. It's set in 1694, a crucial time for English history—a moving out of the old Catholic Stuart dynasty and a moving in of a Protestant-inspired, basically mercantile nouveau-riche aristocracy coming in from northern Europe. This time of changing values gave me an opportunity to...