The Draughtsman's Contract

The camera retains, like the draughts­man, a steady, uncommitted, observant, uncritical eye as interested in the texture of a fabric, the gloom of candlelight, the wind in elm trees as in the demeanour of a corpse or the discomfort of the victim of sexual coercion. Thus all events are open to interpretation, reappraisal and reinterpretation. lt is no accident that the central figure, the draughtsman, has in 1694 an optical device to help hlm fix his landscape on paper, a device which in principle, is little different from that used by the cameraman in 1982 to fix the landscape on film. (Peter Greenaway)