BFI

In Dear Phone (1976), Peter Greenaway revisits his fascination with the single image as icon, in this case the ubiquitous red telephone box. But here he also introduces two subsequent characteristics of his cinema - the use of text as image and the game. Juxtaposing shots of the telephone box in every conceivable location, with framed text initially barely decipherable on the backs of envelopes but systematically becoming increasingly more legible, Greenaway presents the viewer with a puzzle. Each of the stories, or the framed text, belongs with one of the telephone boxes; it is up to the viewer to make the links.

Laurel Warbrick-Keay

*This film is included in the BFI DVD compilation 'The Early Films of Peter Greenaway Volume 1'.

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