Post 8

Belly of an Architect proposes a new idea regarding artistic creation, most notably in its use of the human body and anatomy as the catalyst for this creative surge in the artist. From the very beginning of the film, the audience is confronted with the theme of the belly, with the first scene showing Kracklite, the films protagonist, engaging in a sexual act aboard a train, with his bulbous belly sticking out, blocking his wife, Louisa, and her body from the camera. This trip marks the birth of both Kracklite's project and his heir (which we find out about later on in the film), as he consummates his relationship with his wife as he enters into Italy, where he will be for nine months working on this projecting honoring the relatively forgotten life of Boullee. Additionally, throughout the film, the audience is faced with numerous images of belly-shaped objects, architecture, and the belly itself. The cake at the dinner honoring Boullee is shaped like a dome or belly. It is shown before it is cut and then when the wife cuts into it, and then eventually the camera exposes the interior of the cake, eaten and torn apart with the one pound note burning inside of it. These images work as a means of representing Kracklite's creativity, as well as his tumultuous relationship with his wife who metaphorically castrates him throughout the film. The belly imagery can be seen as a metaphor for Kracklite's creativity, which is represented through his lifelong project honoring Boullee's architecture, which can in turn be seen as Kracklite's "baby." 

While in Rome, Kracklite becomes increasingly obsessed with his idol, Boullee, as well as by architecture and by his own insides, which begin to become a problem for him as soon as he arrives. Kracklite becomes increasingly sick throughout the course of the film, eventually resulting in a cancerous cell forming in his stomach, which plagues his character throughout his time in Italy. Kracklite's physical and social decline coincide with his hero's own decline, Boullee, who did not receive critical acclaim or notoriety until much after his death, not until the 20th century. Kracklite becomes obsessed with shapes and contents of both architecture and anatomy, of bellies in sculptures, photographs, and paintings, bringing him to obsessively photocopy larger and larger images of the belly of a particular sculpture, which he then uses as a diagram to draw out his own troublesome areas of his own stomach. He becomes obsessed with historical figures of the past, such as the Emperor Hadrian and other members of ancient Roman culture. His infatuation with figures of the past leads Kracklite to engage in paranoid episodes where he screams at his wife savagely and accuses her of trying to poison him. He connects himself with these heroic figures throughout the film and even takes on a Christ-like martyr role toward the end of the film. 

The beginning of the film where Kracklite and his wife conceiving a child is reinforced with the last scene which closes the film with the opening of Kracklite's exhibition, his "baby," and the actual birth of his child. This theme of conception plays an underlying role throughout the film with imagery supporting it on numerous occassions. As the exhibition honoring Boullee is Kracklite's baby, and as Kracklite's wife becomes pregnant, everything becomes internalized for the American architect, to the point of producing physical defects in his own stomach. Recurring images of conception are seen, such as the scene in which Kracklite and Flavia seduce each other, as she pulls him behind a white sheet, with her shadow mimicking that of a small little boy's, and pulls him in with her by a very long red ribbon placed around his neck. This is reminiscent of an umbilical chord as she pulls him in by the string into the shadow of the white sheet. Additionally, Kracklite's physical decline is a metaphor for his own struggles to fulfill Boullee's legacy and find his own recognition as an American architect thriving in Italy, the place in which Boullee failed.

Additionally, Greenaway uses technical framing to visually deliver the message of the film. He uses deliberate framing of architectural forms such as Roman columns and vertical lines as well as recurring shots of symbolically clean domes, flat white surfaces, and rigid statues that are overwhelmingly large compared to the figures. The immense physicality of Kracklite is squandered by the sheer size of the columns, statues, and architectural forms that envelope him throughout the film. This technique works to visually rectify the relationship between the inner passion and workings of the creative mind, which become huge as they materializes in real life, and far outlive the creators. Kracklite begins seeing himself as an extension of the architecture and sees Boullee's architecture as the man himself, even going as far as to write postcards to the dead architect, speaking to him as if he were still alive and they had encountered each other just that day.