Though typical of Peter Greenaway’s predilection for depictions of provocative desires laid out over sometimes subversive subtexts, his 1996 title The Pillow Book feels demure in comparison to the ribald sexuality in more notorious works, such as The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover and his most recent, Eisenstein in Guanajuato. Premiering in the Un Certain Regard sidebar at that year’s Cannes Film Festival, the sensual film was warmly received, especially in comparison to the features he made directly before and after (The Baby of Macon; 8 ½ Women, respectively). Based on, or rather inspired by, the love diary of Sei Shonagon, a court lady to Empress Consort Teishi, the text is a compilation of musings and records of trysts. Completed in the year 1002, it is considered to be the first novel, of course reconstituted by the enigmatic auteur for his innovative, hybridized purposes. Compared to several of Greenaway’s other titles,...

This week on Clip joint, lend steenbeck your ears as she regales you with the best examples of poetry in cinematic motion, as part of the film site's roll in the Hay festival

In the early days of cinema, film-makers expressed anxiety about the relationship between film and poetry. The poetry of books, and that of film, was, they worried, fundamentally incompatible. They clung to the idea of film as the only art form solely dedicated to the present – more vital because it was free from the shackles of history. In the words of Rene Clair, what was needed was a poetry of images anybody could understand: "In this era, when verbal poetry is losing the charm it ­exerted on the masses … a new form of poetic expression has arisen and can reach every beating heart on earth … a poetry of the people is there, seeking its way."

Cinema has...