Drowning by Numbers is a 1988 British film directed by Peter Greenaway. It was entered into the 1988 Cannes Film Festival.
The film's plot centers on three women — a grandmother, mother and daughter — each named Cissie Colpitts. As the story progresses each woman successively drowns her husband. The three Cissie Colpittses are played by Joan Plowright, Juliet Stevenson, and Joely Richardson. Bernard Hill plays the coroner Madgett, who is cajoled ...
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Drowning by Numbers is a 1988 British film directed by Peter Greenaway. It was entered into the 1988 Cannes Film Festival.
The film's plot centers on three women — a grandmother, mother and daughter — each named Cissie Colpitts. As the story progresses each woman successively drowns her husband. The three Cissie Colpittses are played by Joan Plowright, Juliet Stevenson, and Joely Richardson. Bernard Hill plays the coroner Madgett, who is cajoled into covering up the three crimes.
The structure, with similar stories repeated three times, is reminiscent of a fairy tale. The link to folklore is further established by Madgett's son Smut, who recites the rules of various unusual games played by the characters as if they were ancient traditions. Many of these games are invented for the film, including:
Number-counting, game rules and the plot's repetitions are devices that emphasize structure and symmetry in Drowning by Numbers. Through the course of the film the numbers one to one hundred...
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