Nightwatching2007

Director
Peter Greenaway

Acters

Martin Freeman (Rembrandt van Rijn)
Emily Holmes (Hendrickje)
Eva Birthistle (Saskia)
Jodhi May (Geertje)
Toby Jones (Gerard Dou)
Jonathan Holmes (Ferdinand Bol)

The bold and courageous painting of The Night Watch, exceptional in aesthetics and content, is Rembrandt’s most celebrated painting, it consolidated his reputation as a master-painter but it also destroyed him socially and financially.
The year 1642 marks the turning point in the life of the famous Dutch painter, Rembrandt, turning him from a wealthy respected celebrity into a discredited pauper. At the insistence of his pregnant wife Saskia, Rembrandt has reluctantly agreed to paint the Amsterdam Musketeer Militia in a group portrait that will later become to be known as The Night Watch. He soon discovers that there is a conspiracy afoot with the Amsterdam merchants playing at soldiers manoeuvring for financial advantage and personal power in, that time, the richest city in the Western World. Rembrandt stumbles on a foul murder. Confident in the birth of a longed-for son and heir, Rembrandt is determined to expose the conspiring murderers and builds his accusation meticulously in the form of the commissioned painting, uncovering the seamy and hypocritical side to Dutch Society in the Golden Age. But, Rembrandt’s great good fortune turns.
“Not just Greenaway’s best film in years, but one of his best films, period.” – Time Out
“Gorgeously presented account of Rembrandt’s creation of his masterpiece with Martin
Freeman on cracking form.” – Empire Magazine
“Nightwatching is completely fascinating and an absolute triumph of film style.” – Cinema Autopsy