Prospero's Books

Prospero's Books is not a movie in the sense that we usually employ that word; it's an experiment in form and content. This film should be approached like a record album or an art book. Each "page" is there to be studied in its complexity and richness, while on the sound track we hear one of the great voices in theater history, Sir John Gielgud's. Prospero, once Duke of Milan, has been tossed by a storm onto a lost island, along with his daughter, Miranda, various crew members and such resident sprites and monsters as Ariel and Caliban. But he has managed to save his books from the tempest - books he prizes more than his dukedom. Prospero is consumed by thoughts of vengeance.