A MISERABLE FEAST: DISHING UP THE BIBLICAL

BODY IN THE COOK, THE THIEF, HIS WIFE AND

HER LOVER

FIONA C. BLACK
Mount Allison University

Peter Greenaway's films generally evoke strong responses in

their viewers. Some hail him as a master filmmaker and a magi-
cian of the postmodern, while others are skeptical of such praise,
and find him showy and pretentious, the maker of nonsensical
works. For his part, Greenaway seems to delight in the hubbub
and enjoy the ambivalence that his work generates. This is cer-
tainly true of his 1989 hit The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her
Lover, The film was originally targeted for arthouse cinema, but
opened country- (England) and world-wide to critical acclaim. The
subject matter—graphic violence, sexuality and cannibalism,
among other things—is certainly confronting and it has prompted
a healthy amount of scholarly response. Many ways of reading the
film have been proposed, among them, that it is a critique of
capitalism; a political satire in the form of a biting commentary
on Thatcher's England; an investigation into psychoanalytic
themes (namely, the constitution of the subject); a film about
female subjectivity and empowerment; and the list goes on.
My reading departs in another direction, but not entirely ex-
clusively of these others. It pursues the use of two distantly related
biblical texts as part of the cultural flotsam and jetsam that con-
stitutes this film and wonders at their place in the abject world
that has been created. Greenaway is somewhat of a master at as-
semblage. Amid the pieces of this collage—the homage to the
seventeenth century Dutch still life painting tradition, the musico-
historical breadth of Michael Nyman's soundtrack, the costumes
ofJean-Paul Gaultier—is sandwiched, for good measure, the Bible.
To be sure, the Bible is no stranger to such borrowings in con-
temporary film, but, like the costumes, the still life, and the mu-
sic, in Cook, Thief it takes on a character of its own and can even
be seen to be contributing to the plot according to its own logic.
Two biblical intertexts are readily visible. The first is Psalm 51,

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 A MISERABLE FEAST 111

which is repeated throughout the film, and the second, the theme
of the Last Supper, fittingly forms the inspiration for one of the
character's climactic revenge.
First, a brief plot synopsis and a few comments on the charac-
ters will be useful. The story revolves around the four players iden-
tified in the title, three of whom suffer the abuses of the Thief,
one Albert Spica, an old-style gangster1 with aspirations for great
social heights. The film is set in a fine French restaurant, Le
Hollandais, which is ably piloted by Richard Borst, the Cook of
the title. Albert Spica and his wife Georgina frequent the restau-
rant over the period of one week, and its spaces—kitchen, park-
ing lot, dining area, toilets—are settings for various aspects of
Spica's business, which, true to Greenaway's style, are converted
into all sorts of explorations of the body and its boundaries. The
remaining character, Michael, is a patron of the restaurant, who
dines there nightly, quietly reading a book at his table. Michael is
an introvert, and Georgina is drawn to his solitude, and to the
fact that he is the very antithesis of Albert.
Some would say that none of the characters is particularly de-
veloped in this film.2 Albert's character, however, clearly domi-
nates, and intentionally so. For all the refinement of the others,
Albert stands out in sharp contrast as boorish and ignorant, a ty-
rant. His presence as a would-be gentleman patron of Le Hol-
landais is terribly ironic. He cannot pronounce the name of the
food he is eating, though he has pretensions to be a great gour-
mand. He insists that his guests display certain manners (usually
the wrong ones) which he feels are appropriate. He brings Rich-
ard rotting meat that he has "got at a good price." Then, upon
provocation, he'll take the tools of his aspirations—a fork, some
food—and subvert their use, until they become weapons of tor-
ture. In his patronizing of Le Hollandais, Albert is attempting
refinement and culture, but the result is tyranny. And that tyranny
is an oppression by speech as much as it is by violence ("Spica" is
an obvious pun on "speaker," especially as Richard pronounces
it). His useless babble penetrates every corner of the dining room.
Albert's voice, in sum, oppresses, not only because of what it says

1
See, in particular, Lawrence (1997), who discusses the whole film as a part
of the British gangster genre.
2
Among others, Gras (1996: 123), Pagan (1995: passim), Hacker and Price
(1991: 196).
112 FIONA C. BLACK

or threatens, but because it is always speaking. Moreover, when-

ever one speaks out of turn, or speaks his or her own mind, vio-
lent punishment ensues, usually by means of one kind of bodily
penetration or another.
Boldly, Georgina and Michael undertake an affair, and through
kindness and tenderness, begin to understand each other. In this
context, they develop as characters—appear as subjects—who are
named, sexually awakened, and real.3 Naturally, the affair is dis-
covered, and Albert and his cronies come upon the lovers' hide-
away and murder Michael in a Greenaway-esque triumph: Albert
has his men stuff the pages of a work on the French Revolution
(Michael's favourite subject of reading) down his throat until he
dies. Georgina returns to discover the body, and lies by it all night,
telling Michael just what sort of abuse she has had to endure.
Georgina speaks up and, at last, becomes empowered to free her-
self from Albert's clutches. Her final act—her revenge (which will
be detailed below)—forms the plot's climax, and is, by no coinci-
dence, the ultimate collocation of biblical text and film.
Punctuating this narrative is the first of the two biblical inter-
texts, Psalm 51. It is sung by a boy named Pup at the doorway of
the kitchens. Pup is the dishwasher, and in a typical Greenaway
pun, his strident treble refrain "wash me" can be heard as the
viewer first comes upon the restaurant's great kitchen, with Pup
at the sink. At times, Pup manages to sing a considerable portion
of the Psalm, but by and large what is repeated is the first part of
the text:
Have mercy upon me,
Have mercy upon me,
Blot out my transgressions,
Blot out my transgressions.4

3
Georgina's passage into subjectivity is made visible in a number of ways, one
of which is through her clothing. The majority of the film sees her clothes chang-
ing in colour each time she moves to a different room (each room is colour
coded). Pagan interprets this as a cue to the film's postmodernism and little to
do with the character's behaviour (1995: 52), but there is another meaning to
be read here. The message is clear: until she develops her autonomy from Albert,
she is unable to differentiate herself as a person from the world around her.
Similarly, Michael is always a sharp contrast from the flamboyantly Gaultier-clad
characters in his brown business suit. When these two discover their love, and
eventually the price of that love, they are able to appear as individuals. At the
end of the film, Georgina's clothing eventually assumes a static colour (black).
4
Greenaway 1989: 9. I assume that the translation of the Psalm (and the
repetitions) are the work of Michael Nyman, who set the piece to music.
 A MISERABLE FEAST 113

Visually, Pup is made to stand out. His bright, white skin and
his brilliant, blond hair (both of which are even more visible
thanks to somewhat harsh spot lighting) set him out sharply
against the darkness of the outdoors (he is usually at the thresh-
old of the kitchen and the darkened parking lot). His name, too,
is significant, standing for innocence, youth, and perhaps even pu-
rity, as becomes evident later in the film.
The Psalm appears to function as a general moral commentary,
perhaps even a congregational call to repentance, 5 for it seems
clear that it is meant to prompt players and viewers into some kind
of action. But what? Greenaway has observed that the Psalm is
associated with the car park (Greenaway 1989: 10), but he fails to
remark (or notice) that it is integral to abuse of the body and
penetration of its boundaries. We first hear it as a response to
Albert's graphic and fecal abuse of Roy that opens the film. Later,
Pup sings it in trying to distract Albert from raping his wife. The
confessional refrain, "Have mercy upon me...," then, at first seems
as if it might be an appropriate, and needed, response to such
acts. Greenaway might be providing, through Pup, a conscience
for players and viewers. The singing of Psalm 51 is rarely beauti-
ful, however. It is rather unlikely that it might be a healing balm,
for, despite whatever calm the viewer may feel on first hearing it,
it soon disrupts that process, because it is discordant, due to Pup's
singing, the repetitions, and its piercingly high setting. One won-
ders if Greenaway assumes we are teachable, for it puts us on edge,
and we soon learn to sense danger when we hear it, rather than
feel or expect remorse.
The Psalm, though, is notable in its absence once the lovers have
escaped from Albert and are ensconced in the book depository.
Pup tries to sing it (badly) for them, and Michael stops him, say-
ing "I think we can leave off that for now, don't you?" The respite
is important. One wonders if, at this moment, the film is finally
providing hope—in love that is liberating and empowering—de-
spite what goes on outside of this sanctuary. It could be, but if
that is the case, that glimpse at redemption is short-lived. The
Psalm reappears in its commentative guise again in the film once
Pup has been eviscerated by Albert, whose intention was to stop
him singing. This time, it is sung for him, rather than by him.

5
Greenaway is well aware of the Psalm's connection with the Christian litur-
gical tradition and its use on Ash Wednesday (Greenaway 1989: 10).
114 FIONA C. BLACK

Perhaps somewhat fittingly for a film that follows a series of sit-

tings in a restaurant, the second biblical intertext is nothing less
than the Last Supper.6 Georgina's revenge has been called an "in-
verted mass" (Gras 1995: 138) and a "cryptic enactment of the
Christian rite of transubstantiation" (D'Arcy 1999: 119). It finishes
off the matter of eating, both literally and metaphorically. Quite
against his better judgement, Georgina manages to convince Ri-
chard to cook her lover, Michael, and she hosts a special dinner
party for the enraged Albert and forces him to eat, in effect call-
ing him on his threat to find Michael and eat him. Now, Michael
is no Jesus, or is he? That was exactly the first word out of Albert's
mouth, when he saw the body: "Jesus!" then "God!" The latter
Georgina quickly corrects, but, intriguingly, she leaves the first
hanging. 7
The scene plays out as follows (Greenaway 1989: 91-92):
A: Georgina! What sort of party is this?
G: Sit down Albert.
. . .With a smooth movement, GEORGINA takes away the tablecloth cover-
ing MICHAEL'S cooked body laid out on the six foot long crockery plate...
ALBERT looks, and for one second doesn't fully grasp the significance of
what he sees—and then—with a horrific, fearful rush, realises what he sees.
He retches. And staggers up from the table.
A: [fesusf] God!
G: No Albert—it's not God—it's Michael. My lover. You vowed you would kill
him—and you did. And you vowed you would eat him. Now eat him.
A: What?! I...
G: What's the matter Albert—you have a knife and fork. You do know how to
use them? Have all those carefully learnt table manners gone to waste?
Mitchel will pour you another dunk.

G: Eat Albert.
ALBERT—hardly daring to think what he's doing hovers above the cooked
corpse with his knife and fork.
G: Roy—pour Albert a dunk.

6
The presence of this biblical intertext is figurative, not literal as with the
Psalm, whose actual text is directly quoted in the film. Certain cues, however,
invoke the Last Supper, such as Albert's words quoted below. One might also
mention the creation of a brief tableau, where, when Michael's body is brought
out for Albert, the victims of Albert stand behind a table, on which lies the
covered body of Michael. In the foreground is a small table with a single place
setting for Albert. The scene is very reminiscent of da Vinci's "Last Supper."
(Mention is frequently made of Greenaway's use of Franz Hals' "Banquet of the
Officers of the St. George Civic Guard Company," 1616, [see for example, Pagan
1998, Gras 1995, Bartolovitch 1998, among others], but this "Last Supper" hom-
age has not been noticed by critics, to my knowledge.)
7
The script only has the word "God!," but Michael Gambon adds "Jesus!" to
his character's response.
 A MISERABLE FEAST 115

ROY, ALBERT'S victim of the car park, approaches the table. ALBERT
backs away. ROY pours ALBERT'S drink and hands it to him. ALBERT
takes it, spilling it.
G: Try the cock Albert. It's a delicacy. And you know where it's been.
.. .ALBERT finally digs the fork into the chest area and, shaking, trembling,
cuts out a slice of white meat. Looking up at GEORGINA with the gun
pointing at him, and at the threatening crowd, he slowly brings the meat
to his mouth. He can't do it. He vomits. All down his shirt and suit.
G: Go on Albert—eat. (a pause) Bon appétit.
As he looks bewildered.
G: It's French.
He takes the meat on his fork to his lips. Just as the meat touches his lips,
GEORGINA fires the gun into ALBERT'S head.
G: Cannibal.

The disgust that this scene generates cannot be underesti-

mated. 8 Michael's body is brought out covered, but when it is
revealed to the audience, it is beautifully prepared (as one would
expect of all of Richard's creations), garnished with fruits and
vegetables, glazed, and resembling the opulent still life scenes
which are ubiquitous in the film. When Albert has to cut into it,
he (Michael Gambon) makes sure that the audience realizes the
true revulsion of the moment. This "last supper," then, hardly
resembles its textual original as redemptive remembrance. 9 In-
stead, it is a horrifying act of revenge for Georgina, and, until the
very last scene of the film, viewers share her triumph, no matter
how repulsed they may be by its terms. When she turns her gun
on Albert, though, the camera swings around, and the audience
now stands behind him. When she pronounces "Cannibal," we are
made to share in the accusation, and the punishment.
How, then, do these two intertexts fit into the world of Cook,
Thiefì The film has many aspects that might be explored, but its
major themes of corporeality, violence, and consumption are of
particular importance to my investigation of the Bible's place in
it. According to Greenaway, the film considers "the principle that
everything (including ourselves) is edible—consumable—and 'it
is, amongst other things...about the contracts and connections
between greed, power, sex and violence and about the repetitive

8
Bartolovitch argues that, of all films to use cannibalism in their critique of
capitalism, Cook, Thief is perhaps the most effective at generating disgust (1998:
205).
9
Of course, whether one wants to view the incident as redemptive is another
matter (and see below). My point is that the spirit of the biblical meal and this
one is entirely different.
116 FIONA C. BLACK

cycle—both literal and metaphorical—of everything passing from

mouth to anus'" (Hacker and Price 1991: 204). Set around a se-
ries of meals in a restaurant, the plot easily manages this theme.
Albert, too, constantly reminds us of its most literal application in
his ongoing commentary on the food, how to eat it, and eventu-
ally, his wife's visits to the toilet. In addition, as the film progresses,
like a meal itself, it plays its preoccupation with literal consump-
tion out to the fullest. Pup almost dies when Albert makes him
eat the buttons off his own coat. (The last "button" he force-feeds
him is the child's own navel, which we are led to believe Albert
has cut out of his body.) Then, Michael is murdered by the eaten
word. And finally, Albert is the last to dine, being forced to eat
his words, as it were, by making good on his threat to kill and eat
Michael.
Beyond the literal, the gluttonous human body becomes a me-
taphor for the excessive and insatiable consumption of society.
(Greenaway's critique of capitalism in the film is well documented
in secondary literature.10) Food is excessively displayed and pre-
pared, and Albert, especially, voraciously consumes. Eventually, the
body itself is prepared and eaten, bringing the process to its canni-
balistic extreme. Georgina sums up this thinking in asking Michael
of his precious books, "What good are all these books to you? You
can't eat them! How can they make you happy?" (Greenaway 1989:
71). In all, the outlook is grim. As Albert, the chef d'oeuvre, quips
while dismembering a crayfish, "it all comes out as shit in the end"
(Greenaway 1989: 80).
The consuming body/ies of the film, with all of their attendant
processes, have naturally a particular relationship with the abject.
Chantal Cornut-Gentille D'Arcy remarks that Georgina's revenge
"can...be said to lay bare a horror or 'abject and unspeakable
fantastic terror' which, according to Kristeva, underlies all culture"
(D'Arcy 1999: 119). Moreover, she also briefly ponders the film
as abject narrative, particularly in its final moments. She wonders
if it might be therapeutic, if through its content, it "seeks to ex-
punge... negative drives while exposing and confronting us with
the traces of our own, constantly denied, psychic violence" (D'Arcy
1999: 119). She also labels it revolutionary, following Kristeva's
lead, but additionally noting the "feminine circularity" of the

10
See, among others, Bartolovitch (1998), Pagan (1995), D'Arcy (1999).
 A MISERABLE FEAST 117

piece, where "despotic rule is finally compelled to 'bite its own

tail'" (D'Arcy 1999: 119).
Indeed, the investigation of Cook, Thief along these lines is prom-
ising. All kinds of abjections are visible in the film (not just in the
final act of Georgina), for, it continually trots out the three axes
on which the abject operates: food, sex and death. 11 Again, un-
surprisingly, most of this abject display revolves around Albert, who
plays an abject hero of sorts. He is a criminal, one who in Kristeva's
conceptualization of the abject, belongs on the margins of soci-
ety, and by rights should be expunged from it (Kristeva 1982: 3).
It would seem, though, that the presence of the abject is not as
straightforward as it might first appear. In fact, as we shall see, it
becomes quite a challenge to tease out the various strands, for
they intermingle and eventually contradict each other. Albert, for
instance, is not satisfied to occupy a marginal, ab-jected position,
but works hard to crawl on his belly to where he thinks he be-
longs—at the top, in a racially pure, affluent and mannered stra-
tum of society. In the process, he cannot seem to ignore the
abjections that stick to him like mucus on his attempted climb.
Rather, he uses them to his own ends, drawing power from them,
and treating them as a kind of ruler by which he often misguid-
edly measures, then violently enforces, what is "proper" (manners,
haute cuisine, class distinctions, nationality and race). 12 Used as a
tool of oppression, and representing the extremes of mainstream
discourses (patriarchy, capitalism, etc.), Albert's abject threatens
to become normative—at least in the world of Le Hollandais.
In reality, the metaphor of the consuming body, together with
its greater context of the abject, appears to shift as the film pro-
gresses. 13 Cook, Thief begins with fairly clearly demarcated lines:

11
Examples abound. For instance, the opening shot of the film finds Albert
in the parking lot (the film's "outside") force-feeding Roy (the rightful owner of
the restaurant) dog shit. Parallel scenes find him attempting to rape his wife in
the parking lot. Later, the lovers escape from this location in a van full of rot-
ting meat.
12
The latter we might expect, for the abject typically helps to define what is
in the mainstream (what is described as Kristeva's symbolic), by virtue of the fact
that it must be expelled. What we do not expect, however, is that Albert, himself
a criminal, is trying to drag himself and the other forms of the abject to where
they might not belong, by violence if necessary.
13
Greenaway does not show himself aware of these inconsistencies or evolu-
tions, though he has said that he wishes this "metaphorical" film to explore sym-
bol and metaphor in a meaningful way. This is over and against Hollywood films
with linear narratives that "entertain superbly," but are unable to undertake any
118 FIONA C. BLACK

good/evil, clean/unclean, inside/outside, etc. By its end, however,

the film has inverted some of those oppositions, and it has man-
aged to implicate the viewer in the process. Ultimately, the viewer
ends up with not so much a study ground for the abject in this
film, but a ringside seat at a battle ground in which the subject's
(particularly two: Albert's and Georgina's) relation to the body
and the abject becomes contested and contradictory. A significant
key to the shifting seems to be the Bible. Psalm 51 implicates the
bodies of its speaker (traditionally David), as well as those of the
characters who hear it sung throughout Cook, Thief It repeatedly
poses an important question for the film, which is whether or not
humanity can repent and be redeemed of the mess that Albert/
Greenaway has created for our viewing (dis)pleasure. The Last
Supper has more direct corporeal connections in its themes of
death and cannibalism. It answers the question of the first text, in
a manner of speaking, but that answer is far from clear.
Both biblical traditions compellingly engage the themes of con-
sumption and corporeality with which the film plays. The Last
Supper is obvious in its applicability, but one could add that it is
an intertextual gift that keeps on giving, since the ritual that it
has spawned naturally re-enacts the death of the body and the
metaphor of consumption endlessly. Moreover, as we will see, the
corresponding eating of Michael leaves the film with a much more
open ending than it would first appear. The psalm, too, engages
the idea of the consumed body, though perhaps less obviously
than its counterpart. Here, consumption is less about eating than
about being used up or spent, found wasting. The speaker pleads
for release from the blight of their sins, asking that they be blot-
ted out, and that he or she might be purged. Bones are broken,
and the speaker longs for their mouth and tongue to be freed to
tell of God's forgiveness. In the film, Pup's own body becomes a
replacement for David's (or, the psalm's speaker). As he sings his
lament, eventually he, too, is abused, punctured and victimized.
The interpretive traditions around the psalm text are most in-
teresting, because they fill out the theme of the consumed body

serious investigation of issues (Gras 1995: 123). Some doubt Greenaway's ability
to be successful at such a serious enterprise (Gras 1995: 124). In the end, it does
not matter if Greenaway is directing this process or not. What interests me is
that the Bible seems to manipulate the narrative's abject logic to interesting and
provocative ends—for the plot and for its viewers.
 A MISERABLE FEAST 119

with other abject aspects (usually sex, illness, death). In the im-
mediate tradition, Ps. 51 is given a specific context, provided for
readers in the superscription (w. 1-2), which reads: "A Psalm of
David, when the prophet Nathan came to him, after he had gone
in to Bath-sheba." The rest of the prayer makes no reference to
the specificity of that sin, nor does it mention the rest of the story,
namely, the murder of Uriah.14 In its broader context, Psalm 51 is
part of a broader tradition of Complaint Psalms which make simi-
lar lamentation about a dire situation from which the speaker
seeks forgiveness and release. Typically, these psalms display the
broken, spent bodies of the speakers, who agonize over their treat-
ment by their enemies and their abandonment by God. So, we
see the groaning, the melting bones, the dried up mouth of Ps.
22, or the festering wounds and the burning loins of Ps. 38. As a
body of texts, the Complaints could be said to explore the impli-
cations of sin and guilt (among other issues) in corporeal ways.
Moreover, they invite the question, What has the speaker done to
experience the wrath of God, thus? The answer is never truly forth-
coming, but the body is often implicated as a shorthand for expli-
cating the dangers of a person's failure to have a right relationship
with God.
More curious has been the provision of references in the inter-
pretive tradition to complaints of the body where the text does
not detail them. In Midrash Tehillim, for example, the rabbis ex-
plicate the speaker's distress by likening it to two visits by a man
to a physician (Braude 1959: 471-73). In the first case, the man is
too poor to afford treatment for such a grave injury, and must
beg for a poultice for his wound out of the physician's kindness.
The rabbis fill that out even further, making connections with
purity/impurity and death, by observing that "you learn that ev-
ery man who commits a transgression is as unclean as though he
had touched a dead body, and must be purified. ... Did David
actually fall into uncleanness? No, but into an iniquity whereby
his soul was wounded unto death."15 More intriguingly still, one

14
Some scholars later came to read the reference in v. 7b to the speaker's
conception in sin as a reference to original sin (see, for example, Gerstenberger
1988: 212, 214), thus underscoring the location of David's plea as remorse for
his adulterous sexual relationship with Bathsheba.
15
Braude 1959: 472. If there were space to discuss it here, the interpretive
tradition would illustrate some interesting trends in terms of the relation between
physical illness and sin. For instance, in the Christian liturgical tradition, Ps. 51
120 FIONA C. BLACK

of the illustrations the rabbis give even goes so far as to suggest

that the commission of sin and the seeking of forgiveness benefits
the deity as much as it does the sinner.
In comparison to the Psalm, the Last Supper text has a much
more overt connection to the consumed and consuming body.
This text, however, does not set up the problem of sin and guilt
in quite the same way. It does not lament and seek release from
the suffering of the body, nor does it proffer an answer to the
question of what causes that suffering. Quite the opposite: the
subject of this text willingly undertakes it (even if his counterpart,
Michael, did not). In addition, the tradition behind this text pur-
ports to do away with the specificity of sin. Suffering, instead,
comes first, and is in response to any and all sinfulness. What is
interesting here, though, is that violence against the body is
stacked on top of, or becomes equivalent to, confession. It is no
longer a matter of cause and effect, or punishment and rescue,
but both at the same time. Each requires the other to make sense
of the event. In the same manner, in the film, death and eating,
then eating and revenge, become conflated.
That the abject accompanies these texts and the interpretive
tradition should come as no real surprise. Religion and other
social factors (among them, morality, politics, language) operate
to control the abject, to keep it in check, but of course it always
threatens to undermine those systems, to burst through. In the
case of Psalm 51, such prayers would be part of the (perhaps li-
turgical) mechanism for the expression of guilt and repentance.
However, the crushing of bones, the destruction of the body, even
the sexual sin that started this business in the first place, is ever-
present, and no plaintive cries for whiteness erase the dirt which
the speaker wants scrubbed away. To the contrary, these abjections
are the very causes, and/or signs, of the prayer itself, and without
them, it could not exist. In the case of the Last Supper, the re-
enactment of the meal is part of the liturgical management of
sinfulness and repentance, among other things. Because of the
collapsing of suffering and confession into one, however, the bro-
ken, eaten body (the consumed body) and the suffering body are
always present.

(50) is one of the seven penitential psalms, a group set aside for especial remorse
and consideration of sinfulness. More interesting is that the Psalm has also been
recommended for use in ministry to the sick—playing on old traditions that ill-
ness and sinfulness are intimately connected.
 A MISERABLE FEAST 121

The matter is more involved for the Last Supper, actually. It

starts out as an abject inversion of a Passover meal. Flesh and blood
become food for eating, but no matter what John says, it is not
lamb that is on the menu. Furthermore, as Kristeva observes, the
meal transgresses symbolically the Levitical prohibitions, in both
the contact and the ingestion of the soon-to-be corpse that Jesus
requests (Kristeva 1984: 131). In fact, through this meal, the He-
brew Scriptures' dichotomy of purity/impurity is turned on its
head, and becomes internalized: it becomes a matter of inside and
outside. The abject is, in effect, internalized as sin. The result?
Religion then becomes a paradoxical site. In this case, it both
embraces—becomes indistinguishable from—the abject, and that
same abject (the eating of Jesus) becomes a structure for control
of another abject, sin.
How, then, do these texts translate to the film? By now it will
be clear that, in Cook, Thief, the various stages and levels of ab-
jection are shifting. For instance, Albert's character is aligned with
the abject, but it is a contested alignment, since he is waging a
war against those who maintain the (symbolic) status quo of man-
ners, proper speech, cuisine, appropriate behaviour, etc., for con-
trol. If he manages to dominate fully (and this is arguable), his
abject tyranny will cease to be because he has made it hegemonic.
For our biblical texts, also variously associated with the abject, the
matter seems just as variable. On the one hand, in both cases, the
body in texts and film is fractured and permeable, associated with
illness, violence and death. On the other, these texts function in
part to respond to or rectify the abject world that Albert is attempt-
ing to create at Le Hollandais. At first, the response is confessional
(Psalm 51), later redemptive, and later still, marked by revenge.
But even revenge has to be queried in terms of its abject status,
for its efficacy will be called into question both by Georgina's
participation in it, and by the fact that the biblical text originally
has a redemptive intention.
That there is not a straightforward recipe for abjection in Bible
or Cook, Thief is not a problem; rather, it is to be expected. Kristeva
is more focussed on the dynamic movement between one realm
(the abject) and the other (the symbolic), than she is with point-
ing out rigid definitions and static states. Stasis, in reality, would
only undermine the system; it is the constant rebounding of the
one off the other that creates and maintains subjectivity. Similarly,
in terms of the film, it becomes less useful to assign definitively
122 FIONA C. BLACK

the abject elements than it does to speak of a struggle among

characters and texts for a dominant voice. The stakes in this strug-
gle are not only the abject and the symbolic, but health, personal
freedom and wholeness as well. In the end, viewers find themselves
asking what the outcome will be. How is Georgina's final grotesque
riposte to be understood?
Kristeva argues that the abject eventually provides a subversive
and empowering opportunity in its deployment. One could see,
for instance, how it could be argued that the Christ-meal could
be considered to be revolutionary in its inversion of Levitical abo-
minations. Certainly, in the film, the enforced eating of Michael
as revenge is almost entirely revolutionary. As D'Arcy correctly
points out, "revolution...inevitably come[s] from those sectors in
society that have been curbed, crushed and put down by the domi-
nant culture" (1999: 119). Sure enough, at the end of the film,
Albert's victims assemble behind Georgina and stand as his accus-
ers, even though it is she who fires the bullet. Georgina manages
not only to wrestle control of her own fate, but those of the other
victims. And, firmly grasping control over the abject, formerly
Albert's exclusive domain, she packages it up and forces him to
eat it. Albert's tyranny is ended, and Greenaway's viewers see the
shocking revolution that is instigated with the help of the abject.
But is that an end to it? The devourer ingests the "body of
Christ," and, with the help of a bullet, becomes a corpse himself.
We recall, however, that according to Kristeva's system, Albert is
already on the margins, he is the criminal, the transgressor of the
law, the one whose behaviour requires exclusion, even death.
Where he tried to privilege the abject body and its various pene-
trabilities, he was in the process of diffusing its power as a subver-
sive entity. Georgina, by contrast, in her subversive act, allows the
revolutionary power of the abject to come to the fore. But is she
successful? Kristeva has more to say on the Christie meal, and this
threatens to undermine its subversive potential for Georgina.
Richard has already suggested the possibility to Georgina that
when one eats another, it is as if they are inseparable. In fact, he
originally mistook her request to cook Michael as a desire to eat
him herself. So, Albert, through eating, becomes irreparably at-
tached to Michael. He does not live long enough to expel him (if
we are being literalistic), and he symbolically becomes united with
him in his own death. But by having Georgina pronounce on
Albert as he dies—"Cannibal"—she in effect symbolically consigns
 A MISERABLE FEAST 123

him to the world of other Christ-eaters. Albert's body remains in

a permanent state of confessing the body. Georgina, for her part,
is forced to align herself with Albert and his abject, but in killing,
and becoming finally victorious over his body, she becomes an-
other kind of consumer. And, as mentioned above, we, too, are
implicated in the crime, and the punishment.
For Kristeva, the interiorization of the abject as sin in Christian-
ity brings with it a significant development in the form of dis-
course. And discourse, she thinks, begins to interfere with the
revolutionary power that the Christie meal has. I noted above that
systems such as morality, language and politics, are, for Kristeva,
part of the symbolic realm, which maintains its integrity through
the process of abjection. In the Christian re-interpretation of the
biblical abject, the subversive Christie meal is accompanied by
confession. The practical way of acknowledging sin and the impli-
cations of that sin in Christ's death are to speak it out. Moreover,
one is a Christian, as Kristeva rightly reads it, by virtue of one's
confession of faith. In the beginning, confession weighs down
discourse with sin, but at the same time, avowal provides absolu-
tion. Sin and speech seem equally matched: speech implicates
sinners, but also relieves them. Sin is required to make it all work.
As time goes by, however, "one slides over from the judicial to the
verbal" and speech eclipses all. "Power no longer belongs to the
judge-God, who preserves humanity from abjection, while setting
aside for himself alone the prerogative of violence... Power hence-
forth belongs to discourse itself (Kristeva 1984: 131-32).
Albert has had an ambiguous relation to discourse all along.
As I mentioned above, he exercises his tyranny in part through
speech—often violently so—yet he himself is subject to the power
of the word, especially the written word. For instance, his hench-
men put his name in lights in the kitchen, but humiliatingly spell
it "aspic" by mistake. And his wife's lover reads, and takes her to
his private space, a book repository. Despite the violent end that
Michael is made to suffer, the written word turns its power on
Albert one final time in the climax of the film. Albert's final un-
doing comes by post. On the last day in the film, the restaurant is
closed, we read, for a private function. Albert bursts in on the
scene with his invitation in hand, enraged that he has been in-
vited to his own restaurant—and outraged at the quality of the
printing. Yet, we notice, he shows up. What is "on the menu,"
though, is not written out, but replaces the menu with its mate-
124 FIONA C. BLACK

rial presence. Michael is served up buffet-style; Albert sees and

eats. Michael's body, in short, has replaced the menu; it has be-
come the written word. And that word has the power to do some
very interesting things.
We have long since stopped hearing from Pup, who was silenced
by Albert, some time back. Echoes of the Psalm, however, still
reverberate around the restaurant, even though it appears that the
opportunity for repentance has past. If Kristeva is correct, what
chiefly remains of the abjection of the Christ-body is its discursive
power. That power, I suggest, is matched by the spoken/sung text
of Psalm 51, which contains almost nothing but confession. As the
rabbis in their commentary remark, David's bacon is in effect saved
by his tongue. That is to say, his sin is to be considered in light of
Prov. 18:22 ("death and life are in the power of the tongue")
(Braude 1959: 471). This tongue, an entry-point into language,
allows David to utter his cries for forgiveness and his requests for
cleansing. How insightful the rabbis are, for as we see in the story
in 2 Samuel, David's tongue has had a commensurately large role
to play in his antics. And Albert's tongue, among other things,
has brought him to the end of a gun's barrel.
In the film, body transmogrifies to tongue, which becomes text,
which becomes body—another part of the endless cycle of con-
sumption and re-creation. When Georgina kills Albert, she silences
him. Again, though, by aligning him with the Christian tradition,
she inadvertently re-establishes his primacy, in fact, increases it.
And Greenaway, by throwing Psalm 51 into the mix, invites not
an opportunity for repentance, not a release from the likes of
Spica, but confirms the hegemony of discourse, and invites view-
ers to participate. The aligning of these two texts works, in essence,
to subvert Greenaway's entire plot: Georgina, in a roundabout way,
establishes the primacy of discourse, and sets Albert up as its king/
dictator. Georgina does not, as it happens, have the last word.
Albert does, and he is still speaking.

ABSTRACT

The paper considers the place of the Bible in the abject world of Peter Green-
away's The Cooky the Thief His Wife and Her Lover. Two biblical intertexts are
evident: Psalm 51, which is sung repeatedly throughout the film as a call to re-
pentance, and the Last Supper, which forms the climactic revenge of one of the
characters. The texts are interwoven with some significant themes in the film
 A MISERABLE FEAST 125

(corporeality, consumption and violence), all of which work to establish and

manipulate the presence of the abject. With the assistance of the Bible, the char-
acters' relation to the abject becomes contested and contradictory. Ultimately,
the texts exhibit a peculiar logic that threatens to undermine the film's plot,
and its characters.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barker, Francis, Peter Hulme and Margaret Iversen (eds.),

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 ^ s
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