A Zed & Two Noughts
1985 film by Peter Greenaway
A Zed & Two Noughts is a 1985 film written and directed by Peter Greenaway. This film was Greenaway's first collaboration with cinematographer Sacha Vierny, who went on to shoot virtually all of Greenaway's work in the 1980s and 1990s, until Vierny's death. Greenaway referred to Vierny as his "most important collaborator". The film deals with twin zoologists who, after losing both their wives in a car accident, develop an obsession with animal decomposition.
Plot
Twin zoologists, Oswald and Oliver Deuce (Brian Deacon and Eric Deacon), are at work studying the behaviour of animals at a zoo when both their wives are killed in a car crash involving a large swan which crashes through the car windscreen. The woman who was driving the car, Alba Bewick (Andréa Ferréol), is not killed, but has a leg amputated.
Venus de Milo (Frances Barber), a prostitute and storyteller who plies her trade at the zoo, attempts to forge a relationship with the twins, ostensibly to help them recover from their loss. Meanwhile, Oswald and Oliver gradually become obsessed with images of growth and decay, watching videos on the origins of life and creating time-lapse video of decomposing life forms. They begin this latter task with a green apple, bitten into and rotting before their camera lens.
The twins' descent sees them become romantically involved with Alba, and increasingly attached to one another.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “A Zed & Two Noughts” is 1985 film by Peter Greenaway. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Noughts, film and Peter, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “1985 film by Peter Greenaway” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q602236. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1985.
Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.
- Identifying works and editions
- Tracing reception history
- Finding collection records
The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “A Zed & Two Noughts”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow A Zed & Two Noughts primary sources, A Zed & Two Noughts archive and Noughts research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “A Zed & Two Noughts”?
- Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
- Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “A Zed & Two Noughts” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.