Tulse Luper is a fictional character, created by film director Peter Greenaway.

"Born in
Newport Newport most commonly refers to: *Newport, Wales *Newport, Rhode Island, US Newport or New Port may also refer to: Places Asia *Newport City, Metro Manila, a Philippine district in Pasay Europe Ireland *Newport, County Mayo, a town on the ...
(Greenaway's own birthplace) in 1911, Luper was, according to Greenaway's introduction to the exhibition catalogue, in Moab, Utah in 1928 when "
Uranium Uranium is a chemical element with the symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Uranium is weak ...
was 'discovered' there. He was in
Antwerp Antwerp (; nl, Antwerpen ; french: Anvers ; es, Amberes) is the largest city in Belgium by area at and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504,
in 1939 when the Germans invaded Belgium. He was in
Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...
when the Americans arrived in 1944. He met
Raoul Wallenberg Raoul Gustaf Wallenberg (4 August 1912 – disappeared 17 January 1945)He is presumed to have died in 1947, although the circumstances of his death are not clear and this date has been disputed. Some reports claim he was alive years later. 31 J ...
in
Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...
in 1945 and followed him to
Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...
in the 1950s. He was at an East-West German checkpoint in 1963" ( Luper at Compton Verney ). The 92 suitcases thus tell Luper's story from 1928 to the fall of the
Berlin Wall The Berlin Wall (german: Berliner Mauer, ) was a guarded concrete barrier that encircled West Berlin from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and East Germany (GDR). Construction of the Berlin Wall was commenced by the government ...
in 1989, sketching not so much the biography of one man as the story of a century related through some of its key events."

Character overview

Tulse Luper is mentioned in Greenaway's early films '' A Walk Through H: The Reincarnation of an Ornithologist'', '' Vertical Features Remake'', ''

The Falls The Falls may refer to: * ''The Falls'' (Oates novel), 2004 novel by Joyce Carol Oates * ''The Falls'' (Rankin novel), 2001 crime novel by Ian Rankin * The Falls (mall), an open-air shopping mall in Kendall, Florida * The Falls, Nova Scotia, a ...

'' and '' The Draughtsman's Contract'', and appears as the major character in ''

The Tulse Luper Suitcases ''The Tulse Luper Suitcases'' is a multimedia project by film maker and artist Peter Greenaway, initially intended to comprise four films, a 16-episode TV series, and 92 DVDs, as well as websites, CD-ROMs and books. The project documented the i ...

''. In this film, it is suggested that he is a fiction created by Martino Knockavelli, a childhood friend who feels responsible for his death in an accident. His imagined life story was also told in a series of films and multimedia exhibitions called

Character analysis

In an interview given with

salon.com ''Salon'' is an American politically progressive/liberal news and opinion website created in 1995. It publishes articles on U.S. politics, culture, and current events. Content and coverage ''Salon'' covers a variety of topics, including re ...

, Peter Greenaway stated "Tulse Luper is a sort of

alter ego An alter ego (Latin for "other I", " doppelgänger") means an alternate self, which is believed to be distinct from a person's normal or true original personality. Finding one's alter ego will require finding one's other self, one with a differen ...

created many years ago -- Tulse could be said to rhyme with the pulse in your wrist, and Luper is a corruption of the Latin for wolf. So how about "danger lurking at the very door of your life?" It has also been mentioned by Greenaway that the construction of Tulse Luper was based on "a cache of old photographs in a trunk" of a gentleman at a car boot sale whose weathered countenance resembled

Samuel Beckett Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish novelist, dramatist, short story writer, theatre director, poet, and literary translator. His literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal and tragicomic expe ...

.Lawrence, Amy. The Films of Peter Greenaway. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1997. Print, 17. Beckett's literary influence has been reflected in Greenaway's work.

Notes

External links

Tulse Luper Manufacturer of Quality Suitcases

The Tulse Luper Journey - an online multiplayer game based on The Tulse Luper Suitcases project.
Drama film characters Author surrogates Film characters introduced in 1978 Peter Greenaway {{film-char-stub

Character overview

Character analysis

Notes

Further reading

External links