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Peter Greenaway

Peter Greenaway Books

Film director

Peter Greenaway is a British film director known for his unique artistic style and innovative narrative techniques. His films often incorporate historical, cultural, and philosophical elements, challenging viewers to think deeply.

Peter Greenaway: Interviews

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Eight and a half women

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The pillow book

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Related Quotes

“I like a lot of glasses about - it highers the tone.”

Author:Peter Greenaway

“This is where I begin to do the writing. I am now going to be the pen and not the paper.”

Writing Paper Pens

Book:The pillow book

Source: The pillow book

“I am certain that there are two things in life which are dependable: the delights of the flesh and the delights of literature. I have had the good fortune to enjoy them both equally.”

Two Together Certain Literature Enjoy Fortune Delight Flesh Two Things Quantity Things In Life Good Fortune Dependable

Author:Peter Greenaway

“Investigation is never complete.”

Author:Peter Greenaway

“Words reproduce themselves pleasurably too.”

Author:Peter Greenaway

“Whispering can be a rest from a noisy world of words.”

World Whispering Noisy

Author:Peter Greenaway

“All the material is fictional and develops its own eight and a half private, coelesced journeys, where, perhaps not unexpectedly, the females can run faster than the men and trade their freedoms by exhausting the male sexual fantasies and replacing them by some of their own.”

Men Running Half Fantasy Journey He Man Materials Female Trade Males Eight Faster Exhausting

Book:Eight and a half women

Source: Eight and a half women

“I have always had severe problems with Austrians. ... Musical, churchy, uptight... nice legs... hypocritical... authoritarian... always insist their dustbins are very clean.”

Problem Nice Clean Musical Legs Severe Hypocritical Uptight Dustbin

Book:Eight and a half women

Source: Eight and a half women

“What initially attracted me to The Seventh Seal was that it had values and characteristics which I was familiar with in other art forms, most notably, the European novel and certain forms on English drama, and indeed, in relation to my rather academic interest in history -- not "history" in the normal sense, but history as a form of entertainment . It might be a very unfashionable view but I believe that history is an amazing bank or reserve area of plots, characterisations, extraordinary events, etc.”

Believe Art Might Form Certain Values I Believe Interest Views Novel Events Drama Normal Areas Relation Extraordinary Entertainment Familiar Characteristics Etc Plot Academic Reserves Seals

Author:Peter Greenaway

“It's so miserable and so easy to keep slamming Titanic -- I'll shut up.”

Easy Miserable Shut Up

Book:Peter Greenaway: Interviews

Source: Peter Greenaway: Interviews

“It's precisely on the Internet that the majority of the writing is terribly bad and uninteresting.”

Writing Internet Majority

Author:Peter Greenaway

“A French critic referred to me as a gay pessimist, with gay used in its older sense, and talked of Cocteau in the same breath.”

Used Gay Breaths Critics Pessimist

Book:Peter Greenaway: Interviews

Source: Peter Greenaway: Interviews

“If Good approved of his creature's creation, He breathed the painted clay-model into life by signing His name.”

Ifs Names Creation Creatures Models Clay Approved Signing

Book:The pillow book

Source: The pillow book

“In practically every film you experience, you can see the director following the text. Illustrating the words first, making the pictures after, and, alas, so often not making pictures at all, but holding up the camera to do its mimetic worst.”

Firsts Film Worst Directors Cameras Following Alas Illustrating

Author:Peter Greenaway

“I loved Latin -- the grammar, the difficult tenses, the history -- but for some reason I was very bad at it, shamefully and blushingly bad at it. ... In moments of stress the embarrassment of how bad I was at Latin -- a subject I loved -- really hit me. It was like being laughed at by someone you desperately loved.”

Reason Moments Difficult Subjects Stress Latin Laughed Grammar Embarrassment

Book:Eight and a half women

Source: Eight and a half women

“Imagine a world where nothing is stable. In the West, we have three moving elements -- Air, Fire, Water -- but at least we can depend on the fourth.”

World Moving Three Water Fire Imagine Air Depends Elements West Stable Fourth

Book:Eight and a half women

Source: Eight and a half women

“I would be curious about one of those Jane Austen women - you know - long-suffering, dutiful - but all right in the end - a plump 19th century type, five foot four, ringlets, brown eyes, long fingers.”

Knows Long Ends Would Be Eye Suffering Five Four Feet Century Type Fingers Curious Brown Jane 19th Century Austen Long Suffering Brown Eyes

Author:Peter Greenaway

“One of my heroes, almost necessarily from what I'm saying, of course, is Borges, who is a supreme master of doing thing -- being a data bank -- and the beauty of this economy is that he could have written War and Peace in three or four pages; who knows, it might have been a better book.”

Knows Has Beens Book War Might Three Courses Economy Four Written Masters Hero Pages Supreme Data Might Have Been My Hero Borges

Author:Peter Greenaway

“I made a very bad mistake; I miscounted these scraps of information on the record as 92, and in continual homage to this man who had been so influential to me, I began creating or constructing my own films on this so-called "magic" number of 92 ... but when I eventually made a film about John Cage and met him, I explained this to him, and he found it very amusing because there are only 90 stories on the two sides of the record, and I'd based three years of my filmic career on this mathematical error!”

“It seems to me that dominant cinema seems to require an empathy or a sympathy between the film and the audience which is basically to do with the manipulation of the emotions and it seems to me again -- and this is a very subjective position -- that most cinema seems to trivialise the emotions, sentimentalising or romanticising them.”

Seems Film Emotion Audience Position Empathy Cinema Manipulation Dominant Subjective

Author:Peter Greenaway

“I was continually connected with the whole world and never got any rest. At the moment, I spend only a few hours weekly on the net, that's just better for me.”

World Whole Moments Hours Connected Whole World

Author:Peter Greenaway

“Only cinema narrows its concern down to its content, that is to its story. It should, instead, concern itself with its form, its structure.”

Should Stories Form Concern Structure Cinema

Book:Peter Greenaway: Interviews

Source: Peter Greenaway: Interviews

“That comes from most people having an American film model in their heads which is nothing but a total illusionary masturbatory massage.”

People Film Models Massage American Film

Book:Peter Greenaway: Interviews

Source: Peter Greenaway: Interviews

“Cinema is far too rich and capable a medium to be merely left to the storytellers.”

Left Rich Capable Mediums Cinema Storyteller

Author:Peter Greenaway

“You should be allowed to rub out and start again, it means that you are human. The purists are tedious, they tell you a mistake is like an enduring black mark. Nonsense -- better to be human than some infernal machine never going wrong.”

Should Humans Mean Black Mistake Machines Mark Endure Nonsense Tedious

Book:The pillow book

Source: The pillow book

“Blind eyes cannot read.”

Eye Blind Blind Eyes

Author:Peter Greenaway

“A hand cannot write on itself.”

Author:Peter Greenaway

“Itch to read, scratch to understand.”

Author:Peter Greenaway

“If every man is supposed to think of sex once every nine minutes, what on earth does he think of in the other eight?”

Ifs Thinking Men Doe Earth Sex Minutes Eight Every Man Nine

Author:Peter Greenaway

“There have been innumerable films about film-making, but Otto e Mezzo was a film about the processes of thinking about making a film -- certainly the most enjoyable part of any cinema creation.”

Thinking Has Beens Film Process Creation Cinema Enjoyable

Book:Eight and a half women

Source: Eight and a half women

“I never go to the cinema. I can't stand sitting in the dark with strangers -- all of us obliged to share the same emotional experiences -- it's too intimate. I like to be emotional in private.”

I Can Dark Share Emotional Sitting Stranger Cinema Intimate Obliged Sitting In The Dark

Book:Eight and a half women

Source: Eight and a half women

“The range of human skin colours is quite narrow when you think about it - and I do - and subtle - beige, pink, white, tan, taup.”

Thinking Humans White Skins Range Colour Subtle

Author:Peter Greenaway

“I think it is really important to be in some way provocative -- either intellectually or viscerally -- in the films one makes.”

Thinking Way Important Film Provocative

Author:Peter Greenaway

“Jean Renoir once suggested that most true creators have only one idea and spend their lives reworking it, but then very rapidly he added that most people don't have any ideas at all, so one idea is pretty amazing.”

People Ideas Creator Renoir

Book:Peter Greenaway: Interviews

Source: Peter Greenaway: Interviews

“My personal obsessions are much more interesting to me than other people's.”

People Interesting Obsession

Author:Peter Greenaway

“You can play lacrosse all over the world provided you know where the goalposts are.”

Knows World Play Lacrosse

Book:Peter Greenaway: Interviews

Source: Peter Greenaway: Interviews

“I also think that everyone has an elitist approach to his own art, a complex knowledge of it, whether he is a clockmaker or an engineer. And I think it's perfectly legitimate to make use of this knowledge because it enriches the overall texture of life.”

Thinking Art Use Approach Complexes Engineers Texture Elitist

Book:Peter Greenaway: Interviews

Source: Peter Greenaway: Interviews

“I am Welsh by birth, English by education, and European by nature.”

Author:Peter Greenaway

“The game Flights of Fancy or Reverse Strip Jump is played from as high a jumping-point as a competitor will dare. After each successful jump, the competitor is allowing to put on an article of clothing. Thirteen jumps is normally more than enough to see a competitor fully dressed for the day.”

Enough Games Successful Dare Flight Fancy Allowing Articles Clothings Reverse Competitors Jumping Thirteen

Author:Peter Greenaway

“The pretence that numbers are not the humble creation of man, but are the exacting language of the Universe and therefore possess the secret of all things, is comforting, terrifying and mesmeric.”

Men Universe Language Numbers Secret Creation All Things Humble Comforting Pretence Creation Of Man

Author:Peter Greenaway

“Life is full of a thousand red herrings, and it takes the history of a civilisation to work out which are the red herrings and which aren't.”

Life Is Thousand Red Work Out Civilisation Herring Red Herrings

Book:Peter Greenaway: Interviews

Source: Peter Greenaway: Interviews

“I like to think of The Falls as my own personal encyclopedia Greenaway-ensis.”

Thinking Fall My Own Encyclopedia

Author:Peter Greenaway

“My audience is comprised of three categories. The first category contains the people who decide after the first five minutes that they've made a mistake and leave. The second category is the people who give the film a chance and leave annoyed after 40 minutes. The third category includes the people that watch the whole film and return to see it again. If I'm able to persuade 33% of the audience to stay, then I can say that I've succeeded.”

People Ifs Giving Firsts Made I Can Whole Able Film Three Chance Mistake Watches Audience Five Minutes Return Thirds Categories Five Minutes Annoyed Made A Mistake

Author:Peter Greenaway

“Continuity is boring.”

Boring Continuity

Author:Peter Greenaway

“A really intelligent man makes an indifferent painter. For painting requires a certain blindness, a partial refusal to be aware of all the options.”

Men Certain Painting Intelligent Painter Indifferent Blindness Refusal Intelligent Man

Author:Peter Greenaway

“I still would like you to feel the enthusiasm that all those people felt in the twenties and thirties, that indeed we had discovered, with cinema, the great 20th-century, all-embracing medium.”

People Feels Stills Felt Century Like You Twenties Mediums Enthusiasm Cinema 20th Century

Author:Peter Greenaway

“There are those who think that Zeffirelli's Hamlet is the way to treat Shakespeare. I think that cinema can handle much more. We somehow expect cinema to provide us with meaning, to console us. But that's not the purpose of art.”

Thinking Way Art Purpose Treats Handle Cinema Console Purpose Of Art

Author:Peter Greenaway

“The start of a film is like a gateway, a formal entrance-point. The first three minutes of a film make great demands on an audience's patience and credulity. A great deal has to be learnt very rapidly about place and attitude, character and intent and ambition.”

Firsts Character Film Three Deals Attitude Audience Minutes Demand Ambition Formal Entrances Credulity Gateways

Author:Peter Greenaway

“I certainly don't believe you documentary filmmakers. Like me, you are involved in making fiction, and your fiction is just as well organized and just as well predicated, but the big difference between me and you is that I'm honest and you're dishonest. I know I'm telling you lies.”

Knows Believe Wells Bigs Lying Differences Fiction Honest Involved Don't Believe Like Me Filmmaker Organized Documentaries

Author:Peter Greenaway

“There is no obligation for the author of a film to believe in, or to sympathise with, the moral behaviour of his characters. Nor is he necessarily to be accredited with the same opinions as his characters. Nor is it necessary or obligatory for him to believe in the tenet of his construction - all of which is a disclaimer to the notion that the author of Drowning by Numbers believes that all men are weak, enfeebled, loutish, boorish and generally inadequate and incompetent as partners for women. But it's a thought.”

Men Believe Character Film Numbers Moral Opinion Weak Notion Partners Obligation Construction Behaviour Drowning Inadequate Incompetent Disclaimers

Author:Peter Greenaway

About the Author

Born: April 5, 1942
Known for: Film director
Quotes: 139

Related Topics

Cinema Film Thinking Ifs Art Knows Way People World Believe

Popular Topics

People Ifs Thinking Knows Men World Way Want Love Life Inspirational Needs Giving Feels Should Writing Trying Years Mind Firsts

Books & Sources

Peter Greenaway: InterviewsRelated source material

Eight and a half womenRelated source material

The pillow bookRelated source material

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