“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.” FirstsFilmWorstDirectorsCamerasFollowingAlasIllustrating 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.” PeopleIfsGivingFirstsMadeI CanWholeAbleFilmThreeChanceMistakeWatchesAudienceFiveMinutesReturnThirdsCategoriesFive MinutesAnnoyedMade A Mistake 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.” FirstsCharacterFilmThreeDealsAttitudeAudienceMinutesDemandAmbitionFormalEntrancesCredulityGateways Author:Peter Greenaway
“Cinema doesn't connect with the body as artists have in two thousand years of painting, using the nude as the central figure which the ideas seem to circulate around. I think it is important to somehow push or stretch or emphasize, in as many ways as I can, the sheer bulk, shape, heaviness, the juices, the actual structure of the body. Cinema basically examines a personality first and the body afterward.” ThinkingWayYearsFirstsI CanTwoImportantIdeasBodySeemsArtistFiguresPaintingPersonalityThousandShapesStructureCinemaSheerThousand YearsJuiceHeaviness Author:Peter Greenaway
“My second Christian name is John. Good solid bourgeois Christian name, like my first name, Peter, a rock. Minerals. Build on rock, rocks, uranium. Peter and John were two of the twelve apostles - arguable the two most significant. Were my parents hedging their bets?” FirstsTwoChristianNamesParentRocksSignificantPeterTwelveApostlesBourgeoisMineralsUraniumHedging Author:Peter Greenaway
“Cinema basically examines a personality first and the body afterward.” FirstsBodyPersonalityCinema Author:Peter Greenaway