“I think it is really important to be in some way provocative -- either intellectually or viscerally -- in the films one makes.” ThinkingWayImportantFilmProvocative 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.” ThinkingWayArtPurposeTreatsHandleCinemaConsolePurpose Of Art Author:Peter Greenaway
“I always think that if you deal with extremely emotional, even melodramatic, subject matter, as I constantly do, the best way to handle those situations is at a sufficient remove. It's like a doctor and a nurse and a casualty situation. You can't help the patient and you can't help yourself by emoting. And I don't think cinema is intended for therapy, so I object also to that huge, massive manipulation which is perpetrated on the public.” IfsThinkingWayMatterHelpingDealsSituationSubjectsObjectsEmotionalHugeDoctorsPatientHandleBest WayTherapyCinemaSufficientRemoveMassiveManipulationNurseDo The BestSubject MatterCasualtiesHelp Yourself Author:Peter Greenaway
“If you're a Shakespeare fan, isn't that a way to negotiate sex and death?” IfsWaySexFansSex And Death Author:Peter Greenaway
“Here was opportunity to make an audience walk and move, be sociable in a way never dreamed of by the rigors of cinema-watching, in circumstances where many different perspectives could be brought to bear on a series of phenomena associated with the topics under consideration. Yet all the time it was a subjective creation under the auspices of light and sound, dealing with a large slice of cinema's vocabulary.” WayDifferentLightMovingOpportunitySoundWalksAudienceCreationPerspectiveBearsCircumstancesSeriesCinemaConsiderationTopicsVocabularySubjectiveDifferent PerspectiveRigorSociable 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 favourite way of watching the cinema is the biggest possible cinema you can find, with the biggest possible screen, and the loudest possible Dolby - but just me. Nobody else.” WayScreensCinemaFavourite Author:Peter Greenaway
“I think that films or indeed any art work should be made in a way that they are infinitely viewable; so that you could go back to it time and time again, not necessarily immediately but over a space of time, and see new things in it, or new ways of looking at it.” ThinkingWayShouldArtMadeFilmSpaceNew ThingsNew Ways Author:Peter Greenaway
“I always think that art is one of the most wonderful exciting curious ways to learn. I have no worries or apologies about art being used as a teaching medium.” ThinkingWayArtUsedWorryWonderfulTeachingArt IsExcitingMediumsCuriousApologyNo Worries Author:Peter Greenaway
“I think my films are always quite self-reflexive and always question 'why am I doing this, is this the right way to do it, what is cinema for, does it have a purpose?” ThinkingWayDoeSelfFilmPurposeCinemaRight Way Author:Peter Greenaway
