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Quote by 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.”

Quote by Peter Greenaway

Book:Peter Greenaway: Interviews

Work

Peter Greenaway: Interviews

Peter Greenaway: Interviews is a collection of conversations with the British filmmaker Peter Greenaway, delving into his unique approach to storytelling and his influential work in cinema and visual arts. The interviews provide insights into Greenaway's artistic vision, his methods, and the inspiration behind his films. more

Author

Peter Greenaway

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. more

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“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