Home
Authors
Tags
App
Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App
" I don't believe in the deplorable notion of realism in the cinema: you can over-reach it, and it becomes as false as convention. "
Peter Greenaway
You
Realism
False
Related Quotes:
" For 8,000 years, we've had lyric poetry; for 400 years we've had the novel: theatre hands its meaning down in text. Let's find a medium whose total, sole responsibility is the world as seen as a form of visual intelligence. Surely, surely, surely the cinema should be that phenomenon. "
Peter Greenaway
Intelligence
Responsibility
Poetry
" We do not need a text-based cinema... we need an image-based cinema. "
Peter Greenaway
Cinema
Need
" Anybody who writes a diary insists it must be read by someone else. "
Peter Greenaway
Must
Anybody
Read
" 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?' "
Peter Greenaway
Doing
Cinema
Always
" 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. "
Peter Greenaway
Art
Curious
Always
" I suppose I am gently cynical about notions of who we think we are, but I certainly don't hate my fellow man. I think my cinema, although it might often deal with death and decay, is highly celebratory. "
Peter Greenaway
I Am
Think
Death
" My biggest critical success was 'The Draughtsman's Contract,' but then it wasn't the English who particularly thought so; it was the French, who are much more interested in Cartesian logic: in finding your way through more cerebral puzzle-making, if you wish. "
Peter Greenaway
Thought
Wish
Finding
" English culture is highly literary-based. "
Peter Greenaway
English
Culture
Highly
" Cinema, which demands suspension of disbelief, is an increasingly naive proposition. "
Peter Greenaway
Disbelief
Which
Naive
" As for critics, one mediocre writer is more valuable than ten good critics. They are like haughty, barren spinsters lodged in a maternity ward. "
Peter Greenaway
Critics
Than
More
" Most people are visually illiterate. Most people don't understand images: they don't understand how to interpret them or how to manufacture them. "
Peter Greenaway
How
Most
Understand
" I obviously irritate people. I obviously antagonise them. "
Peter Greenaway
Obviously
Irritate
Them
" Cinema basically examines a personality first and the body afterward. "
Peter Greenaway
First
Body
Personality
" I want to be a prime creator - as every self-regarding artist should do. "
Peter Greenaway
Creator
Prime
Artist
" All religions have always hated females. "
Peter Greenaway
Always
All Religions
Hated
" Religion is there to say, 'Hey, you don't have to worry - there's an afterlife.' "
Peter Greenaway
You
Religion
Say
" Cinema ceases to be passive and becomes active: you, the audience, are now, in some senses, in charge of the filmmaking process. You have all got mobile phones, you have all got cam recorders, and you've all got laptops, so you're all filmmakers. "
Peter Greenaway
You
Now
Process
" Everything I try to do wants to be able to push communication through the notion of the visual image. "
Peter Greenaway
Visual
Push
Image
" I've always been fascinated by Eisenstein. "
Peter Greenaway
Fascinated
Been
Always
" In a world where we can all be our own filmmakers, the old elites are disappearing and there is no desire to look at somebody else's dream anymore because you can go off and make your own. "
Peter Greenaway
World
You
Look
" I can't think of anyone who has done anything remotely useful after the age of 80. "
Peter Greenaway
Who
Anything
Useful
" If you want to tell stories, be a writer, not a filmmaker. "
Peter Greenaway
Writer
You
Tell
" For so many filmmakers, cinema is a means to an end. "
Peter Greenaway
End
Many
Means
" It's a big criticism of Greenaway films that they are far too interested in formalism and not enough interested in notions of emotional content. It's a criticism I can fully understand from a public that has been brought up by Hollywood movies that demand intense emotional rapport. "
Peter Greenaway
Movies
Criticism
Enough
" I'm sorry - you know, culture is elitist. Culture has to be elitist: it's about seeing and knowing and about knowledge. "
Peter Greenaway
You
Culture
Know
" The Sistine Chapel is an extraordinary work of education - it lays out all the early books of the Bible. "
Peter Greenaway
Early
Education
Work
" I think that every artist dreams of renewing the forms which came before, but I think very few can be considered to have achieved that. We are all dwarves standing upon the shoulders of the giants who preceded us, and I think we must never forget that. After all, even iconoclasts only exist with respect to that which they destroy. "
Peter Greenaway
Forget
Think
Respect
" Some people would say again that my attitudes are cold and cerebral; I suppose if you're thinking about American sentimental movies, I suppose they would be. "
Peter Greenaway
Movies
You
Thinking
" I think there is no future whatsoever in 3D. It does nothing to the grammar and syntax or vocabulary of cinema. And you get fed up with it in exactly 3 minutes. "
Peter Greenaway
You
Cinema
Future
" I'm a Darwinian. "
Peter Greenaway
Darwinian