If you want to tell stories, be a writer, not a filmmaker. Peter Greenaway More Quotes by Peter Greenaway More Quotes From Peter Greenaway I've always been fascinated by Eisenstein. Peter Greenaway fascinated The Sistine Chapel is an extraordinary work of education - it lays out all the early books of the Bible. Peter Greenaway chapelextraordinarybook 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. Peter Greenaway charactermenbelieve That comes from most people having an American film model in their heads which is nothing but a total illusionary masturbatory massage. Peter Greenaway massagefilmpeople Blind eyes cannot read. Peter Greenaway blind-eyesblindeye 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. Peter Greenaway hoursmomentsworld 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. Peter Greenaway manipulationempathycinema A hand cannot write on itself. Peter Greenaway writinghands 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! Peter Greenaway mistakemenyears 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. Peter Greenaway herowarbook 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. Peter Greenaway eyefeetlong Itch to read, scratch to understand. Peter Greenaway scratches 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. Peter Greenaway fireairmoving Anybody who writes a diary insists it must be read by someone else. Peter Greenaway diarieswriting All religions have always hated females. Peter Greenaway femalehated 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? Peter Greenaway rockschristiannames An American critic wrote that she would rather be forced to read the New York telephone directory three times than watch the film A Zed and Two Noughts, a third of which was a homage to Vermeer. Conceivably, if you are a list-enthusiast like me, the New York telephone directory might be fascinating, demographically, geographically, historically, typographically, cartographically; but I am sure no compliment was intended. Peter Greenaway vermeernew-yorktwo Many quite popular films are filled with violence. I think the difference between those and my films is that I show the cause and effect of violent activity. It's not a Donald Duck situation where he get a brick in the back of the head and gets up and walks away in the next frame. Mine have violence which keeps Donald Duck in the hospital for six months and creates a trauma which he will remember for the rest of his life. Peter Greenaway ducksdifferencesthinking I have a very, very secret drive to become a dilettante, without the pejorative overtones or the obligation to produce myself. There's so much to examine, so much to contemplate. I have enormous enthusiasm when I start a new project but then there's the meetings and the counter-meetings, the rehearsals, the struggles. You have to keep pushing and pushing and pushing to get your dreams realised. Peter Greenaway strugglesecretdream 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. Peter Greenaway vocabularyopportunitymoving
