Cinema Quotes by Peter Greenaway

Cinema is not a playground for Sharon Stone.

— Peter Greenaway

For so many filmmakers, cinema is a means to an end.

— Peter Greenaway

Cinema is dead, long live cinema.

— Peter Greenaway

Cinema has reached a dead end.

— Peter Greenaway

Cinema is far too rich and capable a medium to be merely left to the storytellers.

— Peter Greenaway

Cinema basically examines a personality first and the body afterward.

— Peter Greenaway

We do not need a text-based cinema... we need an image-based cinema.

— Peter Greenaway

I have often thought it was very arrogant to suppose you could make a film for anybody but yourself.

— Peter Greenaway

Cinema, which demands suspension of disbelief, is an increasingly naive proposition.

— Peter Greenaway

I don't want to be a film-maker. I think painting is far more exciting and profound.

— Peter Greenaway

There is visual illiteracy with text-oriented films like bloody 'Harry Potter' and 'Lord of the Rings.'.

— Peter Greenaway

Eisenstein was a good editor. I was trained as a film editor, and I've no doubt that the editor is key to…

— Peter Greenaway

I don't believe that one has to tear down the cinema screen in order to renew cinema. But new input and new…

— Peter Greenaway

My favourite way of watching the cinema is the biggest possible cinema you can find, with the biggest possible screen, and the…

— Peter Greenaway

I don't believe in the deplorable notion of realism in the cinema: you can over-reach it, and it becomes as false as…

— Peter Greenaway

I don't have any particular wish to be polemical or didactic; I don't have a 'message', but what I do thoroughly enjoy…

— Peter Greenaway

I never go to the cinema. I can't stand sitting in the dark with strangers -- all of us obliged to share…

— Peter Greenaway

We have more than enough deodorised, over-the-top, sentimental cinema. Let's try to bring a little human intelligence into things. It can be…

— Peter Greenaway

Only cinema narrows its concern down to its content, that is to its story. It should, instead, concern itself with its form,…

— Peter Greenaway

I suppose I am gently cynical about notions of who we think we are, but I certainly don't hate my fellow man.…

— Peter Greenaway

I always think that if you deal with extremely emotional, even melodramatic, subject matter, as I constantly do, the best way to…

— Peter Greenaway

I acknowledge Mike Leigh and Ken Loach. They are prostlytizers of English socialism preaching to the converted and telling us what we…

— Peter Greenaway

Whether you're Godard or Almodovar or Scorsese, it's text, text, text. Everything begins with the text, and this is a source of…

— Peter Greenaway

Cinema ceases to be passive and becomes active: you, the audience, are now, in some senses, in charge of the filmmaking process.…

— Peter Greenaway

Many quite popular films are filled with violence. I think the difference between those and my films is that I show the…

— Peter Greenaway

It seems to me that dominant cinema seems to require an empathy or a sympathy between the film and the audience which…

— 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…

— Peter Greenaway

I think that films or indeed any art work should be made in a way that they are infinitely viewable; so that…

— Peter Greenaway

I don't think we've seen any cinema yet. I think we've seen 100 years of illustrated text.

— Peter Greenaway

I do indeed think that cinema is mortal. There is a lot of evidence already that it is dying on its feet.

— Peter Greenaway

I want to regard my public as infinitely intelligent, as understanding notions of the suspension of disbelief and as realising all the…

— Peter Greenaway

I wanted to make a cinema of ideas, not plots, and to use the same aesthetics as painting, which has always paid…

— Peter Greenaway

I believe that cinema died on the 31 September 1983 when the zapper, or the remote control, was introduced into the living…

— Peter Greenaway

I still would like you to feel the enthusiasm that all those people felt in the twenties and thirties, that indeed we…

— Peter Greenaway

Most cinema is not about images but text. Why on earth have we based cinema on text? Why can't we break that…

— Peter Greenaway

Americans don't understand what metaphor in cinema is about. They're extremely good at making straightforward, linear narrative movies, which entertain superbly. But…

— Peter Greenaway

I think my films are very English. That certain emotional distance, interest in the world, interest in irony. These are all deeply…

— 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…

— Peter Greenaway

There have been innumerable films about film-making, but Otto e Mezzo was a film about the processes of thinking about making a…

— Peter Greenaway

I don't want to be a film-maker. I think painting is far more exciting and profound. It's always at the back of…

— Peter Greenaway