Only cinema narrows its concern down to its content, that is to its story. It should, instead, concern itself with its form,… — Peter Greenaway Cinema Copy Share Image
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 Best Copy Share Image
There's more religion in my little finger than there is in the pope. But no, I don't believe in God. I am… — Peter Greenaway Believe Copy Share Image
We can have our own choices in sex partners, but you cannot avoid birth and death. It's the content of all religion… — Peter Greenaway Art Copy Share Image
All really worthwhile artists, creators, use the technology of their time, and anybody who doesn't becomes immediately a fossil. — Peter Greenaway Art Copy Share Image
A really intelligent man makes an indifferent painter. For painting requires a certain blindness, a partial refusal to be aware of all… — Peter Greenaway Artist Copy Share Image
I also think that everyone has an elitist approach to his own art, a complex knowledge of it, whether he is a… — Peter Greenaway Approach Copy Share Image
I was continually connected with the whole world and never got any rest. At the moment, I spend only a few hours… — Peter Greenaway Connected Copy Share Image
Many quite popular films are filled with violence. I think the difference between those and my films is that I show the… — Peter Greenaway Activity Copy Share Image
My audience is comprised of three categories. The first category contains the people who decide after the first five minutes that they've… — Peter Greenaway Able Copy Share Image
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… — Peter Greenaway Books Copy Share Image
It's a big criticism of Greenaway films that they are far too interested in formalism and not enough interested in notions of… — Peter Greenaway Criticism Copy Share Image
I loved Latin -- the grammar, the difficult tenses, the history -- but for some reason I was very bad at it,… — Peter Greenaway Difficult Copy Share Image
I believe there's no such thing as history; there's only historians, and in English, we've got this word 'his'tory, but what about… — Peter Greenaway Believe Copy Share Image
It's very difficult to understand, but I'm looking for a nonnarrative, multiscreen, present-tense cinema. Narrative is an artifact created by us. It… — Peter Greenaway Cinema Copy Share Image
As you probably know, I'm often accused of intellectual exhibitionism and all forms of elitism. Although I can understand this point of… — Peter Greenaway Accused Copy Share Image
Life is full of a thousand red herrings, and it takes the history of a civilisation to work out which are the… — Peter Greenaway Civilisation Copy Share Image
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 Cinema Copy Share Image
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 Cinema Copy Share Image
I think my films are very English. That certain emotional distance, interest in the world, interest in irony. These are all deeply… — Peter Greenaway Certain Copy Share Image
Creation, to me, is to try to orchestrate the universe to understand what surrounds us. Even if, to accomplish that, we use… — Peter Greenaway Accomplish Copy Share Image
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 Cinema Copy Share Image
You should be allowed to rub out and start again, it means that you are human. The purists are tedious, they tell… — Peter Greenaway Black Copy Share Image
Jean Renoir once suggested that most true creators have only one idea and spend their lives reworking it, but then very rapidly… — Peter Greenaway Creativity Copy Share Image
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 Break Copy Share Image
The pretence that numbers are not the humble creation of man, but are the exacting language of the Universe and therefore possess… — Peter Greenaway All things Copy Share Image
There are basically only two subject matters in all Western culture: sex and death. We do have some ability to manipulate sex… — Peter Greenaway Ability Copy Share Image
The range of human skin colours is quite narrow when you think about it - and I do - and subtle -… — Peter Greenaway Beige Copy Share Image
I would be curious about one of those Jane Austen women - you know - long-suffering, dutiful - but all right in… — Peter Greenaway 19th century Copy Share Image
Imagine a world where nothing is stable. In the West, we have three moving elements -- Air, Fire, Water -- but at… — Peter Greenaway Air Copy Share Image
There are those who think that Zeffirelli's Hamlet is the way to treat Shakespeare. I think that cinema can handle much more.… — Peter Greenaway Art Copy Share Image
It seems so tragic to me that so many filmmakers are making movies up against this extra-ordinary revolution with one eye closed… — Peter Greenaway Behinds Copy Share Image
If you never lived out your sexuality - it's a great force, and if you try to fight it, what does that… — Peter Greenaway Doe Copy Share Image
I do feel for me that cinema has somehow ceased to be a spectator sport. I get tremendous excitement out of making… — Peter Greenaway Cinema Copy Share Image
Thanks to secondary education and the Internet, we're all knowledgeable now - if knowledge means the accumulation of facts. Curators are those… — Peter Greenaway Education Copy Share Image
There are, after all, approaches to be made other than the dependable routes that massage sentimental expectations and provide easy opportunities for… — Peter Greenaway Approach Copy Share Image
I think there is no future whatsoever in 3D. It does nothing to the grammar and syntax or vocabulary of cinema. And… — Peter Greenaway Cinema Copy Share Image
In practically every film you experience, you can see the director following the text. Illustrating the words first, making the pictures after,… — Peter Greenaway Alas Copy Share Image
If you think about it, most cinema is built along 19th-century models. You would hardly think that the cinema had discovered James… — Peter Greenaway About Copy Share Image
I always think that art is one of the most wonderful exciting curious ways to learn. I have no worries or apologies… — Peter Greenaway Always Copy Share Image
