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Peter Greenaway Biography

Peter Greenaway

Peter Greenaway, CBE (born 5 April 1942 in Newport, Wales) is a British film director, screenwriter, and artist. His films are noted for the distinct influence of Renaissance and Baroque painting, and Flemish painting in particular. Common traits in his film are the scenic composition and illumination and the contrasts of costume and nudity, nature and architecture, furniture and people, sexual pleasure and painful death.

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Peter Greenaway Quotes

I went to art school, and every Tuesday and Friday we drew the nude. If you look at Western painting, male and female nudes are in the center of every painting. It's difficult and exciting to draw the nude. Why get so upset about this? It's our duty to break taboos.

Art, Exciting, Friday, Look, Nude, School

Too many proofs spoil the truth.

Proof, Proofs, Spoil, Truth

There are, after all, approaches to be made other than the dependable routes that massage sentimental expectations and provide easy opportunities for emotional identification.

Dependable, Emotional, Expectations, Massage, Opportunities, Opportunity

Most cinema is not about images but text. Why on earth have we based cinema on text? Why can't we break that umbilical cord? Why do we have to pollute cinema?

Cinema, Earth, Pollute, Text, Umbilical Cord

We don't need virtual reality, we need virtual unreality.

Needs, Reality, Unreality, Virtual

Blind eyes cannot read.

Blind, Blind Eyes, Eye, Eyes, Read

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.

Connected, Hours, Moments, Net, World

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

Arrogant, Film, Make, Suppose, Thought

There's more religion in my little finger than there is in the pope. But no, I don't believe in God. I am an athiest. A Darwinian evolutionist.

Believe, God, Littles, Pope

If you're a Shakespeare fan, isn't that a way to negotiate sex and death?

Death, Fans, Negotiate, Sex, Way

There have been innumerable films about film-making, but Otto e Mezzo was a film about the processes of thinking about making a film -- certainly the most enjoyable part of any cinema creation.

Cinema, Enjoyable, Film, Part, Processes, Thinking

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?

Cinema, Doe, Question, Self, Think, Thinking

I certainly don't believe you documentary filmmakers. Like me, you are involved in making fiction, and your fiction is just as well organized and just as well predicated, but the big difference between me and you is that I'm honest and you're dishonest. I know I'm telling you lies.

Believe, Differences, Fiction, Honest, Lying

Churchill was a good writer but a bad historian.

Bad, Churchill, Good, Good Writers, Historian

I was born on the 5th April 1942. On Good Friday. Round about crucifixion time. Archbishop Ussher, a man for dates, who calculated that the world began on September 27th 4004 BC, says the crucifixion took place at three o'clock in the afternoon on Good Friday in the year 33 AD. I was right on time.

Crucifixion, Friday, Man, Men, Says, Years

Works of art are never finished, just stopped.

Art, Finished, Stopped, Works Of Art

Film is such an extraordinary rich medium which can handle so many different modes of operation, combining together in the same place all these extraordinary disciplines which may be executed in their own right - music, writing, picture making of all kinds, and I often feel that some filmmakers make films with one eye closed and two hands tied behind their backs.

Eye, Hands, Modes, Rich, Tied, Writing

I always think that if you deal with extremely emotional, even melodramatic, subject matter, as I constantly do, the best way to handle those situations is at a sufficient remove. It's like a doctor and a nurse and a casualty situation. You can't help the patient and you can't help yourself by emoting. And I don't think cinema is intended for therapy, so I object also to that huge, massive manipulation which is perpetrated on the public.

Doctors, Emotional, Matter, Nurse, Thinking

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.

Although, Celebratory, Death, Hate, Men, Thinking

It seems so tragic to me that so many filmmakers are making movies up against this extra-ordinary revolution with one eye closed and two hands tied behind their backs.

Eye, Hands, Two, Against, Revolution

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