Peter Greenaway citations (266 citations, Page 8)

Peter Greenaway: 266 citations0 J'aime

Peter Greenaway: Citations en anglais

“A French critic referred to me as a gay pessimist, with gay used in its older sense, and talked of Cocteau in the same breath.”

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Peter Greenaway

In an interview in Sight and Sound, Summer 1987
Interviews

“The world is in his cloak -- figures peer out of its folds -- mythological figures and snakes and pigs and flowers, naked fauns and heavy-breasted sirens and horses' heads -- they sprawl on the flagstones at his feet and peep out from under his arms…”

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Peter Greenaway

Prospero's Books

“I don't have any particular wish to be polemical or didactic; I don't have a "message", but what I do thoroughly enjoy are those works of art, not necessarily in the cinema, but in the other arts as well, which have an encyclopaedic world.”

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Peter Greenaway

From an interview in Art and Design, no. 49
Interviews

“This is a book and a body that is so warm to the touch. My touch.”

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Peter Greenaway

From the sixth book, "The Book of the Lover"
The Pillow Book

“A long white dress that starts under the breast and travels on interminably down -- so their legs are entirely mysterious -- they could have one leg or two inside that dress… A Jane Austen woman could be incredibly passionate inside that dress.”

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Peter Greenaway

8 1/2 Women

“That comes from most people having an American film model in their heads which is nothing but a total illusionary masturbatory massage.”

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Peter Greenaway

In an interview in Die Zeit, 24 Nov 1989
Interviews

“The large body of the swan wedged in the shattered glass of the car windscreen fills the film frame. Its head is bent back on itself in a parody of its orthodox gracefulness.”

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Peter Greenaway

A Zed and Two Noughts

“Painting: Once upon a time a painting was a two-dimensional representation; now it is anything its author thinks is appropriate.”

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Peter Greenaway

Rosa: The Death of a Composer

“A thrown-stone trajectory is a good metaphor for so many phenomena: the curve of an event, any event; the curve of a life, any life; the curve of a hypothesis; the curve experienced in the manufacture of a work of art; the curve of interest experienced in the manufacture of a catalogue.”

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Peter Greenaway

Flying Out of This World

“Obviously, I am the cook. The cook is the director. He arranges the menu, the seating order of the guests; he gives refuge to the lovers; he prepares the repast of the lover's body. The cook is a perfectionist and a rationalist, a portrait of myself.”

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Peter Greenaway

In an interview in Die Zeit, 24 Nov 1989
The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover

“It tells you how to boil water. What expression to wear when you are eating eggs. How to starve. When to eat. What your first meal should be. What your last meal should be. It says more about death than eating and more about living than cooking.”

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Peter Greenaway

Georgina and Richard
The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover

“I've just been reading -- stuff to make your hair curl -- you go in that toilet -- that's the sort of stuff people read -- not this sort of thing -- don't you feel out of touch? Does this stuff make money? I bet you're the only person to have read this book -- but I bet you every man in this restaurant has had a read of that stuff in there… makes you think, doesn't it?”

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Peter Greenaway

Albert
The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover

“I don't know what to say really -- except that you look immortal and I look bereft.”

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Peter Greenaway

Philip
8 1/2 Women

“His writing -- in so many languages -- made me a sign-post pointing east, west, north and south. I had shoes in German, stockings in French, gloves in Hebrew, a hat with a veil in Italian. He only kept me naked where I was most accustomed to wearing clothes.”

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Peter Greenaway

Nagiko
The Pillow Book

“Four handsome, naked, female dancers separate themselves from the crowd in Prospero's cloak… and they dance. From now on -- they become Prospero's dancers -- they mark out a four-figured symmetrical space around him -- dancing in perfect unison -- a strange, prancing, high-stepping, complicated, frankly sensuous dance -- danced with great firmness and confidence -- their eroticism is aimed only at themselves -- no mincing or quarter given -- their erotic confidence is demonstrative and challenging.”

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Peter Greenaway

Prospero's Books

“If every man is supposed to think of sex once every nine minutes, what on earth does he think of in the other eight?”

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Peter Greenaway

Introductory quotation from the published script.
8 1/2 Women

“It is the trajectory of a thrown stone. It follows the hump of a humped-back whale from nose to tail. It's bounded like a smooth, sheep-cropped, grassy hill. It is a graph-line through a grey, blue, and then a grey again, sky.”

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Peter Greenaway

Flying Out of This World

“That's all. Thank you. You may go.”

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Peter Greenaway

The Belly of An Architect

“You should be allowed to rub out and start again, it means that you are human. The purists are tedious, they tell you a mistake is like an enduring black mark. Nonsense -- better to be human than some infernal machine never going wrong.”

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Peter Greenaway

One of the calligraphers
The Pillow Book

“Two children die. An accident and a suicide amongst so many murders. A chance death and a death of self-recrimination. Smut and the Skipping Girl have been aping their parents and elders -- perhaps they could now teach them a lesson -- all the machinations and game-playing and adjusting for sexual and emotional positioning is not worth the effort.”

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Peter Greenaway

Fear of Drowning By Numbers

“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.”

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Peter Greenaway

In an interview in Page, May 1999
Interviews

“The whole of this studio is bonded; that is to say, we are not officially in Japan per se, but rather, in what is considered for these purposes an adjunct of the customs shed at Narita airport. Officially, we are not here because we are pornographic. It's a rather curious situation.”

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Peter Greenaway

During the filming of Prospero's Books, quoted in an interview in American Film, Nov/Dec 1991
Prospero's Books

“Dots […]: Small marks variously made to indicate infinity, hesitation, duplication, or lack of imagination.”

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Peter Greenaway

Rosa: The Death of a Composer

“In the film The Belly of an Architect, an architect from Chicago organizes an exhibition of his favourite architect Etienne-Lous Boullée (1728-1799). I wrote an account of this hypothetical exhibition as though it had been seen by an unlikely Boullée contemporary -- Jane Austen (1775-1817). She made a prim but perceptive account of her progress through the corridors and halls of the Vittoriano in the centre of Rome -- a building constructed long after both of these eminent personages were dead.”

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Peter Greenaway

Watching Water

“A woman materialises behind Prospero -- leaning lightly on the back of his chair -- she is alternately a Titianesque nude and then the Vesalius figure -- flayed … she leans lightly over and kisses Prospero on the cheek. The kiss leaves a blood-red mark on his withered cheek. Prospero shivers.”

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Peter Greenaway

Prospero's Books

“One [film] is based on the Medea myth about a woman who kills her own child -- The Love of Ruins. It is almost a technical exercise to see if I can convince an audience or make an audience sympathetic to a woman who kills her own child.”

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Peter Greenaway

In an interview in Film Quarterly, Winter 1991-92
Interviews

“Prospero wears a large, heavy, dark-blue cloak or gown that enfolds him like a quilted blanket… it is darkly embroidered with small wine-coloured beads and swirls of black vegetation… it has long strings and ornate tassels that trail to the ground… it is a garment that has often been worn… a little frayed and scuffed. Later it will be seen to be capable of changing colour… in seven stages comparable to the power of Prospero's magic… black, brown, dark blue, light blue, purple, dark red and fiery red… and to have a vivid lining embroidered with dazzling stars -- a lining that is only revealed in flashes as when a dark butterfly momentarily uncovers coloured underwings.”

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Peter Greenaway

Prospero's Books

“As author in control of the plot I can choose and dictate the fall-out of events from any number of infinite possibilities -- which is a very volatile state of affairs, suggesting the ephemerality of fictional narrative. I can choose to have seven characters and kill six of them off in the first five minutes. I can have seventy characters and squash them under a fallen rock, make them copulate with beasts, sit them on the moon or turn their hair white. This casual condition of authorship is irresponsible.”

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Peter Greenaway

Watching Water

“Now you've opened your mouth, do you expect me to lose interest?”

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Peter Greenaway

The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover

“It's sort of cathartic -- the naked exposure -- don't you think? You couldn't do it voluntarily -- could you? It's under duress -- so somehow legitimate. Circumstances beyond our control. I think I enjoyed that.”

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Peter Greenaway

Philip
8 1/2 Women

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