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There are basically only two subject matters in all Western culture: sex and death. We do have some ability to manipulate sex nowadays. We have no ability, and never will have, to manipulate death.
Peter Greenaway
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Peter Greenaway
Age: 82
Born: 1942
Born: April 5
Actor
Cinematographer
Experimental Artist
Film Director
Film Editor
Painter
Screenwriter
Television Director
Theatrical Director
Writer
Newport
South Wales
Subjects
Ability
Manipulate
Culture
Nowadays
Death
Basically
Two
Matters
Matter
Western
Never
Subject
Sex
More quotes by Peter Greenaway
We live in a time of excess - excess population, excess information.
Peter Greenaway
Life is full of a thousand red herrings, and it takes the history of a civilisation to work out which are the red herrings and which aren't.
Peter Greenaway
In practically every film you experience, you can see the director following the text. Illustrating the words first, making the pictures after, and, alas, so often not making pictures at all, but holding up the camera to do its mimetic worst.
Peter Greenaway
Only cinema narrows its concern down to its content, that is to its story. It should, instead, concern itself with its form, its structure.
Peter Greenaway
We all know that we're going to die, but we don't know when. That's not a blessing, that's a curse.
Peter Greenaway
Continuity is boring.
Peter Greenaway
I think it is really important to be in some way provocative -- either intellectually or viscerally -- in the films one makes.
Peter Greenaway
I never go to the cinema. I can't stand sitting in the dark with strangers -- all of us obliged to share the same emotional experiences -- it's too intimate. I like to be emotional in private.
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 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?
Peter Greenaway
Anybody who writes a diary insists it must be read by someone else.
Peter Greenaway
I am certain that there are two things in life which are dependable: the delights of the flesh and the delights of literature. I have had the good fortune to enjoy them both equally.
Peter Greenaway
I got in trouble with the stern-faced Russians who didn't want me to create a guy who is mortal.
Peter Greenaway
Jean Renoir once suggested that most true creators have only one idea and spend their lives reworking it, but then very rapidly he added that most people don't have any ideas at all, so one idea is pretty amazing.
Peter Greenaway
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
Since Caesar, we know his historians are liars. The good writers get read. Bad history doesn't get read.
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 energy are lacking. They are flowing above all into the television technologies. We must, therefore, concentrate on the CD-ROM.
Peter Greenaway
I also think that everyone has an elitist approach to his own art, a complex knowledge of it, whether he is a clockmaker or an engineer. And I think it's perfectly legitimate to make use of this knowledge because it enriches the overall texture of life.
Peter Greenaway
Words reproduce themselves pleasurably too.
Peter Greenaway
If you're a Shakespeare fan, isn't that a way to negotiate sex and death?
Peter Greenaway
