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That comes from most people having an American film model in their heads which is nothing but a total illusionary masturbatory massage.
Peter Greenaway -
On the other hand, I view the whole matter from a cosmic perspective. I don't take a position. I believe that there are no more positions to take, no certainties, no facts. Many people find this confusing about my films; they say I am hiding out behind irony. But from a cosmic viewpoint, it is eternally unimportant whether one lives or not.
Peter Greenaway
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Religion is there to say, 'Hey, you don't have to worry - there's an afterlife.'
Peter Greenaway -
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.
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 -
It's a movie that bewilders some viewers and mesmerizes others. A man I met while we were exercising our dogs told me it was the greatest film he had ever seen, and one of my editors claims it's the closest any movie has ever come to photographing the inside of his mind.
Peter Greenaway -
Book #8: The Vesalius Anatomy of Birth. As it hits the water, it screams and spurts blood like a pierced heart - as it sinks, there is a suggestion of entrails.
Peter Greenaway -
All this narcissism is rather boring, isn't it?
Peter Greenaway
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'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.'
Peter Greenaway -
The Sistine Chapel is an extraordinary work of education - it lays out all the early books of the Bible.
Peter Greenaway -
A hand cannot write on itself.
Peter Greenaway -
I'm sorry - you know, culture is elitist. Culture has to be elitist: it's about seeing and knowing and about knowledge.
Peter Greenaway -
Alas, despite wing implants, feathers and wax, and carnal associations with swans, we will never grow wings. Alas, any true flight we make will always be externally assisted. Alas, the best we can do is fall and believe ourselves flying.
Peter Greenaway -
'Naked! So I can see no pranks and ruses.'
Peter Greenaway
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I obviously irritate people. I obviously antagonise them.
Peter Greenaway -
It's strange. In the last five minutes you have used my Christian name over and over again and never before. People I like learn my name too late.
Peter Greenaway -
No Albert - it's not God - it's Michael. My lover. You vowed you would kill him - and you did. And you vowed you would eat him. Now eat him.
Peter Greenaway -
Some people would say again that my attitudes are cold and cerebral; I suppose if you're thinking about American sentimental movies, I suppose they would be.
Peter Greenaway -
If every man is supposed to think of sex once every nine minutes, what on earth does he think of in the other eight?
Peter Greenaway -
Galba... a miserable sort of man... bisexual... fancied mature slaves, especially if they had been a little mutilated... all his freed men had no fingers on the left hands... he's dead - died screaming... in a cellar.
Peter Greenaway
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'Imagine you are sucking the little fingers of a lady... or... no, you wouldn't understand that - since you'd never get that close to a lady - who'd want to get that close to you for God's sake?'
Peter Greenaway -
Most people are visually illiterate. Most people don't understand images: they don't understand how to interpret them or how to manufacture them.
Peter Greenaway -
You don't go into the National Gallery of any famous capital city and cry, sob, laugh, fall about on the floor, become very angry - it's a completely different reaction. It's a reaction which is to do with a much more composed sense of regarding an image; it's a reaction with a thought process as opposed to an immediate emotional reaction.
Peter Greenaway -
I think that every artist dreams of renewing the forms which came before, but I think very few can be considered to have achieved that. We are all dwarves standing upon the shoulders of the giants who preceded us, and I think we must never forget that. After all, even iconoclasts only exist with respect to that which they destroy.
Peter Greenaway