Peter Greenaway Quotes

I love making movies.

When I did 'Gilbert Grape,' Lasse Hallstrom let me be on the set with him and in the editing room and in the casting sessions and so on. And so I got a firsthand, rather intimate, high-pressure look at how to make a film.

It's really cool to make a movie that you're excited to go see.

The creative process of making a movie really turned me on. I'd started getting behind the scenes with a camcorder and VHS tape when making music videos.

Yet as a director, I don't feel you have to identify with your characters as a requirement to make a movie.

When I was younger I didn't really know what a director did: I knew I loved movies and I figured the actors made it up! And then when you get to 12 years old you start thinking, What does a director do? It was really an organic beginning: this looks like something I want to do, I can't believe people get paid to do it!

I think mostly it's the adventure that I will have in making the movie. That's what I look for.

I like making movies.

You could get in rehearsals, pre-production, anything that would actually contribute to the understanding of how a film gets made. I actually find those things increase people's interest in a movie and like that better than worrying about showing the tricks behind the curtain.

Maybe there should be less of a mystique around making movies. I just don't think that there's any real mystery there.

Anyone who has ever been privileged to direct a film also knows that, although it can be like trying to write 'War and Peace' in a bumper car in an amusement park, when you finally get it right, there are not many joys in life that can equal the feeling.

My favorite part of the film business is the research part, with the access we get from people who are excited to be involved and the things we get to see and do, which we're not normally going to get in everyday life.

There's something that comes into you that's so exciting when you're directing.

John Boorman was the best director I've ever had.

You never have any idea where your movie's going to go when you're shooting - you're in this little bubble. Everything you care about is getting the next step right: getting the script right, finding the right actors, shooting it. Then you spend half a year in a dark room editing your film, and you don't talk to anybody.

I always enjoy shooting for all my films.

Once you turn on the camera, making a movie is making a movie. I don't care if it's $9 million dollars or $50 million dollars. You have bigger toys, bigger set, actors who are better paid, but once you turn on the camera, it's director and performance, and I don't find a big difference.

I am eternally impressed and amazed by what directors do.

Of all the things I've done in life, directing a motion picture is the most beautiful. It's the most exciting and the nearest than an interpretive craftsman, such as an actor can possibly get to being a creator.

I had a whole new respect for directors.

When I'm making a movie, it's making use of my creative juices, and it fills me up with what really is - I think my purpose here is to tell stories.

If people enjoy the film, it can be really intriguing to see what created that film, how each one of those unique components came together, who the people are who did it and what it meant to them to do it.

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.

I've never made a movie I wasn't surprised to see.

When I make a movie, it's almost a relief to get shooting 'cause the hell is over, or part of the hell is over.