Peter Greenaway Quotes

Films are a director's medium. We're all stemming from the director.

When I start a film, I can sort of shut my eyes, sit somewhere quiet and imagine the movie finished. I can imagine the camera angles, I can even imagine the type of music. Without knowing the tune, I can imagine the type of music it needs to be.

The work of the director is the work of constructing the shot list from the script.

I just want to make a beautiful film. I've had it in my head for so long, so I want to try. Every now and again I get scared. And that's not really how I operate in songwriting or as Sia the artist, the singer. I don't operate from a place of fear. But this is such a new area for me. I still have some insecurity. So, like, once a week I get washed from the top of my skull down to my toes with this vomitous feeling of fear. I think, "Just don't do it. You don't have to do it. You're already a singer and a songwriter. Really, you don't have to make a movie.".

My father was a film-maker. He always said he wanted to go like Humphrey Jennings, the legendary director who stepped backwards over a cliff while framing a better shot.

The thing is, as a film director, you're essentially alone: You have to tell a story primarily through pictures, and only you know the film you see in your head.

I wanted to write and direct movies and not be forced to adapt them from a bestselling book.

In a movie, you're raw material, just a hue of some color and the director makes the painting.

Although filmmaking is collaborative and involves trust, ultimately it is the director who holds the whole picture together in their head.

Directors tend to be more underrated than overrated because it's a quiet job and people don't really understand it.

I love telling stories with images. But I think there's more to just saying a movie is great visually.

A film is never really good unless the camera is an eye in the head of a poet.

Going to directing wasn't a reaction away from acting as much as it was a move towards something I always wanted to do. Ever since I was a kid, I was interested in the camera and how it worked and why one director would place it in this part of the room and then another would place it in that part of the room.

I've always really respected directors. As much as I was interested in acting, whenever I watched a film, it was always the directing that really stood out to me.

I would like to thank the 49 actors who appear on screen in 'Whiplash' for realizing Damien Chazelle's vision so beautifully.

If your director knows what he wants on screen, it makes things easier.

Directors are the fulcrum of the movie. They guide us well, not merely rein actors in. Whenever we stray, they bring us back on track.

I felt film is art and there are people that constructed that art - and that made me want to be a filmmaker.

Every director works differently but one thing's important: they must have a vision. If they don't have a vision I don't care how they work.

I love working with actors. I love visual things. I always intended to be a writer who directs and a director who writes.

I had a whole new respect for directors.

Filmmaking is a creative process so there is a lot of collaboration that happens on set between an actor and director, but at the end of the day, we're there to actualize the director's vision and things happen organically.

When you're making a film you're thinking about how to tell the story visually.

What I like in pictures whether by an old director or a young director is when I have the feeling he or she is really using the capacity of film.

If someone were to hire me for a film they'd be getting a certain kind of package, that's for sure, a certain set of tools. But I would listen to the director.