Peter Greenaway Quotes

What I've realized is that a film operates both on the intellectual and emotional levels, and if you can find a way to tell a riveting story and draw ideas out of that, it's very powerful.

The cinema occupies an important place in the overall development of art and literature.

My films express me, my sense of rhythm, my sense of impact, my sense of kinetic energy. I like films to move, but I like also clear storytelling and characters, and most of all, I like authentic emotion.

All great cinema has the sense of the dynamic, the transitional, mixed with the mythical and the sense of ritual.

Cinema is not just a side show - it is something which is much deeper than that. It is a form of art which needs to be respected.

You usually get one or the other, you get someone who knows how to tell a story but they don't necessarily know about light and camera and rhythm, or you get someone who can make beautiful images but they can't necessarily tell a great story. He does both and I think he's going to be one of the film-makers that our time is remembered for.

I have to say that movies have as much impact on me as music. And that I learned as much about narrative from movies as I did from reading novels, how to arrange stories, how to juxtapose things.

There are very few films that work like a novel.

People use location as a language in films, and Quentin uses action as a language in his films. There's really not a lot of violence. It's more of an emotional beat than it is a physical beat.

I've been told, and I think I recognize it, that there's a cinematic quality to my writing, with a sense of image and place and scene - and, some would say, my tendency to finish my books the way Hollywood finishes its films.

I've always been really attracted to playing with structure. To take the story of 'Fargo' and break it up in such a way that's it's not linear, per se.

People are mistaken to view cinema as some sort of gimmick. It's very much ingrained in the ways in which we understand each other.

'City of God' and 'Slumdog Millionaire' are both films that I really like, but they are stylistically the opposite of what I wanted to do.

Of course I want my films to look really good, but every single element is chosen for a reason. It's telling something in the story.

You can be far more challenging, articulate and intelligent writing for television than you can writing for the cinema.

A film engages you emotionally and intellectually.

Movies are too literal.

I learned there's an amazing unexplored territory in terms of narrative. Before, I thought the unexplored territory was the form, the way you shoot a movie. Now, I'm learning about the beautiful marriage between form and narrative.

A scene has to have a rhythm of its own, a structure of its own.

TV and film taught me to think cinematically. Teaching others to edit, for example, provides a great deal of insight into the millions of ways in which given elements can be put together to tell a story.

I think there's a connection with 'Nightcrawler' and 'Blowup' and other films where visual imagery is integral to the story. It allows you to play with images.

The beauty of cinema is that it can do some things that novels just can't.

Watching a movie from beginning to end is like reading, because even though what you see are images, they are telling you a story.

What I am really curious about is the visuals of cinema... the form.

I think cinema has this beautiful component. It's a universal language.