Peter Greenaway in Indianapolis (1997)

After a week showing his feature films (all but _The Baby of Macon (1993)_ and _Falls, The (1980)_ in that room, at IUPUI, or at the Madame Walker Theatre Center, Peter Greenaway gives a talk about his films in an auditorium at Butler University. There, he trashed on "illustrated text" films like _English Patient, The (1996)_, decrying adaptations in general (when questioned about _Prospero's Books (1991)_ (qv), he responded "Yes, but Shakespeare wrote plays, and plays were written to be performed." He was also asked about his influences, though despite flying over to France as a youth to see nouvelle vague films, he suggested he had none, and that all his story ideas ("My only ideas are sex and death," he admitted) came from his early twenties. He was questioned about 'Stanley Kubrick' (qv), the Zantac commercials of 'Brian Dennehey', and if they had any relation to _Belly of an Architect, The (1987)_, and discussed his art exhibitions, his opera (featuring extensive male nudity, which he thinks will keep it from playing in America), and spoke a great deal about his eight-hour multimedia project, which he believes will be his last film, as well as his reactions to the cinema in general.

Keywords: art, character-name-in-title, independent-film, lecture-presentation

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Greenaway, Peter Filmography

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• Play in Full Screen Bosch

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• Play in Full Screen Eisenstein in Guanajuato

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• Play in Full Screen The Food of Love

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• Play in Full Screen Eisenstein in Guanajuato

  2014, role: writer
• Play in Full Screen The Food of Love

  2014, role: writer
• Play in Full Screen 3x3D

  2013, role: director
• Play in Full Screen 3x3D

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• Play in Full Screen Goltzius and the Pelican Company

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• Play in Full Screen Goltzius and the Pelican Company

  2012, role: writer
• Play in Full Screen Goltzius and the Pelican Company

  2010, role: writer
• Play in Full Screen Goltzius and the Pelican Company

  2010, role: director
• Play in Full Screen The Marriage

  2009, role: director
• Play in Full Screen The Marriage

  2009, role: writer
• Play in Full Screen Rembrandt's J'Accuse...!

  2008, role: writer
• Play in Full Screen Rembrandt's J'Accuse...!

  2008, role: actor , character name: Himself
• Play in Full Screen Rembrandt's J'Accuse...!

  2008, role: director
• Play in Full Screen Cinema Is Dead, Long Live the Screen

  2008, role: actor , character name: Himself
• Play in Full Screen Cinema Is Dead, Long Live the Screen

  2008, role: director
• Play in Full Screen Arte, Ordem e Caos

  2008, role: actor , character name: Himself
• Play in Full Screen Rembrandt's J'Accuse...!

  2008, role: actor , character name: Public Prosecutor
• Play in Full Screen Peopling the Palaces at Venaria Reale

  2007, role: director
• Play in Full Screen Peopling the Palaces at Venaria Reale

  2007, role: writer
• Play in Full Screen Nightwatching

  2007, role: director
• Play in Full Screen Nightwatching

  2007, role: writer
• Play in Full Screen Writing on Water

  2005, role: director
• Play in Full Screen A Life in Suitcases

  2005, role: writer
• Play in Full Screen A Life in Suitcases

  2005, role: director
• Play in Full Screen Writing on Water

  2005, role: writer
• Play in Full Screen Writing on Water

  2005, role: writer
• Play in Full Screen The Tulse Luper Suitcases, Part 3: From Sark to the Finish

  2004, role: writer
• Play in Full Screen Visions of Europe

  2004, role: writer
• Play in Full Screen Visions of Europe

  2004, role: director
• Play in Full Screen The Tulse Luper Suitcases, Part 3: From Sark to the Finish

  2004, role: director
• Play in Full Screen The Tulse Luper Suitcases, Part 2: Vaux to the Sea

  2004, role: writer
• Play in Full Screen The Tulse Luper Suitcases, Part 2: Vaux to the Sea

  2004, role: director
• Play in Full Screen The Tulse Luper Suitcases: Antwerp

  2003, role: director
• Play in Full Screen The Tulse Luper Suitcases, Part 1: The Moab Story

  2003, role: director
• Play in Full Screen The Tulse Luper Suitcases: Antwerp

  2003, role: writer
• Play in Full Screen Cinema16: British Short Films

  2003, role: actor , character name: Himself - Commentary, Dear Phone
• Play in Full Screen The Tulse Luper Suitcases, Part 1: The Moab Story

  2003, role: writer
• Play in Full Screen The Man in the Bath

  2001, role: director
• Play in Full Screen The Death of a Composer: Rosa, a Horse Drama

  1999, role: actor , character name: Narrator
• Play in Full Screen 8 ½ Women

  1999, role: director
• Play in Full Screen The Death of a Composer: Rosa, a Horse Drama

  1999, role: miscellaneous crew
• Play in Full Screen The Death of a Composer: Rosa, a Horse Drama

  1999, role: director
• Play in Full Screen Le cinéma britannique aujourd'hui, la tradition des francs-tireurs

  1999, role: actor , character name: Himself
• Play in Full Screen The Death of a Composer: Rosa, a Horse Drama

  1999, role: writer
• Play in Full Screen 8 ½ Women

  1999, role: writer
• Play in Full Screen 8 ½ Women

  1999, role: actor

Famous quotes by 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."

"_Prospero's Books_ is the _Terminator 2_ for intellectuals."

"These days more films are going to people than people are going to films,"

"I think it is really important to be in some way provocative - either intellectually or viscerally - in the films one makes."

"My father died. His ornithological knowledge, never collected or collated in anything like a comprehensible book - it was five suitcases and two trunks of scattered notes - died with him. A loss of knowledge. I made a film in small part reparation."

"I think that films or indeed any art work should be made in a way that they are infinitely viewable; so that you could go back to it time and time again, not necessarily immediately but over a space of time, and see new things in it, or new ways of looking at it."

"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."