Media quotations: P

P	Numbers after entries link to the list of references.	ß O \| à Q
	CAMILLE PAGLIA	1947- ; American critic and feminist
	Cinema is the culmination of the obsessive, mechanistic male drive in western culture. The movie projector is an Apollonian straightshooter, demonstrating the link between aggression and art. Every pictorial framing is a ritual limitation, a barred precinct.	• Sexual Personae, 1990
	WILLIAM PALEY	1901-1990; Chief executive of CBS
	First, we have an obligation to give most of the people what they want most of the time. Second, our clients, as advertisers, need to reach most of the people most of the time. This is not perverted or inverted cause and effect, as our attackers claim. It is one of the great strengths of our kind of broadcasting that the advertiser’s desire to sell his product to the largest cross-section of the public coincides with our obligation to serve the largest cross-section of our audience.	• Speech to industry body, 1946, quoted in William Boddy: ‘The beginnings of American television’ in Anthony Smith (ed): Television: An international history, 1995
	WILLIAM PALEY and FRANK STANTON	1901-1990 and 1909- ; Chief executive and President (1946-1973) of CBS
	[Pay TV] is a complex system that would force people to pay for looking at their own screens, ... a betrayal of the 34 million families that have already spent $13½ billion for their sets in the anticipation that they would be able to watch them as much as they wanted without paying for the prerogative.	• message to CBS shareholders, 1955? see also Frank Stanton
	ERWIN PANOFSKY	1892-1968; German-born American art historian
	I cannot remember a more misleading statement than Mr Eric Russell Bentley’s in the Spring Number of the Kenyon Review, 1945: ‘The potentialities of the talking screen differ from those of the silent screen in adding the dimension of dialogue—which could be poetry.’ I would suggest: ‘The potentialities of the talking screen differ from those of the silent screen in integrating visible movement with dialogue which, therefore, had better not be poetry.’	• ‘Style and medium in the motion pictures’ in Critique, January-February 1947, vol 1 no 3
	PAULO ANTONIO PARANAGUÁ	1892-1968; Mexican cinema historian
	Longe de Deus e perto de Hollywood. [So far from God and so near to Hollywood.]	• Subtitle of Latin American Cinema, 1985
	Sir ALAN PARKER	1944- ; British film director
	1 I still feel the old working class bit that any day now someone is going to tap me on the shoulder and say, ‘The game’s up, son. Now back to Islington.’	• A Turnip-head’s Guide to the British Cinema, February 1982
	2 Narcolepsy: A state of sleep brought on by watching films like The Draughtsman’s Contract.	• cartoon in Screen International, 8 January 1983
	3 There’s no colour prejudice in Hollywood. It’s not black or white—it’s green. All they’re chasing is the buck; they’ll make whatever they think will succeed.	• interview in The Independent, 14 April 1989
	4 I felt more than a little guilt when our hamburger-munching army invaded the lives of people living in abject poverty and all we saw was a ‘great location’.	• interview in The Independent, 14 April 1989
	ROBERT W PAUL	1869-1943; Pioneer British film-maker
	The public has seen too many trains, trams and buses. And with the exception of a few films whose humour is too French to please the British, one could say that no one up to now has begun to exploit the possibilities of moving pictures to make us laugh, cry or be amazed.	• 1898
	WILLIAM HOYT PECK	President, Peck Television Corporation
	Television is already here. It meets all the requirements laid down by critics, at least as far as my system is concerned, which will provide images up to two by three feet, with detail comparable to that of home movie pictures, and bright enough to be clearly visible in a room containing two or three floor lamps. Mechanical scanning will, in my opinion, be the most popular system. It affords a more sharply defined picture element than does the cathode ray tube, replacement of light source is necessary at longer intervals and costs but 10 cents instead of many dollars.	• 'What 1935 holds forth for television and facsimile' in Radio News and Short Wave Radio, Washington, January 1935
	ROONEY PELLETIER	Controller of BBC Light Programme
	The more I think about it, the more I believe that death of a violent kind in The Archers timed if possible to diminish interest in the opening of commercial television in London is a good thing.	• letter to Denis Morris, head of Midland Regional Programmes, 11 May 1955; cit. Asa Briggs: The History of British Broadcasting, volume IV: Sound & Vision 1955 September 22—opening night of commercial television
	Dr YURI PELYOSHONOK	Soviet-born Canadian academic in Soviet Studies
	The Soviet authorities thought of the Beatles as a secret Cold War weapon. The kids lost their interest in all Soviet unshakable dogmas and ideals, and stopped thinking of an English-speaking person as the enemy. That's when the Communists lost two generations of young people ideologically; totally lost. That was an incredible impact.	• The Beatles Revolution, ABC Television documentary, November 2000 See also Milos Forman
	MILTON PERCIVAL and R A JELLIFFEE
	Manifestly, wireless telegraphy is destined to become a great civilising and socialising agency, because the firmament of the world is the common property of all nations, and those who use it for signalling inhabit it, in a certain sense. When all nations come to inhabit the firmament collectively they will be brought into closer communion, for their mutual advantage. A new upper geography dawns upon us, in which there is no more sea, neither are there any boundaries between the peoples.	• Specimens of Exposition and Argument, 1908
	GEORGES PEREC	1936-1982; French writer, member of Oulipo
	What I miss above all is the neighbourhood cinema, with its ghastly advertisements for the dry cleaner's on the corner.	• 'Death of the Neighbourhood' in Species of Spaces (Espèces d'Espaces).
	ROMAN POLANSKI	1933- ; Polish-born film director
	Cinema should make you forget you are sitting in a theatre.	• Source unknown
	EUGENE POLLEY	1916- ; American electronics engineer
	It makes me think maybe my life wasn't wasted. Maybe I did something for humanity—like the guy who invented the flush toilet.	• of his 1955 Flash-Matic television remote control device, antecedent to the following year's Space Command for which Dr Robert Adler is well known. Quoted in Baltimore Sun, 22 November 2000
	ERICH POMMER	1889-1966; German film producer, who later worked in the UK and Hollywood
	I think that European producers must at last think of establishing a certain co-operation among themselves. It is imperative to create a system of regular trade which will enable the producers to amortise their films rapidly. It is necessary to create 'European films', which will no longer be French, British, Italian or German films; entirely 'continental' films, expanding out into all Europe and amortising their enormous costs, can be produced easily.	• Cinémagazine, 4 July 1924 [0036]
	JIMMY POP	American singer, songwriter/lyricist
	You and me, babe, we ain't nothing but mammals So let's do it like they do on the Discovery Channel.	• The Bad Touch, Hooray for Boobies album by Bloodhound Gang, 1998
	COLE PORTER	1892-1964; American songwriter/lyricist
	In glorious Technicolor, breathtaking CinemaScope and stereophonic sound.	• 'Stereophonic Sound' from Silk Stockings, 1955. Although originally produced on the stage, where such things did not count, the film version was in glorious Metrocolor, breathtaking Panavision and Perspecta sound
	EDWIN S PORTER	1869-1941; Pioneer American film-maker, (incorrectly) credited with directing the first story film
	If the public were content to receive and support the mediocre films that marked the inauguration of the business, this standard would still be acceptable. The public owes thanks only to itself for its ability today to see the beautiful, refined and artistic presentations of the screen. As for the producers, they should be content to know that public encouragement proved the inspiration that it did, and should be thankful that they were given the strength and the light to accomplish the great things which that public encouragement suggested.	• The Moving Picture World, 11 July 1914
	RAYMOND POSTGATE	Raymond William Postgate 1896-1971; English journalist, writer and social historian
	Not more than 10 per cent of the population will take up television permanently.	• What To Do With the BBC, 1935
	DENNIS POTTER	1935-1994; British television dramatist
	1 Never in the entire history of drama in all its forms has so much been produced for so large an audience with so little thought.	• Edinburgh Television Festival, 1977
	2 I first saw television when I was in my late teens. It made my heart pound. Here was a medium of great power, of potentially wondrous delights, that could slice through all the tedious hierarchies of the printed word and help to emancipate us from many of the stifling tyrannies of class status and gutter-press ignorance. At a crucial period of my life it threw open the ‘magic casement’ on great sources of mind-scape.	• source unknown
	MICHAEL POWELL and EMERIC PRESSBURGER	1905-1990, 1902-1988; British film-makers
	One is starved for Technicolor up there.	• Conductor 71 character (played by Marius Goring) in A Matter of Life and Death, 1946; referring to the afterlife. The earthbound sequences of the film are in colour.
	WILLIAM PREECE	Sir William Henry Preece 1834-1913; Chief engineer, General Post Office, UK and supporter of Marconi’s experiments
	The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys.	• 1876
	J B PRIESTLEY	John Boynton Priestley 1894-1984; English novelist and playwright
	1 The modern world, William reflected, was becoming more and more something to be filmed; this was primarily the age of celluloid; and soon it might be impossible to distinguish between reality and film stuff, so that you would not know if you were witnessing an historical event or a scene arranged by a film company. Indeed, the two might soon be the same, and nations might go to war with the active and benevolent co-operation of Mr Sapphire [a film producer] and his colleagues.	• Faraway, 1932. Published just as the Nazis were coming to power in Germany, could this be seen as prophetic in the light of the Nazis' use of film?
	2 Already we Viewers, when not viewing, have begun to whisper to one another that the more we elaborate our means of communication, the less we communicate.	• Televiewing, 1957 See also Anonymous, Henry David Thoreau
	DAWN PRIMAROLO	1954- ; Labour politician; Paymaster-General
	What we need is film-makers of vision, backed by investors who share that vision. What we don't need is investors who don't care.	• Announcing removal of tax allowances from film investors not directly involved in running film partnerships. Quoted in The Times 12 February 2004
	VSEVOLOD I PUDOVKIN	1893-1953; Soviet film-maker, theorist
	1 The film is the greatest teacher because it teaches us not only through the brain but through the whole body.	• quoted in Prof C H Waddington: ‘Two conversations with Pudovkin’ in Sight and Sound, Winter 1948/49
	2 Film is the supreme medium in which we can express ourselves today and tomorrow.
	3 Slow motion is ... a close-up in time.	See also Gilbert Adair, Robert Altman
	GARY PUNCH	1957- ; Australian Minister for the Arts and Territories January-September 1988
	A healthy and vibrant domestic [film] industry is vital in promoting our cultural identity and projecting a positive image of Australians.	• on formation of Film Finance Corporation, May 1988
	Lord DAVID PUTTNAM	1941- ; British film producer
	1 The money’s often an excuse to cover the terror that lies at the heart of a producer because he doesn’t actually know who is the right person for the project. If he pays enough money, he must be de facto the right person.	• Screen International, June 1980
	2 I make films for people to see. If I have a message to convey, I should convey it in whatever way the audience prefers to see it. In Britain the audience has an expressed preference to see my work on television.	• Independent Production Handbook: Film & Video, 1982
	3 In a world in which the influence of the moving image is increasingly ubiquitous, we need to realise what the consequences might be if we fail to offer an alternative to Walt Disney's version of history.	• Speech to the National Association of Head Teachers, Jersey, 31 May 2000. His comment was particularly concerned with the Disney film Dinosaurs See also Sherl Bearlstrom
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