Film Quotes

I was a kid who went to film school and fell into acting.

When I was 25 years old and had no money - and didn't know how to make movies and had no experience - I was able to get $25,000 together, and that film was 'The Brothers McMullen.'

I know we didn't make an anti-Semitic film. This is what the Gospels are. And it's none of my business what other people think of me.

But I think Barry Sonnenfeld let his ego go out of control. He told me in a meeting that he had to do something to make it his film.

This film cost $31 million. With that kind of money I could have invaded some country.

The film business has changed so dramatically from when I started.

I like celluloid, I like film, I like the way that when a movie is projected it sort of breathes a little in the gate. That's the magic of it to me.

In this film George presents issues that are important, essential and vital, whoever you are, about constitutional rights and the bedrock of a democracy. I am drawn to those kinds of stories because they inspire me - they are responsible to a populace and responsible to man.

I'm a big movie fan. After a show, if I'm on the bus or a plane, it's often hard to get to sleep, so I'll watch a film. An action film can even relax me.

I think often in film we limit our imaginations a little - well, quite a lot, actually... things get quite formulaic.

I think that every minority in the United States of America knows everything about the dominant culture. From the time you can think, you are bombarded with images from TV, film, magazines, newspapers.

I've held onto little musical sketches that I thought could be useful, and the more time that I spend doing them for each film, then the more I have to draw on.

Getting your screenplay right is the most important thing you'll ever do on your film.

Maybe It's not the biggest blockbuster film, but there will be some people that will see it, that will be debating it, that will be questioning their own sense of spirituality. If the film resonates, then I have succeeded in what I set out to do.

I write for somebody who has my own limitations. My reader has a certain difficulty with concentrating, which in my case comes from being a film viewer.

I loved 'Saturday Night Fever' when I was a kid. I couldn't believe people talked that way. It was just a whole new culture I didn't understand. I snuck into it. It was an R-rated film. So it holds a special place.

Normally as a director, you do look at other films and things that are relevant. But with this film, it became impossible because I became so aware of the camera placement.

I think every age has a medium that talks to it more eloquently than the others. In the 19th century it was symphonic music and the novel. For various technical and artistic reasons, film became that eloquent medium for the 20th century.

I watch these actors who when you go to buy a pint of milk you see them smiling on the cover of 20 magazines. Then when you see them in a film it's hard to believe the character because you just see them everywhere.

Most films I work on, the people making the film are constantly second-guessing the executives of the studio, the producer, and the audience. It is very hard to accomplish anything in that situation.

If I had a gun to my head and I had to choose between theater and film I'd choose theater.

Each time you do a film you gain a lot of experience and build a visual resume where people get to know who you are.

Luck is everything... My good luck in life was to be a really frightened person. I'm fortunate to be a coward, to have a low threshold of fear, because a hero couldn't make a good suspense film.

Listen, anybody who has a film festival has the right to show what they want.

I mean, it was a mummy movie. It was a good film independent of its source. It that looks like Lawrence of Arabia on steroids in a lot of ways.

It's hard when you're doing a film based on a true story to really figure out what all those relationships were.

The challenge of film is making it right there at that moment, and then you get to move on.

I did manage to secure a feature film for 2005, though, which I'm really chuffed about.

I'm not a film buff. I don't watch a lot of movies.

I think the book struck me in a few ways that I thought very interesting to pick it as my first martial arts film. It has a very strong female character and it was very abundant in classic Chinese textures.