Film Quotes

I began to think, now is the time. I found quite a lot of opposition in Hollywood about the idea of doing a film musical and we ended up having to buy the rights back. I'm glad we did because it meant John and I were able to make exactly the movie we wanted.

I think the joy of wanting to direct is having that nervous anxiety knowing your film is about to be shown and you're sitting right there with everyone.

Television and film are our libraries now. Our history books.

You have to contort your body in a certain way to hit a low note. When you're on film, you can't. So you do, in a sense, get to hide behind your voice, which is nice.

Making a film, setting it up and getting it cast and getting it together, is not an easy thing.

Reservoir Dogs is a small film, and part of its charm was that it was a small film. I'd probably make it for $3 million now so I'd have more breathing room.

It's the difficulty we had with Mr. Bean, actually, when it went from TV to film. You certainly discover that you need to explain more about a character.

I like to work. I enjoy once a year, doing a film.

Well that's the point: People don't normally take away things from films anymore. You go and see a $100 million film, half an hour later, your biggest concern is what are you going to be eating.

I started to shortcircuit because I had high aspirations for the film. I never told anybody that.

The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder.

Part of the film business is, if you want an apple, you buy an apple.

There's the soundtrack to The French Connection II'I think It's my favorite soundtrack. It hasn't been released. I actually had to go and get the film and just make a recording of it to get the music.

And if you're a golfer and you watch a golf film and Matt Damon swing, and it's not great, then you're not going to believe in the golf story, you're not going to believe in the rest of the film. That's the whole movie, so if that swing looks like crap, the movie's crap.

People think I'm against critics because they are negative to my work. That's not what bothers me. What bothers me is they didn't see the work. I have seen critics print stuff about stuff I cut out of the film before we ran it. So don't tell me about critics.

I've always been very left of center and the radio never had much diversity and film did.

Film is one of the three universal languages, the other two: mathematics and music.

Throughout my career, when I was finished with the drawing for one film I would go up to the story department and help develop sequences. Sometimes these were for scenes that I would animate later on.

This is indeed not only relevant to Documentary but is evident is most type of film making. The film often mirrors the experience, understanding and politics of the director.

You know what I would like to do: make a film with actors standing in empty space so that the spectator would have to imagine the background of the characters.

This character in the film, these things that he says which sound like advice and wise things, they are very common for Orientals. It's all the tradition.

There was really a snobbery from people in film - they did not want people who had come from television. It was the poor relation of show business, and especially situation comedy.

If you get a chance to be in a film, that's great. One of my goals is to make a record as good as Don Henley's album, Building the Perfect Beast.

I've never made a film using dialogue or speech.

Making a film or doing a play are completely different experiences and entirely fulfilling, but completely unique. I also think one complements the other. People often say that theater is about flexing your muscles, and is actually real acting, whereas I sort of disagree.

Godard is incredibly brilliant, the things he says. Apparently here in France, the most interesting thing when a new film of his is going to come out are his press conferences, because he's so brilliant.

The stage is suspension of disbelief. Film is a literal medium.

Oh yeah - I watched Knife in the Water, saw the shot, and repeated it. But even if I hadn't seen that film, inevitably the camera would've ended up on top of that mast, I mean if you think of it there are only so many dynamic shots on a boat.

I had an almost fetishistic attraction to film technology.

I think it's a little simplistic to explain a work through the psychology of its author. In other words, that Haneke has emotional problems, so I don't have to take his films seriously. By using this argument, the viewer retreats from the challenges of the film.