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Quotes by Director
"There were movies that always made me want to be a director. You see brilliant scenes and the way the emotions were handled. I thought, I'd really like to do that."
16
"I've become wary of interviews in which you're forced to go back over the reasons why you made certain decisions. You tend to rationalize what you've done, to intellectually review a process that is often intuitive."
16
"It was very unusual, because normally the producer requests the test to determine whether they want to hire someone or not. Olivia was concerned about playing a seventeen year old."
16
"I really want to have actors contribute their own ideas, with phrasings and ideas on all levels."
16
"Some people like to do everything always the same thing. That's another way: To do the same thing."
16
"The big difference is the size of the crew and the flexibility of shooting because of the size. I mean, it's crazy. So you can't improvise, you cannot suddenly do something that comes to mind, whereas in a small production you have much more flexibility."
16
"I think the reason why we were able to actually get it made was that we were so extremely naive - we had no experience at all here. We didn't even know that you were supposed to have an agent. We didn't even have a lawyer. We didn't know one soul."
16
"You could say that when you introduce humour to your work, you also step back a little from it. You create a distance."
Work,
16
"When a scene is being shot, it is very difficult to know what one wants it to say, and even if one does know, there is always a difference between what one has in mind and the result on film."
16
"The worst tragedy for a poet is to be admired through being misunderstood."
16
"But surrealism is present in most of my pictures."
16
"I think all great actors - and I don't classify myself as one of them, incidentally - but I think all great actors listen well and I've learned that from a lot of the very good actors with whom I've worked - to really listen to what people say."
16
"I don't believe in elitism. I don't think the audience is this dumb person lower than me. I am the audience."
16
"I start with actors that I know personally or I know their work, and there are things about their work or their presence or their own personality that make a character, that exaggerates some qualities and suppresses other qualities. It's always a real collaboration for me."
16
"We're all complex human beings, and if some of that complexity shows through, I think it's advantageous for the movie."
16
"On Lock, Stock, we didn't know where the money for shooting the next day was coming from."
16
"The whole concept of the devil is a metaphor on one level."
16
"Television has done much for psychiatry by spreading information about it, as well as contributing to the need for it."
16
"When I'm shooting on location, you get ideas on the spot - new angles. You make not major changes but important modifications, that you can't do on a set. I do that because you have to be economical."
16
"You know how you're always trying to get things to come out perfect in art because it's real difficult in life."
16
"One fine day I discovered that more complex plays really have to be directed."
16
"It was immediately apparent that it was full of tricky ingredients to balance. In fact, I found it very intriguing. What held me back from saying yes to the producer was that I wasn't sure who could play Truman."
16
"I get out of the taxi and it's probably the only city which in reality looks better than on the postcards, New York."
16
"I've found that the more experts you have on a movie, the less control the director has."
16
"The danger is that if you have a bunch of ideas that you forget to use."
16
"I've never been a guy who had more than a toe in Hollywood anyway, so my toe is more easily lopped off than most."
16
"Directing an opera is similar to directing a play. The singing must not get in the way of the drama."
16
"All the characters in my films are fighting these problems, needing freedom, trying to find a way to cut themselves loose, but failing to rid themselves of conscience, a sense of sin, the whole bag of tricks."
16
"What you're doing is putting into professional play the way that you relate to other people, the way that you analyze and relate to a written text, the way that you would persuade anybody to do anything. It has to do with listening, with humility and a sense of yourself."
16
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