Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
In my mind, there isn't as much of a distinction between documentary and fiction as there is between a good movie and a bad one.
I would be too selfish if I said everyone should see my movies more than once. To say that would mean I'm just marketing my work!
I spend a lot of time doing carpentry. Sometimes there is nothing that gives me the contentment that sawing a piece of wood does.
Usually when I write a script, I have in mind some real people that I'm writing about, who don't always act in the film afterward.
Cinema seats make people lazy. They expect to be given all the information. But for me, question marks are the punctuation of life.
I prefer the countryside to cities. This is also true of my films: I have made more films in rural societies, and villages, than in towns.
I think being someone in love is so hard to define, so temporary, because retrospectively we often deny the state in which we were in love.
Good cinema is what we can believe and bad cinema is what we can't believe. What you see and believe in is very much what I'm interested in.
I didn't just see myself as a film director here [in Life And Nothing More], but also as an observer of people who had been condemned to death.
It's not so much a question of whether we've shot it through 35mm or digital video; what is important is whether the audience accepts it as real.
If we're not going to take full advantage of digital, then 35mm is a better medium. Especially for shooting dramas - I have no problem with 35mm.
Everybody knows that I am not usually patient enough to actually sit down and watch one of my own films from the beginning to the end - I never do.
A good movie is made by an initial burst of energy, the way that, when you are in school, your class exercises are always better than your final projects.
In order to be able to cooperate with a child, you have to come down to below their level in order to communicate with them. Actors are also like children.
I film normal-life subjects in natural settings that some people would consider uncinematic. But what I want to show is nature itself, as the truth of life.
My films have been progressing towards a certain kind of minimalism, even though it was never intended. Elements which can be eliminated have been eliminated.
I was mentioning with the digital camera, maybe this new fashion of filmmaking gives a closer look of what life may be like. But it's still nothing but a copy.
I don't know whether it is fortunate or unfortunate, but I have no such thing as national pride. I don't feel proud that I am Iranian. I happen to be who I am.
I think, just as footballers play better at home, maybe film-makers, too, create better at home, even though the rules of football are the same wherever you go.
The calling of art is to extract us from our daily reality, to bring us to a hidden truth that's difficult to access - to a level that's not material but spiritual.
The Iranian government as a whole has no relationship with my films. They're not particularly interested, perhaps this kind of cinema is not very interesting to them.
I really haven't seen The Report in a long time. I don't have a copy, but I'll have to see it again. I think it would be good to put both these men next to each other.
If you catch me coming out of a film, when I'm emotionally involved, I can tell you at that moment why I like it - but to talk about it years later is not logical to me.
Therefore, when you see the end result, it's difficult to see who's the director, me or them. Ultimately, everything belongs to the actors - we just manage the situation.
Religion works on some people but not on everyone, because it says, 'Stop thinking and accept what I tell you.' That's not valid for people who want to think and reflect.
I would say that no film is apolitical. There are politics in all films. Any film that is anchored in a society, any film that deals with humanity is necessarily political.
There are certainties in existence, but love is something much harder to define than light and dark, life and death. I think saying you are "like" someone in love sounds right.
I don't have very complete scripts for my films. I have a general outline and a character in my mind, and I make no notes until I find the character who's in my mind in reality.
Usually when I take my films to festivals, I feel incredibly anxious about them. I wonder how it will be received, how the audience will react. I feel deeply responsible for them.
Despite the great advantages of digital video and the great ease of using the medium, still those who use it have first to understand the sensitivities of how to best use the medium.
I do think that we are sometimes, as directors, guilty of portraying or asking our actors to behave in certain ways that are perhaps not very morally acceptable. I'm not the only one.
To me, AIDS is an international epidemic and every country can be affected by it. Therefore, it can be discussed on an international level. Unfortunately, AIDS doesn't require a visa.
I can only display what I've been nurtured with, which is this worldview which has become my view. If I displayed anything different from it in my work, I wouldn't deserve this heritage.
I think it was [Jean-Luc] Godard who said that life is nothing but a bad copy of film, but then our ambition must be to make better films and better shapes of forms that are given in life.
It's very true that non-actors feel more comfortable in front of a digital camera, without the lights and the large crowd around them, and we arrive at much more intimate moments with them.
The film [Close Up] made itself, to a large extent. The characters involved were very real, I wasn't directing the actors so much as being directed by them. So it was a very particular film.
Children are very strong and independent characters and can come up with more interesting things than Marlon Brando, and it's sometimes very difficult to direct or order them to do something.
Close-Up is a very particular film in my oeuvre. It's a film that was made in a very particular way; mainly because I didn't really have the time to think about how to go about making the film.
I am still very surprised that I managed to make that film [Close Up]. When I actually look back on that film, I really feel that I was not the director but instead just a member of the audience.
I do believe that a film like Ten could never have been made with a 35mm camera. The first part of the film lasts 17 minutes, and by the end of that part, the kid has totally forgotten the camera.
There were years when Hitchcock was like a master to me, but now I think he's so artificial. I can watch films and say how technically beautiful they are, but I'm not impressed by any technicality.
I wasn't searching for a common denominator - I started wondering about the challenge of working in other cultures. What I reached was the sudden acknowledgment of the universal aspect of filmmaking.
I think violence can never be justified. At the same time, nobody’s culture or beliefs should be insulted, that’s not something I can accept either. But I cannot justify or accept any violence at all.
As film-makers, it is very important for us to find common ground between cultures, and maybe that's less the case for politicians who benefit more from finding the conflicts and differences between us.
I thought that choosing a non-professional was a condition for me, because it would allow Juliette to have a less-professional way of acting. It would challenge her performance as a professional actress.
I feel like a tree. A tree doesn't feel a duty to start doing something about the earth from which it comes. A tree just has to bear fruit, and leaves and blossoms. It doesn't feel grateful to the earth.
I really think that I don't mind people sleeping during my films, because I know that some very good films might prepare you for sleeping or falling asleep or snoozing. It's not to be taken badly at all.
Maybe more than a teller, I am a story listener. I really enjoy listening to stories. I remember them and keep them in my mind. All of my films are a collection of small stories that have been told to me.
The only thing that I can do is hold a mirror in front of men and women, in front of the viewer in the theater, to reflect. There is nothing but reflection that I could intend to offer the viewer of the film.
Whenever people ask me what the story is for my next film, I won't tell and people feel it's because I'm being secretive or something, but it's actually because I'm ashamed to sum up a film in three sentences.