Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Life mixes tones all the time.
The best cinema is about ethics.
I want all of my films to belong to me.
Omaha, like Rome, is built on seven hills.
What is filmmaking but groping in the dark?
Acting is a lot easier than people think it is.
I'm hoping one day I can make one really good film.
You just never know when you're living in a golden age.
I think cynicism lasts. Sentimentality ages, dates quickly.
Each one of my movies becomes easier to get off the ground.
Jesuits encourage an intellectual rigor in a way that I like.
I always wanted 'Sideways' to be like a great 1960s Italian film.
In real life, I myself am kind of a rambling guy. I like to travel.
I think that Peter Jennings is the only decent one of the big three.
The hardest part of this whole movie-making endeavor is finding ideas.
The kindest thing a director can do is look with open eyes at everything.
I like voice-over in films, and most of my films have been voice-over films.
I still have energy and some degree of youth, which is what a filmmaker needs.
I never wanted money worries to slow me down or make me take a job I didn't want.
The biggest fear I have is to die with regrets, and of course that will come true.
I like actors who, when you see them on screen, you sense a person, not just an actor.
My flag is always flying. My shingle is always out. I'm always looking for movie ideas.
If you're trying to recreate life, the life that you best know is the one you grew up with.
In the moment of making films, I want to share my observations of life, not of other films.
Somewhat dramatic things happen, and you don't even always notice them — that's what life is.
A book suggests a whole world and story that I could have never thought of in a million years.
I think if you watch most of my films with the sound off, you could still tell what's going on.
I don't feel despair because I am able to make the films I want to make, and that gives me hope.
The actors are the greatest executors of tone in a film. They're the most important cinematic component.
I'm attracted to short screenplays. Nobody really wants a film to be over two hours, or at least I don't.
The best actors are always the ones who've directed as well, as they understand all the problems you face.
I mean, look, I love movies, not just the ones I make... In fact, I don't like the movies I make very much.
You begin a film more with questions than with direct intentions. It's more of an exploration and discovery.
I don't want all of American cinema to be big cartoons that are just made to be digested by the entire world.
If you're not making epic, archetypal films on some level, I think you're wasting a great potential of cinema.
The worst thing for people to say about your movies is, "Yeah, it was pretty good, but it was too damn long.".
If you have your movies so that everyone understands everything, I think that's probably not a very good movie.
The most heinous shift in American films is that they reinforce good things like 'couples' and 'relationships.'
I like to think of film-making not just as an act of personal self-aggrandisement but rather as an act of public service.
There is an audience out there for literate films - slower, more observant, more human films, and they deserve to be made.
As the years go by and I make more films, I am increasingly interested in capturing place as a vivid backdrop for my films.
This is how good movies get made and always have: from the gut instinct of the financiers, not just by committee and research.
Joe E. Lewis said, 'Money doesn't buy happiness but it calms the nerves.' And that is how I feel about a film being well-received.
I definitely in filmmaking more and more find writing and directing a means to harvest material for editing. It's all about editing.
What science-fiction premises do is it gives you a "what-if" prism to look at the contemporary world with a wack on the side of the head.
When I'm shooting, I don't care who the star is. I have an actor playing a part, and I'm serving the script, not serving anyone's career.
I like action films, not exclusively, but I like Samurai films. I like Westerns. Not so much war pictures, but a few. I like kinetic cinema.
I think a badly crafted, great idea for a new film with a ton of spelling mistakes is just 100 times better than a well-crafted stale script.
In a sense, 'Schmidt' is the most Omaha of my films. But have I gotten it right? I'm not sure. Did Fellini get Rome right? Did Ozu get Tokyo right?
A pitfall of making a comedy with a studio-and it's also an American cultural thing-is that I get tired of being encouraged to go always for laughs.