Quotes by James Gray - Page 2

The conventional wisdom is that people come to the United States, and immigration is so great, and they say, 'America, what a great country.' And a lot of that is true.
James Gray / Film Director
Conventional
Conventional Wisdom
Great Country
Immigration
They Say
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I have three young children, and I kind of stopped going to movies in 2006. I go to see some, but I'm a little bit out of touch, and I didn't know who Marion Cotillard was.
James Gray / Film Director
Young Children
Marion
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It's the demand of all demands to do a car chase that's unique because there are so many... really since the beginning of film, even in the silent era, 'The Keystone Cops.'
James Gray / Film Director
Demand
Silent
Chase
Cops
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If everybody loves you, you must be doing something wrong. It means there's no button being pushed... The only way that everybody loves you is toward the end of your career.
James Gray / Film Director
Way
Everybody
Being
Only
End
Doing
Button
Career
Wrong
Loves
Means
Must
Pushed
Something
Toward
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It's very difficult to put your finger on why a certain actor or actress will capture your attention, and you'll think they're right for a role. There's an essence to a person.
James Gray / Film Director
Capture
Essence
Finger
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Film is better than digital in every way. It has better contrast ratio, better blacks, and better color reproduction. It's a more organic image, which is more the way your eyes see.
James Gray / Film Director
Color
Contrast
Digital
Film
Reproduction
Blacks
Eyes
Organic
Ratio
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The actor always must be in the scene, not above the scene. To communicate any larger ideas is my problem; it's how the narrative is constructed and directed that hopefully does it.
James Gray / Film Director
Communicate
Narrative
Constructed
Directed
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I am an Ashkenazi Jew, and there are a whole host of genetic disorders that only Ashkenazi Jews have. I don't know if you know this, but 16 or 17 disorders that we carry the gene for.
James Gray / Film Director
Host
Jew
Carry
Disorders
Gene
Jews
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Anyone who starts badmouthing Latino immigrants is not only a racist but ignorant. You need to refer them to what was written about the Irish, the Jews, the Italians, any group you want.
James Gray / Film Director
Ignorant
Immigrants
Latino
Irish
Italians
Jews
Refer
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I think I'm a very American director, but I probably should have been making movies somewhere around 1976. I never left the mainstream of American movies; the American mainstream left me.
James Gray / Film Director
Mainstream
Movies Me Never
American Movies
Making Movies
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If everybody lives in the same way, there's something almost narcotizing about it, but the true misery of economic class difference is knowing that you can't have what somebody else does.
James Gray / Film Director
Class
Economic
Misery
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It's difficult because Manhattan is so fantastic, and it's 9 miles away, and all these cool rich people live there and have great lives, and you live in a semi-attached row house in Queens.
James Gray / Film Director
Queens
Fantastic
Manhattan
Miles
Rich People
Row
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Actors want to work with you but they want you to do their thing. Actors, whom I love with a blind partiality, sometimes they want to be soloists in the symphony, not a part of the orchestra.
James Gray / Film Director
Actors
Orchestra
Symphony
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What a director really does is set the emotional temperature and the mood and the level, amount, or lack of, distance between the action and the character, and the character and the audience.
James Gray / Film Director
Distance
Mood
Temperature
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The key to acting - from what little I know about that wonderful craft - is listening, and interacting with the other person in order to achieve magic. One way to do that is almost to provoke.
James Gray / Film Director
Achieve
Interacting
Magic
Craft
Provoke
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The decision about digital or film is going to be made for us. I think the answer is that film is gonna be gone, although I think it'll make a comeback; it'll be like vinyl records or something.
James Gray / Film Director
Comeback
Decision
Digital
Film
Records
Vinyl
Although
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I grew up in a semi-attached row house in Queens in New York. And my family and my grandparents and my father's from Brooklyn, and so you're essentially an outer boroughs kid, you're growing up.
James Gray / Film Director
New York
Queens
Brooklyn
Grew
Growing Up
House
Family Father New
Essentially
Grandparents
Outer
Row
York
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I know this sounds phony, but I don't start out on a project going, 'I'm going to make an emotional work,' you know what I mean? You try to tell the story directly and honestly and with passion.
James Gray / Film Director
Honestly
Phony
Directly
Project
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The films I grew up loving, and the art that I love, is not generally the kind of postmodern ironic winking stuff. What lasts is the stuff in which the artists are totally in league with the subject.
James Gray / Film Director
Ironic
Lasts
Love Is
Postmodern
Winking
Love Art Love Is
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To the extent that independent means you're willing to attempt to put your own ideas, personality, and commitment to the material on screen, then of course I hope I'm independent until the day I die.
James Gray / Film Director
Attempt
Extent
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The ending shot of 'Queen Christina' with Greta Garbo is amazing. She's at the head of the ship, and she's been through so much, and the camera gets so close to her face. That really sticks out for me.
James Gray / Film Director
Amazing
Sticks
Face
Shot
Camera
Close
Ending
Gets
Head
Her
Queen
Ship
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I think to be a movie critic is troubling from one major respect. If you are forced to watch ten movies a week, it's really only something you can do for a few years. After a while, it's a bit too much.
James Gray / Film Director
Ten
Critic
Forced
Major
Troubling
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The sad truth for American actors is that they really have no control whatsoever over the material that they get, or can do, particularly actresses. And if you're over 40 and you're an actress, forget it.
James Gray / Film Director
Sad
Sad Truth
Particularly
Material
No Control
Whatsoever
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I went to see 'Star Trek Into Darkness,' and J.J. Abrams, who's a friend of mine, made this film, and I went to see it at the premiere. Believe it or not, I was really blown away by the comic timing of it.
James Gray / Film Director
Blown Away
Comic
Timing
Blown
Premiere
Star Trek
Trek
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Melodrama is one of the most stunning art forms. These are stories where the emotions are big, and the situations are big, and the artists believe in the situation dramatically. There's no irony or distance.
James Gray / Film Director
Distance
Irony
Melodrama
Situation
Stunning
Art Forms
Artists
Forms
Dramatically
Emotions
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I feel that The American Dream is this fallacy that you come to the United States and win lotto. That's a disservice to The American Dream because the American Dream is worth striving for. And it's not easy.
James Gray / Film Director
Dream
American Dream
Disservice
Easy
Fallacy
States
United States
American
Striving
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What I do have to get across is the truth of the moment within the given scene. It's my job, as a director and screenwriter, to create the environment in which all those moments will come together eventually.
James Gray / Film Director
Screenwriter
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Actors do want to work with me and I'm very grateful for that, but you never know. I could write parts for them that they don't want to play and then all of the sudden they don't want to work with you that much.
James Gray / Film Director
Grateful
Play
Writing
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Unfortunately for critics and audiences alike, I have made several films, and some films with really terrific actors. And I say this at my own peril, but Marion Cotillard is the best actor I've ever worked with.
James Gray / Film Director
Critics
Peril
Terrific
Alike
Audiences
Unfortunately
Marion
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Really, what I'm doing is an attempt to continue the best work of the people I adore: Francis Coppola and Scorsese and Robert Altman and Stanley Kubrick and those amazing directors whose work I grew up with and loved.
James Gray / Film Director
Adore
Best Work
Directors
Scorsese
Stanley
Best Work Amazing
Attempt
Coppola
Francis
Robert
Whose
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The system is not really particularly amenable to filmmakers who write and direct their own work. It's much more about the studio already having a property that has a marketable concept and then hiring the director on board.
James Gray / Film Director
Amenable
Direct
Hiring
Property
Board
Concept
Particularly
Studio
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I suppose I'm always trying to break down the wall between my characters and myself. I'm trying to make the film as expressive and personal as I can, even if I can't explain, for example, how important it is for me to be Jewish.
James Gray / Film Director
Break
Example
Expressive
Film
Wall
Myself Always Me
Myself Me Important
Jewish
Explain
Myself Me Always
For Example
Suppose
Personal
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The word 'operatic' is often misused to mean over the top, where someone is over-emoting. And that does a terrible disservice because 'operatic' to me means a commitment and a belief to the emotion of the moment that is sincere.
James Gray / Film Director
Commitment
Disservice
Emotion
Misused
Sincere
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I've learned that you can never predict what will happen to a film. You can never predict if people will love it, if they'll hate it. It's an act of ego if you're hoping for everyone to love the film and tell you how great you are.
James Gray / Film Director
Predict
Love Great Hate
Hoping
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I remember as a little kid, I would always feel comfortable if the light in the crack of my parents' door was on at night. When it went off, that meant they were asleep. Then that terror and the fear of being by myself started to creep in.
James Gray / Film Director
Comfortable
Light
Little Kid
Terror
Fear Myself Always
Asleep
Meant
Crack
Creep
Door
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It's weird, because American films in the 1930s and '40s, particularly melodramas, were made for woman, from Bette Davis to Joan Crawford to Barbara Stanwyck to Katherine Hepburn, and for some reason we've taken a step backward in this sense.
James Gray / Film Director
Barbara
Hepburn
Weird
Davis
Backward
Bette
Particularly
Joan
Step
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The corporate system dictates what gets made, and the movies are so bad because of the economic structure of Hollywood. The big business takeover of Hollywood is at fault rather than American storytellers - it's what keeps textured movies from getting made.
James Gray / Film Director
Big Business
Corporate
Structure
Dictates
Storytellers
Takeover
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I've been a Yankees fan for a long time. When I was a kid in the mid-'70s, the Yankees were really great. They had Reggie Jackson in '77. I was 8 years old at the time. He hit three home runs to win the World Series in game six against the Dodgers, and I was just hooked.
James Gray / Film Director
Dodgers
Hooked
World Series
Yankees
Time Home Great
Home Runs
Jackson
Runs
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My wife and I had been to the genetic counselor; my wife is not Jewish - she's the shiksha goddess type - and was negative for everything. But I was positive. I carried the gene for three genetic disorders, which, if she had been positive for, we would have passed down to the child.
James Gray / Film Director
Positive
Counselor
Goddess
Negative
Type
Jewish
Carried
Disorders
Gene
Passed
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As ugly an admission as this is, I met my wife at a party, and if I had been to the same party and she were dressed in different clothes, I might never have talked to her. She might have projected something that I found distasteful, even if she otherwise looked exactly the same - a beautiful woman to me.
James Gray / Film Director
Admission
Distasteful
Beautiful Wife Me
Beautiful Woman
Dressed
Exactly The Same
Projected
Talked
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When I was younger, I felt it essential to see every movie ever made. Now I feel as though I've got to read every book, see every art show, watch every play and opera and concert and so on. It does not end, and of course there is truth in the old cliche that the more one knows, the more one realizes one knows nothing at all.
James Gray / Film Director
Opera
Younger
Concert
Watch
Essential
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James Gray Quotes - Page 2

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