Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I would've been a really big silent movie star.
I got a chance to work with Mel Brooks on two of his films: Silent Movie and High Anxiety.
I always get compared to looking like a silent movie star - though I don't know if that's a compliment, honestly.
When you see a silent movie, you understand everything that's going on from the images because the images are so strong.
I'm not an American actor. I'm a French actor. I'll continue in France. If I could make another silent movie in America, I'd like to!
When I'm actually assembling a scene, I assemble it as a silent movie. Even if it's a dialog scene, I lip read what people are saying.
I think the approach of the character for us is the same in a silent movie as in a talking movie because we had balance, we had lines to learn.
Right now I'm the most famous silent movie actress in the world and I want to keep that for me. So I hope there's not going to be any other silent movies.
The other day in the garage, I found a book report from the seventh grade that I did about silent movie stars. It's funny to look at now, because it really foretold what my future would be.
I always loved silent movies. I was not a specialist, but I loved them. And when I started directing, I became really fascinated by the format - how it works, the device of the silent movie.
The silent movie is an emotional cinema: it's sensory; the fact that you don't go through a text brings you back to a basic way of telling a story predicated on the feelings you have created.
If you try to make a silent movie with a normal script and you just pull out the dialogue, you will have big problems with the actors because you will ask them to tell a story that you don't know.
For you, it's a silent movie. For us, it's a talking movie because we had lines on set. There's a lot of noise on set and music. We spoke in English, in French, in gibberish, but it was very alive. The challenge was tap dancing.
Actually, I met a lot of directors and most of them have that fantasy to make a silent movie because for directors it's the purest way to tell a story. It's about creating images that tell a story and you don't need dialogue for that.
The hardest I've ever laughed in a cinema was at 'Silent Movie' by Mel Brooks. I was 12-ish and I actually fell out of my seat. I saw it 10 years later hoping for the same hilarity but it didn't happen. I'm not sure if that's because of me or the film.
I always loved silent movies. I was not a specialist, but I loved them. And when I started directing, I became really fascinated by the format - how it works, the device of the silent movie. It's not the same form of expression as a talkie. The lack of sounds makes you participate in the storytelling.
This is a universal, unique movie, it has potential to cross barriers. But we never thought about that on set, when we were doing the film. We knew that in making a silent movie, we were doing something a little bit under the wire, a bit interdit. It's a pastiche, but for the French taste, you would have thought.
From a child, I knew I didn't have the face I wanted to have. My mother was a baroness. She was from Berlin; she was a silent movie actress and friends with Marlene Dietrich. So she knew all about film make-up and prosthetics and stuff like that and what they used to do in those days. And she taught me all that as a child.