Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I never really learned photography.
I think violence can never be justified.
I have no advice for anyone on how to live.
The world is my workshop. It is not my home.
I think I really produce my best work in Iran.
A movie is about human beings, about humanity.
Close-Up has affected later films that I've made.
I believe there's only good cinema and bad cinema.
The day we run out of petrol is the day Iran will be free.
I thought that I had been asked every kind of question possible.
I never reflect or convey that which I have not experienced myself.
A work of art doesn't exist outside the perception of the audience.
In order to be universal, you have to be rooted in your own culture.
In the total darkness, poetry is still there, and it is there for you.
I think that if you're a digital thinker, you can use a digital camera.
Directors don't always create, they can also destroy with too many demands.
There are at least two retrospectives of my work each year in some country.
Good cinema is what we can believe, and bad cinema is what we can't believe.
The digital camera has given me total freedom and a different way of filming.
I really enjoy listening to stories. I remember them and keep them in my mind.
We are nothing but a link between our culture and what we can actually produce.
Anything I've not experienced I do not look to for a subject. I have to feel it.
I don't like reverse-angle shots - I find them very fake and very untruthful to the viewer.
It's true that the best way of knowing yourself is to put yourself into different situations.
I do believe in [Robert] Bresson's method of creation through omission, not through addition.
As soon as people enter a theater they must become moron consumers who must be fed information.
My way of expression is full of complications and mystery because that's my perception of life.
Film is very much a universal and common voice, and we can't limit it to one particular culture.
Having an international voice is not really about whether we speak Persian or any other language.
If I do continue to have the opportunity to work in Iran, that's very much what I'd prefer to do.
Using non-actors has its own rules and really requires that you allow them to do their own thing.
If you are a businessman or a politician in Iran, you can get a visa as quickly as you ask for it.
I think Woody Allen is Woody Allen, and no matter where he goes he still makes his Woody Allen films.
I'm still very grateful to digital cameras in general, but I didn't have this feeling with the RED one.
I can watch films and say how technically beautiful they are, but I'm not impressed by any technicality.
There is violence in real life but I would never impose violence in a film just to attract the audience.
Unfortunately, cinema critics are very few in America, 400-500 people, but there are more critics of Iran.
As long as I take the responsibility of the choice, I have to make the choice that is as right as possible.
I don't generally derive my stories from novels. I try to turn into film things I have felt or experienced.
I've often noticed that we are not able to look at what we have in front of us, unless it's inside a frame.
In my opinion the man looks at the relationship in a more bitter fashion and the woman still holds great hopes.
I only make notes, I don't write dialogues in full. And the notes are very much based on my knowledge of person.
The experience of life teaches us that being like someone in love is more real, because everything is uncertain.
The one-word cinema wasn't possible for me anymore. I'd hit a wall, a dead end. Therefore I thought I'd turn back.
I think life is so difficult to catch, it's so furtive, that a copy, a film, can in no way catch it and represent it.
In real life, when someone's partner calls them, they can tell from the first word their partner says what their mood is.
This [the earthquake] was a very big influence on me, and the issue of life and death from then on does recur in my films.
A digital camera does have many advantages and I was a believer that digital video would be a big influence on film-making.
Whether you consider me a master filmmaker or not, I do it with my intuition and my vision, my experience as a storyteller.
Cinema gives you the opportunity to be both a grandparent and a grandchild whereas in life you cannot be both at the same time.