Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I am and always have been fascinated with people, and I have a very good time coming up with the narratives of people's lives, exploring how a person thinks and feels.
Mark Ruffalo is Mark Ruffalo - no explanation needed. He has the biggest heart of anyone I've ever met, and he's sort of the Dave Schultz of the entertainment industry.
I don't want to sound too spiritual, but when you are true to yourself and follow through with things that connect with you meaningfully, somehow things fall into place.
I like going into a scene knowing that the script isn't quite finished, that there's something that isn't really going to reveal itself until something spontaneously occurs.
I like to have something that I can challenge common-sense notions about, challenge the apparent truths, and really look past the many faces of a thing to see what's behind it.
Capote is one of those people who represents something larger than himself. I think that his ambition, his kind of success, and the downfall that followed are very contemporary.
Every relationship probably has, at its inception, a hundred things that you could pick on and divert you from it, but the feeling is there. You figure out a way to make it work.
Filmmaking requires the participation and cooperation of many people. It's unrealistic to expect that you're not going to be challenged by unforeseeable forces from every direction.
What I will say - one thing that is attractive about getting a real film made within the studio system is that studio systems, with their marketing and distribution, have real power.
There is a paradox in politics that what it takes to get elected is not necessarily what it takes to govern, and my feeling is that trying to control things too much feels icky to me.
It's about creating an atmosphere so that characters can just live in front of the cameras. And to be sensitive, and for the actor to know the sensitivity that they are being observed with.
I am attracted to characters who are in worlds where they don't belong and who have great ambitions that they imagine will somehow reconcile themselves with the world and make things right.
Film as a medium, like a novel as a medium, possesses a unique ability to communicate. Film is capable of communicating in a way that no other medium can, and I would say the same for the novel.
I want to work with performers who really are ready to lose their minds, you know? People who are established and have talent, but who are ready to break new ground and really be cracked open in a new way.
My business life is really simple. It's like, get check. Put check in bank. Pay rent. I've never bought a stock in my life. I never got caught up in that trip. And the truth is, I don't obsess about money ever.
Every film requires a different process. You learn about these particular actors and the particular chemistry between these actors. Recognizing when you don't need to shoot a scene because it's going to be cut anyway.
Kenny Lonergan, as a filmmaker, doesn't tell stories so much as he observes them, which is to say, his films don't come pre-digested. You have to bring your own enzymes. It's a more gripping and challenging experience.
Before I find myself in the middle of a project, I want to make sure it is the kind of thing that keeps me excited for two years. Otherwise, it will be very difficult to push the proverbial rock up the proverbial mountain.
When I learned a little bit about du Pont and a little bit about Mark Schultz, I was attracted to the notion that these incredibly different people found each other and seemed, for a moment, to be the answer that each was looking for.
I think in terms of content and subjects and whatever kind of production it dictates. Can I conceive of an idea that would really connect with my personal rhythms and cost a lot of money? I don't gravitate in that direction, but it is possible.
If you talk to anybody, among the first things you'll hear is, 'Steve Carell is the nicest guy in the world.' And he is. 'Steve Carell is the greatest guy to work with.' And he is. But all of that belies other aspects that are as true with him.
I really tried to get comfortable with the notion of shooting digital on 'Foxcatcher' and just couldn't. I shot many tests and experimented with all sorts of techniques to manipulate it into a place that worked for us, but it just didn't happen.
I have a tremendous amount of patience and tolerance when working with people, but if I ever feel the impulse to inhibit myself from doing one more take, or feel a need to apologize to someone for pushing, I know that that relationship isn't gonna last.
One of the biggest turnoffs is being presented with an idea that's already, to a degree, complete. That's not an adventure, and it's not a learning experience. It's more of a chore. Then you become a technician with taste, as opposed to an explorer and an author.
I think baseball represents something closer to our experience. There's no clock in baseball; it's not over until it's over. It's like life in that there are prolonged periods of boredom and monotony, punctuated by intense moments of excitement and sometimes terror.
People without fathers tend to have two predominant characteristics. They tend to believe anything is possible. At the same time there's an anxiety and an unending insecurity. It's a very American thing because back in the past, we lost our fathers or father. The king.
It's important for an actor to feel like they're really being watched and to receive feedback and encouragement about the aspects of what they're doing that feels truthful - and also to raise awareness when they might be resorting to habits and tricks, which every actor has.
There is a very uneasy relationship between money and creativity, between money and almost everything. Its tendency to control and corrupt - whether it's in arts or education or politics, hardly anything is untouched by it. Journalism certainly is up there. Everything is susceptible to it.
You can write ten versions of a scene, and then, on the day, discover that something in the original scene worked. It's hard on writers. Hard on actors, hard on editors, hard on me, hard on the producers, who require patience and confidence. But I can't get to the end without going through this process.
Silence is absorption, and when you're watching a film and you're that quiet and you're that still, at least from my experience of watching films, that indicates an absorption, where you're really in the moment. You're really present. What you're seeing is vital to you in that moment, and it's tingling, and it's alive, and it matters.
If you track something like a political campaign and parcel out what's being communicated in a literal and narrative sense, and what's being communicated by means of emotional and symbolic language, you might find that it's the latter elements that absolutely dominate and move people. It makes me want to take that language and expose it.
You can recognize almost immediately if the film you're watching is the product of some kind of a hive mind or the result of a personal vision and genuine collaborations. 'Manchester by the Sea' reminds us of the potential of the latter and, for that reason, is the kind of work that makes me, as a filmmaker, want to continue. It's inspiring.