Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I like the idea that cinema is a spectacle.
I think a good director is a good listener.
In contradiction and paradox, you can find truth.
Making poetry with a camera - that's the essence of what I do.
The problem in cinema is that you can never predict what will happen.
I always thought, like everyone, that Hollywood was a superhero factory.
You cannot make promises because you never know what your next project will be.
I always have a strange feeling that projects choose you. It's always mysterious.
When I use violence in a movie, it's just to express the power, the impact of it.
When you do casting in Hollywood, it's always the same question: 'Who is available?'
From 'Polytechnique,' I started to get scripts and after 'Incendies,' of course, it exploded.
It's not about choosing a specific genre; that's not how I go about deciding what movies to make.
I've always been in love with language. My favorite book is a dictionary. I have always loved words.
Film is pop art. It's not whether it's auteur cinema or not; that's a false distinction. Cinema is cinema.
The truth is, I'm someone coming from a spoiled society - the worst thing we deal with in Canada is winter.
I'm a very slow screenwriter. It takes time for me to write a screenplay. Also, I feel it's not my strength.
I'd love to be able to do a comedy like 'Dr. Strangelove.' I'm not a very serious person. Really, I'm very silly.
My movies are very often violent and dark, but there's a spectrum of light, and that light is coming from the women.
I was a sci-fi addict when I was a kid and a teenager. Novels, graphic novels, movies, it was my way to deal with reality.
Sometimes you have compulsions that you can't control coming from the subconscious they are the dictator inside ourselves.
Sometimes you have compulsions that you can't control coming from the subconscious... they are the dictator inside ourselves.
A longstanding dream of mine is to adapt 'Dune,' but it's a long process to get the rights, and I don't think I will succeed.
I was raised with James Bond. I love James Bond movies. I would love to do a James Bond movie one day. Action is very cinematic.
If you don't deal with your shadows, you are condemned to repeat the same mistake over and over, as a human being or as a society.
Since I began making movies, I've always looked for screenwriters instead of going through the long and painful process of writing.
I'm not someone that loves dialogue - I am someone that loves movement. Action, if it's well done, can be very poetic and meaningful.
I've been dreaming to do sci-fi since I was 10 years old, and I said 'no' to a lot of sequels - I couldn't say 'no' to 'Blade Runner.'
I think that the world is very complex. I think that the movie is a good way to ask questions. To give answers, you would write a lot of books.
In Canada, for boys, your identity is built on hockey. It's your social position; it's everything. And I was the worst hockey player of Canada.
I had a lot of respect for Jeremy Renner as an actor before I worked with him, because I was very impressed with what he did in 'The Hurt Locker.'
Cinema is an art form that is designed to go across borders. And as a filmmaker, the only way I can direct a movie is when I feel close to my culture.
The reception for 'Enemy?' I don't care. No matter what other people think, it was important for me. I will stand for that movie, even if I stand alone.
I must say, I am a 10,000-times better director because I am in therapy. I'm serious. I can understand more the actors. I can manipulate them more easily.
The beauty of Toronto is that it has not been shot a lot in movies, for itself at least. I mean, most of the time, Toronto is shot to portray something else.
I have joy. Canadians have the reputation of making dark movies because we are in this society where we have the space to explore darkness. That's the way I see it.
I never went to school for directing. I studied theater with a director. I followed plays to see how a director would talk to the actors. I tried to make my own school.
I'm among the hardcore fans of 'Blade Runner.' 'Blade Runner' is one of my favorite movies of all time. It's a movie that is linked with my love and passion for cinema.
The thing is that when you are a director, you need to be involved in a lot of different fields. You must be a psychologist, an architecture expert; you must be a choreographer.
'Arrival' talks very little about language and how to precisely dissect a foreign language. It's more a film on intuition and communication by intuition, the language of intuition.
When there's no technical problems, if you did the right casting, and the scene is well written, the actor will give you a strong performance with his intuition right from the start.
My home is Montreal. I will stay in Montreal and continue to make movies in Montreal. But it's also very healthy for Canadian filmmakers to work outside the country. You learn so much.
I'm learning more and more to share creativity with the crew and actors. A film crew is more powerful if you listen to them, but it does make my job more tough because I have to listen.
When I think of the 1980s, the only color that comes to mind is a brown, yellowish color. I guess it's coming from my life experience, and it's melancholia and sadness and a bit of joy.
I must say, to my great surprise and pleasure, I deeply loved making movies in the United States because of all the opportunities it gave me to work with people that I admire as artists.
I didn't think I'd do movies in Los Angeles. I never thought it would happen. In fact, it was not a fantasy. For me, I said, 'If ever I go there, they will ask me to do 'Legally Blonde 5.'
'Close Encounters of the Third Kind.' Big, big, big smash for me. My birth of the love of cinema was born with 'Close Encounters' and '2001.' Those sci-fi movies I saw when I was a little kid.
Cannes is the oldest film festival in the world, and I've long dreamed of having one of my films there in competition. It's a dream that lay dormant for a long time; I stopped believing in it.
Each movie I make has its own heroes, and the two heroes for me in 'Arrival' are Amy Adams and Joe Walker, the editor. We worked very, very hard, and it was, by far, the longest editing process.
I was 'impressed' by Hugh Jackman for five seconds the first time I met him, but as soon as he opened his mouth and shook my hand, I felt comfortable. He made me feel like I was one of his friends.
I think they built Hollywood on the West Coast because they were always dreaming of a New World. When they arrived here, the only way to keep dreaming was to make movies. Film was the fourth dimension.