Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I'm not sure I understand the compulsion to label things.
I like movies that leave things in the hands of the audience.
I just really like seeing mundane stuff in movies. It's realistic.
Older actresses apparently have no sense of humor about being older actresses.
As filmmakers, the Western is a historic, cool thing to be a part of once in your life.
If people don't like [my film], the ship's sailed. There's nothing I can do about that.
I think having funny characters is just one way of having three-dimensional characters.
It's a combination of yes - making a movie about the characters - and then, also, budget.
It's Ethan Hawke and John Travolta [in Valley of Violence]. It's awesome. They're awesome.
There's nothing stopping you from making movies. You can always make and try different things.
If you make just a straight scary movie, people are just - you don't know what they're thinking.
I don't go to see movies to see plots. I'm not interested in puzzles like an Agatha Christie story.
I don't generally watch the movie [ The House Of The Devil ]. It's sort of like hearing your voice on tape.
I've done it with all my films. I always keep an eye on the first time I show it because... I don't know. Neurosis.
One of my favorite scenes of the movie [Valley of Violence] is when Ethan Hawke is sitting at the campfire with the dog.
It definitely could have been a horror story [Valley of Violence], oh my God, if the dog was impossible. So could the horses.
The hardest animal was the vulture. But the horses were great, the dog was great [in Valley of Violence]. It was really easy.
We can't make a giant sprawling movie. We're going to make a small movie. And what we got is what I could get, performance-wise.
I always feel like the less you say when you're making a movie, as a director, is the best. That means everything's going great.
Jumpy is the most incredible animal of all time. The movie [Valley of Violence] is the tamest example of what that dog is capable of.
It's very important to me to find ways to relate the audience to the characters. This is the first thing to go in most mainstream horror films.
Typically, in Westerns, people who are in a Western feel like they're in a Western. It's almost like they know they do all these Western things.
It's unreal. I mean, the dog backflips. It's amazing. Google Jumpy on YouTube - I had seen the dog first and I was like, "Y'all don't even know."
Really, I wanted to make a movie [Valley Of Violence] about: How does violence affect people? This is a take from me on how violence affects people.
It's funny, because I don't think of my films as "slow-burn." I don't even know if I was familiar with the phrase until people started labeling me with it.
I'd been all hyped about it, I was like, "Please come," and to have that and know Tommy Nohilly is probably going like, "This is cool," it makes me feel good.
The bad guys, when they start getting picked off, they're upset that their friends died, too. But that's the thing. That's what life is. It's that weird gray area.
You have to. But I generally try - I'll creep in the back. I'll be outside. I'll pace around. I don't really get that nervous about whether people like [my films].
Sometimes I look at it [Valley of Violence] and go, "How did we do that?" But it's a credit to Ethan [Hawke], he had done White Fang, so Ethan is like, "Oh God, that's right."
It is a very classic Western [Valley of Violence], and if you like Westerns, you'll like this movie, but there's a tone to it that's all its own that I think is unique and memorable.
Of course, we talked about Westerns we like with [James Ransone in Valley of Violence] , but it was always thematically in relation to the movie and what the themes of the movie were.
If you ever see the director pulling people aside, that means something's not working. Because you're trying to figure out why it's not working. But we would show up, we would talk about it.
I do think, even though I've made these genre movies, there's what happens in the movie and then there's what the movie's about. And for me, what the movie's about is so much more interesting.
It's not the plot [of Valley of Violence] - the plot is the reason to get all these things to happen, all these character moments to happen. It was always meant to have these two perspectives.
It's one of those things, when you look back on it, you'd go, "Oh, I could've done without that. If I could go back in time, I would do it different." That's the thing with violence in general.
I found Jumpy on YouTube. I wrote a movie about a guy with a dog and was like, "What have I done? This is going to be a nightmare. We're a small movie and we're never going to be able to do this."
The Innkeepers were two nerds in a dead-end job and then they try to get involved and they get in over their heads, and how does it affect them? That, to me, just seems like what happens to people.
[Valley of Violence] was written for James Ransone. PJ's a friend of mine, I've known him for a long time, he's always like, "Dude, when are we going to make a movie together?" I finally called him.
With my horror movies or with this movie [Valley of Violence], same thing. The subtext of this movie is what to take away from it. Plot is never something that's been my driving force as a filmmaker.
From a performance standpoint, it just gives [actors] so much - I had such a great cast [ in Valley of Violence] - and it gives them the ability to go wild with it and to have performances that are memorable.
The movie [ The Innkeepers] is in no way a comedy, but I would put some of the funny scenes up against some of the funnier comedies this year. I think it's genuinely really funny, but it's out of the gallows.
The first half [of Valley of Violence] was to endear you to all these people and give you all these archetypes that you're familiar with, and then the second half, just to see all those archetypes unravel like real people.
Everything Jumpy could do [in Valley of Violence] was too much. If I put it in the movie you would all check out. When he wraps himself up in the blanket, that's as far as I could go, and that's not even close. The dog's amazing.
You get to actually make your movie. As a filmmaker, that's the dream. That's why you get up in the morning, to be able to do that. You feel constrained sometimes, but if the movie makes sense in the budget realm, then it isn't hard.
I mean PJ - James Ransone - he was a friend of mine, he probably heard all this stuff, but for the rest of the cast [Valley of Violence], we mostly just talked about their characters and things like that. That was the business at hand.
I don't think you want to preach to people. I don't think In A Valley Of Violence, and the same with The Sacrament, there's a social commentary and a political element to both the films, but it's not like, "Think this because I think this."
You want to be able to say [to Ethan Hawke's character], "Dude, it's okay," but maybe it's not. Maybe he's not a good person. I don't know. That's the thing about people. There is no real good guy or bad guy [in A Valley Of Violence]. It's all context.
I always talk about movies a lot beforehand, and then we would get there, and I'd say, "Let's play around and see how it goes." And they would do it, and I'd go, "Well, that was awesome." It was really - I don't know, it was really special to watch them.
To me it's not so much that the movies are slow-paced as much as they are about spending time building a relationship between the audience and the characters. If you don't spend an adequate amount of time doing this, then how can you expect to scare anyone?
That's what's interesting about people. It can be funny, but when [John] Travolta got there and did [comic moments] you're like, "Oh! This is really funny." Or when Karen [Gillan] and Taissa [Farmiga] do something, I'm like, "This came out so much funnier."