Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Violence is not funny.
You are always cheating for the audience.
Technique is of less interest than character and story.
I really think that sex always looks kind of funny in a movie.
'Star Wars' gave birth to all the computer-generated superhero films.
Star Wars is one of a handful of films that changed the zeitgeist forever.
If Star Wars had failed, you wouldn't have 90 percent of what's out there today.
There are many untalented people making millions of dollars in the film business.
I don't look back or analyze my films. I just make them. It's for someone else to look at.
To me, the art of movies is to take a two-dimensional image and give the illusion of depth.
I'm not a fan of Star Wars. That is not for me. That is for my nephews and nieces. I don't get it.
The studios mostly threw away the negatives of the classic films. They had no interest in their legacy.
Ive never seen a more terrifying film than 'The Bababook'. It will scare the hell out of you as it did me.
The art of movies is to allow the audience to suspend their disbelief. They need to use their imaginations.
I believe today that there is no film and no shot in a film that is worth a squirrel getting a sprained ankle.
Edgar Allan Poe is considered the great writer of horror stories, perhaps the greatest - I will say the greatest
God knows, as a minority, gay people have taken serious lumps for their sexual preferences. As has every minority.
I can't sit through the superhero films. But I watched Draft Day, and it was kind of sweet in an old-fashioned way.
I have seen lampoons of my work. And I have really enjoyed them. But I would never do another version of The Exorcist.
And it was only a week later that I realized a close up of Steve McQueen was worth the greatest landscape you could find.
I believe it's true that there's good and evil in everyone and it's a constant struggle to have your better angels prevail.
All the great countries are at odds with one another over something, and yet if they don't cooperate they're going to blow up.
Directing is a nice job. It's the best job for me. If I had to pay money to do it, I would do it... Directing is playing. Acting.
I have to see the whole scene in my head before I go out and do it. Which I do. I will envision the entire scene before I shoot it.
If you're a movie star, the studios don't want you to act. They just want you to show up and look good and chase girls and have a lot of laughs.
I don't go to the movies much anymore. There's very little that draws me. I watch mostly the older stuff, and I often don't sit through the new films.
If you call yourself a non-believer, you're referring to disbelief in something, and you're acknowledging that there is something to believe in or not.
The informing idea of what you want to say and do, that's what will take you from film school to professional - the idea. That's what is original to you.
I'm not a fan of 3D. But I am a huge fan of digital imagery. Because it allows a filmmaker much more latitude to appreciate their own visions and dreams.
The digital process gives me total control over how I want the film to look. The films look like they did when I was first looking through the viewfinder.
I don't like 3D. I don't believe there is any film that I have seen and loved that would have been improved by a scintilla in 3D. To me, it's just a gimmick.
There are films that I've made that I like a little bit more than the others. But the films that I mostly watch, and see over and over again, are not my own.
Style is something that's extremely important, but it must grow naturally out of who and what you are and what the material calls for. It cannot be superimposed.
We all wind up the same way, no matter what our goals or ambitions are. We have nothing at all to say about how we got into this world or how are going to leave it.
I don't believe that Citizen Kane or Gone With the Wind, or any damn picture that you can name, would be better off in 3D. I think it's a gimmick. I find 3D distracting.
I don't think sexuality defines a person. It's one small part of who you are, in my view. You are many things, and I never felt that people were defined by their sexuality solely.
When you make a Blu-ray, its not the same as the print process was. You have little or no control over any print that was ever made. You are a victim of the 35mm printing process.
The thing that interests me is the good and evil in everybody. I don't have conventional heroes in the films that I directed, because I believe there's good and evil in everybody.
I had absolutely no focus as a kid. I never paid attention at school, I never went to college. Not because we were too poor; we were. But if I wanted to go to college, I would have found a way.
In the case of a film like The Exorcist or To Live and Die in L.A., I saw the whole movie in my head before I went to shoot it. I never did storyboards, or anything like that. I had the film in my head.
All of the films I have made, that I have chosen to make, are all about the thin line between good and evil. And also the thin line that exists in each and every one of us. That's what my films are about.
There are certain things that happen during the production of, I think, every film, that you didn't plan, and often it's better than what you did plan. There's the question of either going with it or not.
There is a thin line between the policeman and the criminal. The best cops are always crossed. The best cops are the ones who are able to think like criminals. But for a quirk of fate, they might have been criminals.
Sure, you could go out and make Jaws today. But all of the sequels to Jaws weren't good. They are all worthless. The Godfather II is the only sequel that I have ever seen that is as good as or better than the original.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I feel pressed and tense almost every day of my life about something or other. And I think it's the one thing, as I look into people's eyes, that I think I share with almost everybody.
Even with some of the best action films like 'The Bourne Ultimatum,' which is a great action film with a great chase sequence, so much of it is computer-generated. But that doesn't bother me. I think it works. It's fantastic.
When you go to a studio with something you want to make, or they come to you with something they want to make, more often than not, it's a tent pole. Not something one single person is really passionate about on a creative level.
Sam Jackson is a director's dream. Some actors hope to find their character during shooting. He knows his character before shooting. Sam's old-school. I just got out of his way. I never did more than two takes with Sam.-william friedkin
I tend to be attracted to characters who are up against a wall with very few alternatives. And the film then becomes an examination of how they cope with very few options. And that's, I guess, what interests me in terms of human behavior.
Every time you run a 35mm print, it picks up scratches. It picks up dirt. Sometimes it breaks, and you have to re-splice it. You lose frames. This doesn't happen with digital or Blu-ray. I think that's great. Because I love the new media.