Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I think it's better to be overly ambitious and fail than to be underambitious and succeed in a mundane way. I have been very fortunate. I failed upward in my life!
You're in a profession in which absolutely everybody is telling you their opinion, which is different. That's one of the reasons George Lucas never directed again.
The film of tomorrow will not be directed by civil servants of the camera, but by artists for whom shooting a film constitutes a wonderful and thrilling adventure.
Now, I just made an animated movie a few years ago, 'The Tale of Desperaux', and that had twelve hundred shots in it. Twelve hundred CG shots is a pretty big plan.
All art is dependent on technology because it's a human endeavour, so even when you're using charcoal on a wall or designed the proscenium arch, that's technology.
The thing is I write to music, so every script I have has its own playlist. Music just opens me up to the emotions that I'm writing. It's just a pretty cool thing.
The dark comedies tend to be in a non-releasable area. There can be romantic comedies. There can be dramas. But there's no 'dark comedy' inbox for the advertising.
I've always wanted to be a very commercial director, or I had dreams of making these movies into blockbusters. And with each movie, they tell me it's not that way.
From casting to hiring to awards races like the Emmys, taking active steps toward inclusion will make for richer stories, a stronger democracy, and a better world.
One of the things that really fascinates me about movies is that they make seemingly ordinary moments be filled with some curiosity or some energy or some mystery.
Like, I'm a big fan of films from the '70s, like Cassavetes and things, where they just keep the dialogue really loose and just kind of roll, you know what I mean?
The one that I've always wanted - and I have Scott Rudin in my way blocking it - is 'Blood Meridian,' which Cormac McCarthy has offered to adapt into a screenplay.
I always feel that there are no final victories and no final defeats. But it's true that America is in a hole right now. There are a lot of dead fish in the water.
I'm a huge gadget freak. I look on CNet literally every day to see what new gizmos are out there. I love technology. I'm constantly e-mailing. I've got the iPhone.
In Indonesian, the word isn't translating as "gangster." It's "preman", which comes from the Dutch "préman", which of course the thing that's "freeman" in English.
I think there's a reason why some companies have such dismal records. It's not because they're clueless; it's because they systematically don't want to hire women.
For me, I feel like I don't see myself as all that different from other humans as a woman, but I'm surprised by how frequently I'm asked to see myself differently.
On your first film, you think these are going to be your closest friends for the rest of your life. You form a bond, but then you go back to the rest of your life.
My advice for anyone wanting to direct is that nobody is going to hand you an opportunity. You have to create your own opportunities and not take no for an answer.
Things like pornography perpetuates this idea that women are just there as objects of male desire and are not complex people with their own sexuality and humanity.
The only thing I really wanted was the freedom to be able to get what I want on film. I’ve dealt with the MPAA since 1973, so I know how to renegotiate and rework.
My father had this mythological sense of the old New York, and he used to tell me stories about these old gangs, particularly the Forty Thieves in the Fourth Ward.
I don't know if it's really important, or intelligent even, when people say to me I'm a white Spike Lee, because they said to Spike Lee you're a black Woody Allen.
I like to write for actors I know and with whom I've worked before. You can write to their strengths and weaknesses and write roles that are better suited to them.
Even the most elitist director or author who claims that he doesn't care if his works are seen or not, then I have to think that he's either a liar or a hypocrite.
I am drawn to the mystery of marriage. You can never know what the contract is between two people, and that is a very strong subject. I think it may be my subject.
Women writers are often conflated with their narrators - as if we can't consciously construct fictional worlds from the ground up and can only write diary entries.
I was in jail four and a half years. When I came out, I continued the same struggle against injustice, but instead of using weapons, I began to use art and cinema.
My business is can I create a world that's possible and could happen? I think that's the only thing that I have to do, and I think that I have done that each time.
Some people are in positions of power, and when incentives go haywire, we are all human and it's easy to make mistakes. I am not saying everybody is Bernie Madoff.
Oscars are won with two or three shots only, because if it's really beautifully photographed, you don't really notice it until the astounding moment emphasizes it.
I woke up one day and I realized I wasn't born beautiful, but my wife was, so I decided to make a horror film about it: what it would be like to be born beautiful.
The digital revolution is forever. They put importance on that option as well. With Amazon, you're getting the best of both worlds, with a whole new playing field.
I'm somebody's ex-wife, and I did things that drove him nuts. And now I'm somebody's girlfriend, for many years, and I've got different things that drive him nuts.
Everything Sholom Aleichem talks about in his plays and his short stories is about people, family, man's relationship with his God, the breaking down of tradition.
Сyber-warfare is obviously the future. It's a real concern, but we lie so much about what we do that it's hard to know what's going on unless you really follow it.
I enjoy the process of writing collaboration so there's some stuff that already that may happen and then some stuff that I'm initiating that I may write on my own.
'Paranormal Activity' was a unique project in that I made it basically on my own, with a little help, and I had no exposure to the filmmaking world when I made it.
One of the things that makes the Bourne movies so exciting, I think, is you do get to go on a journey. Generally, through the franchise, that journey is in Europe.
I guess it seemed like a natural thing to set 'AvP' in the world of the Alien, rather than the world of the Predator. I always liked the idea of it being on earth.
Movies are not an art form where you get to kind of sit in your art gallery and paint, you know? You don't do that. You're spending a lot of somebody else's money.
When I was young I thought: when I am 60 my necessities will be very different. As I get near that age, I realise they are similar to what they were when I was 25.
La Mancha is a very macho, chauvinistic society. I saw very clearly that my life had to be in Madrid, and I liberated myself from my mum and dad after high school.
What I love about films is that you can see "King Kong" and you can be affected by it and then you realize that he was just this little guy when he made that fall.
Second movies are great because you can drop into them, and it doesn't really have a beginning on it, particularly in a traditional way. You can just tear into it.
If the film is nominated for awards, and even if it wins them, it doesn't make the movie any better, just as if it's ignored that doesn't make the movie any worse.
I think we spent 60-something million on 'Hateful Eight,' which is actually more than I wanted to spend, but we had weather problems. And I wanted to make it good.
Yes, actually ever since I saw his films and tried to write about them, Sirk's been in everything I've done. Not Sirk himself, but what I've learned from his work.
Every milieu has something ridiculous about it - film-making, the music world, painting - because people who take themselves seriously become funny pretty quickly.
At that point, the movie was called Wild Force. Everything fell apart, eventually - our financing completely fell apart - and we were never able to make that film.