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Did Robert De Niro actually look like Al Capone in 'The Untouchables?' Or did Van Kilmer look like Jim Morrison in 'The Doors?' No. It's the core, the essence of the personality that matters.
I went to New York for a research trip, just because it has these iconic street canyons. It's one of the few cities that has sidewalks that are wide enough for a sea of umbrellas to be there.
In editing, it's amazing how you choose the in and out points. What you cut on is everything for creating tension. It's amazing how expanding a shot by five seconds can just ruin the tension.
Some movies I make for myself. I just sort of make them for myself. I do that sometimes when the subject matter is very sensitive and very personal and I really can't imagine I'm an audience.
I think producers are more interested in backing concepts than directors and writers. I don't think that's the right way of making a decision about whether you're going to back a film or not.
I think documentaries are the greatest way to educate an entire generation that doesn't often look back to learn anything about the history that provided a safe haven for so many of us today.
My stories are pretty simplistic, but the characters are always complex and always right, and that comes from the script and my research and reverse-engineering what I find in the real world.
I knew I wanted to work in Cinemascope because I find it much more beautiful just in terms of the shape of the screen, the wider image, and it's also less like television, which is important.
For me it's important to get the origin of the character like in the Richard Donner superman. We saw him became slowly a super hero but i think it's important to take time and stay realistic.
In a way I'm lucky because when people suggest I won't be able to do something I have no choice but to show them they are wrong. If I say I'm doing it, I'm doing it. No matter how hard it is.
When you have something that is bothering you, and then you articulate, take the time to really express it and see it clearly, to recognize. To acknowledge that is already a liberating energy.
If Prince decided that he liked you, or he liked your art or what you brought to the table, it wasn't something that ended. It was a continuation of that thing until he went to the next thing.
I always wanted to do a story on the blues that not only reflected its nature and its content, but also alludes to the form itself…In short, a story that gives you the impression of the blues.
You can't really write until the characters kind of show up one day and tell you what they're going to say. You start to hear the rhythm of the way the people talk, and then it becomes easier.
We had many good directors - John Carpenter, Brian De Palma - but things have become polluted by business, money and bad relationships. The success of the horror genre has led to its downfall.
Shooting movies has changed, and me too - I have changed. And then, every film I do, something in my mind, my soul, changes. My natural change, I change at the same time as the films, I think.
You never know what you have until you put it in front of an audience. That's the truth. That's the truth of filmmaking and that's why you make movies, for an audience to, hopefully, enjoy it.
If you read the good reviews you gotta read the bad reviews. I kind of think of it as like being a quarterback: you get way too much blame when it's bad and way too much credit when it's good.
I don't want to make fictional characters who are perfect - that's a vanilla situation - but the fact is you are allowed to more carefully select and curate what it is you're going to explore.
I think one thing that's always a concern to me is you see a role, and you're not seeing the character; you're seeing so-and-so do it. Then I'm taken out of the story considerably, personally.
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.
'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.
When you make a film for a million and a half dollars and it opens at 20 million, the next question out of everyone's mouth is, 'When's the next one, when's the next one, when's the next one?'
I was very focused when I wanted to make 'Dil Chahta Hai,' though it was difficult for me to convince people that I know how to make films and I will be able to direct and put a film together.
You have to have a thick enough skin to cope with the criticism. I'm very self-critical and I have a lot of friends that I trust who are film directors and writers and people in my profession.
I grew up with white parents, and until after college, it was a lot of confusion, especially because I grew up in an all-white area. So I never looked around and saw anyone who looked like me.
My job is to find the stories, find where to go, do the research, do the logistics, be there on location, and do as much as possible to get the footage that we need to make an incredible film.
My favorite kinds of stories are the ones that have these big crazy genre hijinks and then a real honest, meaty, emotional story where we're watching a character grapple with some real things.
The area of teenage life is not necessarily rarefied; we've all gone through that period. It's not as rarefied as a western or a space adventure or a gangster film, but it has its own dynamic.
Some people have concerns about what it means to leave our responsibilities to robots. I think to some degree in every family, you've got siblings who disagree over the care for their parents.
The key to acting - from what little I know about that wonderful craft - is listening, and interacting with the other person in order to achieve magic. One way to do that is almost to provoke.
'Juno' really changed things for me and I get a lot of screenplays come in now, but I like to self-generate and I like to kind of pursue my own ideas. And I think the more personal the better.
Things like Facebook have made you feel as though you're connected to everybody. You've got a thousand friends on Facebook, but you don't actually talk to anybody. You're not close to anybody.
I didn't show up at the ceremony to collect any of my first three Oscars. Once I went fishing, another time there was a war on, and on another occasion, I remember, I was suddenly taken drunk.
There are so many effects and so many things that are done digitally now that it's so hard for the director to really control the process, because there are more and more experts that come in.
Everyone has a family, even if they're at war or fallen apart. It's the closest initial bond, and there's a sort of primal element to that. Your primary relationships are formed out of family.
I never thought about being a writer as I grew up. A writer wasn't something I wanted to be. An outfielder was something to be. Most of what I know about style I learned from Roberto Clemente.
For a meal out, my number one restaurant is Peter's Inn. I first went there when it was an old biker bar. Believe me, when it was Motorcycle Pete's, that was fun. I had my 30th birthday there.
The rudest possible gift is a gift card. It means you think the person is stupid and has no interests. The only good gift card is Bitcoin. You practically have to be a hacker to know about it.
The problem is that everywhere the gas drilling industry goes, a trail of water contamination, air pollution, health concerns and betrayal of basic American civic and community values follows.
The function of journalism is, primarily, to uncover vital new information in the public interest and to put that information in a context so that we can use it to improve the human condition.
I love when scenes are intentionally and meticulously planned so we feel like this is a handcrafted scene that only works in this moment and this movie, and that's the way I approach my films.
It's called 'Dear White People,' but really, it's about these black characters and how they are involved or not involved in a racial scandal in ways that might surprise them and others, right?
I have had to really grapple with the fact that, while I wish things could be different at times, I ultimately needed to experience the transformation that comes with pain and loss and sorrow.
The thing is, it's much easier to be a rightwing populist than a leftwing one, because the left always have to explain why things are the way they are. The right can just blame the foreigners.
We all, to some degree, wish we could have some element of our childhood back again while, for kids, moving on is something they're worried about. They know it's going to happen at some point.
I like the idea of a TV show. You take time to get to know your characters. You can introduce a lot of characters. You don't need your three-action set pieces that you usually need for movies.
You'll see more violence in any television crime series than you will in my films Art is there to have a stimulating effect, if it earns its name. You have to be honest, that's the only thing.
I see the world from the perspective of a 5'8" person, not someone who is 6'4". so naturally, I'm going to choose certain lens heights over and again... Sometimes nature makes choices for you.
I just kind of went from being a standup, one-man band, to then kind of breezing back and working with other people. And now I'm just trying to be a legitimate guy who pays the rent, you know.