Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
The artist doesn't have to suffer to show suffering. Have it on the screen but have the people come out of the theater into a world of peace, of a beautiful world. They don't have to suffer in their lives.
'The Fighter' was about a family struggling to overcome and fighting each other sometimes, and I went back and rewrote this script which I had written for my son initially because my son has mood disorder.
The time that it takes to make the feature is really contingent on the feature being sort of almost ready-made - so coming to a book is more ready-made. You at least have the story that someone sorted out.
I have kids. I can't hardly watch an afternoon football game with them without having to turn off the TV during the commercials. It's too much. I don't know when violence was deemed such a cinematic thing.
I don't want to get them in trouble for crimes in the early '90s - but there was usually like one pub that was the soft touch in terms of you could get served under 18, and that pub was The Rose and Crown.
A comedy can actually get funnier and funnier. Even though you know the joke, you enjoy it so much, it's the facial expression, you laugh. The laugh doesn't wear off. It could be with you for thirty years.
Being non-commercial is never an ambition. Movies come together at different points for fortuitous reasons. You do them as you get the opportunity, as opposed to doing them when you choose to or design to.
Apart from the highs and lows of when your film releases, there's a strange, addictive quality that making a film has because of all that drama. There's so much that goes on, and we miss it when it's over.
When that happens - when risk is taken and the filmmakers dive into the subject matter without a parachute - very often what you get it something with those qualities that make it age well with the public.
We live in a country where everyone has a right to voice their opinion, and I appreciate that right. I do, however, wish that people had taken more time to evaluate the facts before voicing their opinions.
Oakland Technical High School. Like any high-school experience, it was ambiguous. I was shy with girls; I had friends, but there were times I didn't feel I had the right friends. My grades were only so-so.
My stories are about humans and how they react, or fail to react, or react stupidly. I'm pointing the finger at us, not at the zombies. I try to respect and sympathize with the zombies as much as possible.
Follow your bliss. Do the thing where you sit down at 8 a.m. and then you realize you're hungry and you look up and it's 10 p.m. If you can find something you love that much, it doesn't matter what you do.
"What makes a man a man?" a friend of mine once wondered. Is it his origins? The way he comes to life? I don't think so. It's the choices he makes. Not how he starts things, but how he decides to end them.
If I'm in a gathering of filmmakers, I'm first and foremost a British Indian; if I'm in a gathering of British Indians, I'm a woman director. There are so many sides to who I am that I change all the time.
I went to see 'Star Trek Into Darkness,' and J.J. Abrams, who's a friend of mine, made this film, and I went to see it at the premiere. Believe it or not, I was really blown away by the comic timing of it.
I know the power of going to Mount St. Helens, and to see that level of devastation is quite something - the power of tsunamis, etc. But it's human cruelty, the base level of humanity, that scares me most.
I'm perpetual tourist, and that's the best way to travel. Nobody gets used to you, you make new friends without having to hear anyone's everyday problems, and you jet back still feeling like a know-it-all.
I've always believed in the goodness of people. I teach in prison. They all said, don't do it. Carry a gun, take Mace. Are you kidding? I guess, they're around so many criminal elements that they fear for.
I was always flattered, but I just want my movies to make money. I want to be commercial. I'm never the person who says, "I don't care if people don't see my movies." I always want people to see my movies.
I like doves. They look so beautiful, like a woman. For me they represent peace and love and purity. And sometimes they're seen as the messengers of God, so they're important to me because I'm a Christian.
There are regulations all over the spectrum that have to be done to the existing situation right now. But the only policy that makes sense is a nationwide moratorium: no new fracking, no new fracked wells.
I'm working on a few different films and I'm just searching for the right new story to tell. As a director, you just have to kind of like just get through the first project before starting on the next one.
There's no glory in climbing a mountain if all you want to do is to get to the top. It's experiencing the climb itself - in all its moments of revelation, heartbreak, and fatigue - that has to be the goal.
It was important on The Shipping News to have my house far enough away from each location so I had this time in the morning to think about my shots and still remain open to surprises once I got to the set.
When you think about it, the most important thing to a toy is to be played with by a child, and anything that keeps them from being played with gives them stress - things like getting lost, getting broken.
I'm from the '60s, but no one has ever accused me of being a hippie. I never had much interest in the Woodstock crowd, which partied to change the world, while real people were starving to death in Africa.
I'm interested in genre in a way, I suppose because you have a framework of something and you can just twist it to explore the psychology or try different subversive ideas on something that feels familiar.
There are two kinds of power you have to fight. The first is the money, and that's just our system. The other is the people close around you, knowing when to accept their criticism, knowing when to say no.
A play, after all, is a mystery. There's no narration. And as soon as there's no narration, it's open to interpretation. It must be interpreted. You don't have a choice... Each play can become many things.
We have basic urges all the time. They just manifest themselves in different scenarios, and we have to turn those weaknesses into our strengths. Art is very much about making your weaknesses your strength.
When that technology becomes widespread and it's on every car on the freeways, it's going to save so many lives. Especially in America, so many people get killed in these multi-car pileups on the freeways.
Whenever I arrive on a real location, I have to move around and work out what the best angles are going to be. When I was moving around with the lens, I discovered things that the naked eye would not have.
Well, we try to - we definitely try to have a balance. And I think things have gotten a lot better at Pixar. When we did "Toy Story," that was an all hands on deck situation that really was time intensive.
I always take kind of a zen view of casting and I really don't remember people who passed. I kind of turn it over to the universe and figure, 'Wow, I guess that wasn't meant to be.' It doesn't sit with me.
Vidhu Vinod Chopra, who has produced my earlier films, is still a part of 'PK' and is presenting it. He is not a hands-on producer - he used to put a certain amount in the bank and give me the cheque book.
I always had that long-term vision. Even getting going with cinema, knowing it was such a long road to be able to make films, but I always had a long term. Whenever I was starting out, I had that patience.
The script is very good because the things that happen in it are very believable to me. It doesn't presuppose that the world has changed very much. You don't have to think that you're in a different world.
I know my audience, and they, in turn, know my cinema. When I pick a subject, it's for a family audience. I shoot and edit my films keeping them in mind. I'm dead sure about the product that bears my name.
I love the unexpected and I think that's why documentary is an attractive genre to me because you don't know where it's going to go, so I tend to involve that as much as possible in the production process.
This film [Chi-Raq]is a declaration. It's a scream. It's a warning. And I can really break it down to one scene. That's the scene where we have the eulogy and sermon that is given by the great John Cusack.
Mike Tyson is the most complex person I've ever met in my life. I've known Mike since 1986. We're both from Brooklyn. I didn't know him growing up, but once he became heavyweight champion, I knew him then.
There are lots of parts of filmmaking that I don't like. At the end of the day, especially on features, the film turns into a commodity. You have to play this entirely new game I'm very uncomfortable with.
He 's ruthless only because of his ideals. Unfortunately he doesn't succeed. The thing fails and gets out of hand and takes charge of him. Idealism is the only excuse he could have and it's a great excuse.
I hate firing people, we had to go through four crews, people are disrespectful but people do appreciate The Room and I love them all. That's why I am coming to Canada! I want to meet all my Canadian fans!
We live in a society that has no adequate images anymore, and if we do not find adequate images and an adequate language for our civilization with which to express them, we will die out like the dinosaurs.
I've always sort of marveled at our ability to chat and match, because of, I come, honestly I think of myself of as a little bit of hack, and think like that, and I think of her [Mia Michaels] as an artist.
I go back to many films that I really love. Some Bresson, some Godard of the early times, the Cassavetes of those years I love. And the early Wim Wenders. But my own films I don't watch, unless I need them.
The root of any film project for me is this inner need to express something. What nurtures this root and makes it grow into a tree is the script. What makes the tree bear flowers and fruit is the directing.
I have a notebook, and I know what decisions will be made in pre-production. Everything is pre-determined in the pre-production period. I visually design the whole thing, and I know when things will happen.