Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I'm a Lebanese woman who directs films. That's not it at all. I am not really a woman nor am I really an Arab. Because I am not an apologist for women, nor of sentimental "world" films.
Hobson's Choice' may have been in black and white, but it was a David Lean production filmed at Shepperton with Charles Laughton in the lead. So it was a big film - and it felt like it.
I like to see films that come out with lower budgets because you're forced into using your imagination. You don't have everything at your fingertips. You have to create it from scratch.
And my first film was Carnal Knowledge, another amazing experience, largely because of Mike Nichols, who would tell me you can't do anything wrong because you're doing everything right.
If you have someone falling out of the boat, you'd have to drag the boat up the river and film the same scene ten times, every time, dragging the boat exactly where it was up the river.
I've been lucky because my films have consistently made a profit, almost all of them have made a profit. Never a huge profit, but nobody gets hurt. And therefore I get a lot of freedom.
A TV show is an open universe, whereas a film is more of a closed universe. No disrespect to movies, there's just a lot of artifice in closing out emotional storylines after 90 minutes.
I live in a constant state of gratitude, thankfulness, and appreciation for the second chance I was given, so anytime in any film, when that is given to someone, I always appreciate it.
In the film business, when you're young, you just want to work. But when you're older, it has more to do with who's involved with the project - who you're going to get in the boat with.
On a film, you work with somebody for four months and it's wonderful, but commercials it's like catching up with someone for a beer except you happen to shoot something at the same time.
It's been a twisty-turny path for me. I was studying to be a history professor, and then I left that, went to film school, and tried to be like my heroes, like, Spike Lee and Hal Hartly.
I don't normally watch films I'm in because I'm squeamish about that and it takes me quite a long time to recover and I have to go to work. I'm not being coy or cute, but it's just true.
I love pre-code movies. Some of my favorites are movies with Warren William and there is an MGM film called "Skyscraper Souls" which is the best Warner Brothers movie that MGM ever made.
That's what's nice about directing a film and having it done: There's nothing more I can do about it. It's done. That's it. All I can do is let it go and hope that people are kind to it.
I believe film and television should reflect our society, and the reality is that there are people in many different shapes and sizes, ethnicities, sexual orientation - the list goes on.
If I am offered a biopic on a person people know almost everything about, what is the point doing it? A film on someone about whom very less is known is something that would interest me.
Film editing is now something almost everyone can do at a simple level and enjoy it, but to take it to a higher level requires the same dedication and persistence that any art form does.
A really irritating thing when you're watching a film is if somebody's accent isn't bang-on - it distracts you from getting into the story because you're thinking: 'Where are they from?'
I've always loved [Elsa Dorfman] work. I've loved her and her work is so much an expression of her. One of the reasons to make the film is to expose Elsa, hopefully, to a wider audience.
I've been so fortunate throughout my career, when I was doing theater, more theater than anything else, and when I was doing films that I got a chance just to do a broad range of things.
Now that I can edit the whole thing on AVID and edit the whole thing on tape, maybe I will do the next digitally, because maybe the quality will become less obvious between tape and film.
But Mary Elizabeth felt different. She kept saying it was an "articulate" film. So "articulate." And I guess it was. The thing is, I didn't know what it said even if it said it very well.
I just like comedy in general. My film work, which has been at times more dramatic, has been satisfying. But I never feel quite as good and as light and blissful as when I'm doing comedy.
It's difficult to keep anything fresh for an audience these days. With technology being what it is people seem to know everything there is to know about a film before you've even made it.
With me it started as a child, going to the theater and being totally transported but also walking out of the theater thinking I was the protagonist in the film and reenacting the scenes.
I was not, and am not, officially a producer of that film [I am love] but the work of what a producer does I learned at that stage and to a certain extent I've been a producer ever since.
Basically you can do anything in a film. I could have place a spaceship in the middle of a street. You can do anything, and I love to talk about this because is so organic to the process.
I'm glad movies aren't going to please everybody, they can't. But what they have to be is recognisable. I don't equate myself with a master painter, but I think you can recognise my films.
It was not possible to film in California, because all the areas are heavily built up now. Coming to Cape Town is an invitation to step into the past and recreate Los Angeles of the 1930s.
I wouldn't do a film like 'The Dirty Picture.' I have a husband and kids, and I won't be able to do justice to such a role. You need a certain mentality and ease to carry such a character.
I grew up with the television product being old Western serials like Roy Rogers, and John Wayne and Gary Cooper, and many others were my favorites when I was a young person going to films.
Honestly, I don't go out of my way to see animated movies. I'm mostly influenced by.. the films I tend to like are the small films, small personal stories. With characters you can believe.
When I was a kid, I built miniatures, and that was actually the first thing I did professionally in the film industry. It was a demonstrable skill that I had, so I worked as a model maker.
The thing that is most important is to feel like you're at the front of the line, to be prime or primer. I definitely never wanted to say that in the films, but that's where it comes from.
Motion pictures are the art form of the 20th century, and one of the reasons is the fact that films are a slightly corrupted artform. They fit this century - they combine Art and business!
The State Film Authority will be there for film as industry only, as is the case in all the other states, except Victoria. Victoria is moving more now into supporting non-commercial films.
The muscle memory of filtering away all the wrong versions of what you're doing improves the more time you're on a film set. I feel like my problem-solving algorithm got kicked up a notch.
One feature film that I am most proud of is Forrest Gump which starred Tom Hanks. Once you are called out to work in film, yes it is a small industry and your name gets around pretty fast.
With Nani, what struck me was his confidence. It has been a revelation. Nani, the most confident actor and it is a pleasure to work with him. Will do a film with him anytime given a chance.
I wanted to do something in film. I wanted to make my own movies. Something clicked in my brain, like, 'Oh, I can physically act! I can go on open casting calls and audition for something.'
The normal storyline of a horror film or a slasher film is the young, beautiful college folks go camping and get systematically killed by the person in a mask. So that's how it normally is.
It's interesting because, even with 'Beetlejuice,' I was an awkward kid. I started at puberty and went through it on film. Lydia was one of my favorite roles because I related to her a lot.
I don't want to make a habit of just playing small roles, because I really enjoy the process of being part of a film and staying on it for the length of time that everybody else is as well.
I deliberately, in a way, went for something that was a huge challenge and was a big period film. I was excited about the canvas on which I could tell the story as much as the story itself.
The memory of that scene for me is like a frame of film forever frozen at that moment: the red carpet, the green lawn, the white house, the leaden sky. The new president and his first lady.
I've always felt so grateful that I dropped out of school, that I never had to do a thesis. I wouldn't know how to organise and structure myself to film so that B follows A and C follows B.
I studied acting at Boston University. I was in the theater department there. Somewhere in there I decided that wasn't what I was going to do and I went to the B.F.A. film program at N.Y.U.
Once a Altman's film has been in a town, it kind of wrecks the town. It doesn't even matter what the film is because, suddenly, everybody's hip and stores start doubling prices or whatever.
Although it is a fantasy film, it's as real as it can be. You have to imagine that an audience will buy their ticket to a cinema and get on a first-class flight and journey to Middle Earth.
You prep, you prep, you prep. And on the day that you film, you let all of that go. I try to achieve emptiness as much as possible - the Zen thing - to let the deal come out of that nothing.