Quotes About Cinema

I think what I loved in cinema - and what I mean by cinema is not just films, but proper, classical cinema - are the extraordinary moments that can occur on screen. At the same time, I do feel that cinema and theater feed each other. I feel like you can do close-up on stage and you can do something very bold and highly characterized - and, dare I say, theatrical - on camera. I think the cameras and the viewpoints shift depending on the intensity and integrity of your intention and focus on that.

My cinema - the '50s, '60s - is different from the cinema today so I thought that it would not be bad to show that kind of cinema where we could dream.

I'm not an American as you know, and to deliver "Jackie" today in the United States and understanding the role of women in society is changing and I hope it just gets better and better - and also in cinema. There's very few interesting roles today for women in cinema. It's getting better and stronger and, and I'm proud to be part of that.

I'm inspired heavily by film influences - David Lynch's Blue Velvet, Federico Fellini, Alfred Hitchcock, Pedro Almodóvar, and what I see in the cinema - so there is a linking, an interweaving between memory, cinema and contemporary life, which the women in my pictures encapsulate.

I know why I make films -cinema is a mode of expression that allows you to express all the nuances of a thing while including its opposites. These are things that can't be quantified mentally; yet they can exist and be juxtaposed. That may seem very contradictory. Cinema allows you to film these contradictions.

My films are intended as polemical statements against the American 'barrel down' cinema and its dis-empowerment of the spectator. They are an appeal for a cinema of insistent questions instead of false (because too quick) answers, for clarifying distance in place of violating closeness, for provocation and dialogue instead of consumption and consensus.

The great thing about cinema is that it's a great binder. It brings people from across the world together, often erasing the lines between geographies, languages, familiarity, and the like. Cinema is art and art, they say, is a reflection of life and society, so the way we tell our stories is the main differentiator for me.

Film students should stay as far away from film schools and film teachers as possible. The only school for the cinema is the cinema.

What bothers me is that the cinema - what Fox News calls the "wholesome cinema that our children are supposed to be able to see" - is so violent. I'm not even talking about the content. I'm talking about the way in which it's cut.

Well, you cannot think of cinema now, and you cannot think of cinema in the UK and not place Chaplin in the most extraordinary elevated context, if there can be such a thing, in that he was a genius, he was unique.

I don't know what to say to people. It's become so big. It's become part of the cultural environment. For the first and second Twiglight, I knew exactly what to say to people. If you don't know what the story is by now, then you've probably never been to the cinema before. How about, "Why not go to the cinema for once?" I don't know.

Cinema returns us to anima, religion of matter, which gives each thing its special divinity and sees gods in all things and beings. Cinema, heir of alchemy, last of an erotic science.

. . . it is true that language and forward movement in the cinema are jolly hard to reconcile. It's a very, very, difficult thing to do. . . . There is still a place in the cinema for movies that are driven by the human face, and not by explosions and cars and guns and action sequences . . . there's such a thing as action and speed within thought rather than within a ceaseless milkshake of images.

A literary work can only be received through symbols, through concepts - for that is what words are; but cinema, like music, allows for utterly direct, emotional, sensuous perception of the work.

National film industries tend to move in cycles. In Australia right now, we're on a high, a feeling of potential, which as yet shows no sign of flagging. But the word "industry" is misleading. A small national cinema has no industry in the Hollywood sense.

My favourite movie is: "Dr Strangelove". (I haven't seen any films released in the past 2-5 years, I'm afraid: I don't do TV/cinema).

The 'Western' is the only genre whose origins are almost identical with those of the cinema itself.

An important Italian critic once gave Fistful of Dollars a very bad review when it came out. Then he went to the university here [Rome] with Once Upon a Time in America. We showed it to 10,000 students. And while the man was speaking that day to the students, with me present, he said, "I have to state one thing. When I gave that review about Sergio's films, I should have taken into account that on Sergio Leone's passport, there should not be written whether the nationality is Italian or anything else. What should be written is: 'Nationality: Cinema.' "

Film is something that reaches so many people. How many people are going to go into a gallery? And understand what they're seeing? I think about the guy walking down the street, the guy who drove me here - this guy has the opportunity to go the cinema.

It is said that anyone who does commercial cinema is not acting, and anyone who does an art film is acting. I don't believe it. I feel whenever you are doing a film, you are acting. So you need to be applauded for that. I won't do art house cinemas. I want to make commercial films. I want my films to make money.

I think cinema should provoke thoughts, sure, but using it as I soapbox I think is the wrong place.

We like people who look good, we like people who elevate our standards, who have things we do not have, it's all about our fantasies. Yes, you can make millions of people dream about somebody who's not good looking, and that's the beauty of cinema, but people don't take the chance that often.

I knew that this was the movie in which a lot of the cinema version of Burton-esque first started. So, I knew that there were things that were hugely important to him for it, but it didn't really feel that different than working on any other of these projects.

My documentaries have always been very much constructed in the spirit of dominant cinema. From the time I started making non-fiction, I was mainly interested in designing and creating documentaries like fiction, so it was a natural evolution to try and embark on doing a dramatic narrative.

Stepping into the "shoes" of someone's life other than my own, great movies such as 'Cinema Paradiso,' scenic landscapes, the work of Daniel Day-Lewis, the books of Joel Goldsmith, traveling, doughnuts, ice cream.

American cinema tends to express a patriotic relationship to national identity on a regular basis.

All the great advances in cinema came about from technology. The 3-D camera was not invented by a movie director. The new industries are driven by the innovations in science and technology.

Anybody who comes to the cinema is bringing they're whole sexual history, their literary history, their movie literacy, their culture, their language, their religion, whatever they've got. I can't possibly manipulate all of that, nor do I want to.

Digital has really achieved a certain image quality for capture. There's also the way we view and exhibit films. It really touches all aspects of cinema.

If you're not making epic, archetypal films on some level, I think you're wasting a great potential of cinema.

So the Lincoln movie gets trashed because Connecticut voted for the amendment - not to mention how the people in Connecticut feel - but there's a lot of that. And I think it precedes from a fundamental misunderstanding of cinema. They are entertainment. And I'd like to say that entertainment isn't a synonym for disposable or mindless or stupid. Hamlet? Pretty entertaining from where I come from.

I think that in the realm of commercial, popcorn cinema, the amount of message or smuggling of ideas you can get in there is quite limited. Like, if you think you're going to make a difference or change anything, you're on pretty dangerous thin ice.

I really have problems with horror movies. I don't watch them. It's a feeling I don't want to have in cinema. I'm too reactive. It's too draining to watch that kind of movie.

Cinema is so slow and boring compared to television.

I mean, "The Jinx" is an amazing piece of cinema and amazing television moment, it`s rare documentarians can feel the direct impact of their work.

There's a lot of downsides to social media, but one of the nice things is that you can cut through all the BS and go straight to the person and ask them directly. I think that's a wonderful thing. I love talking to people who are true fans or who have a true love of cinema, and so if I can talk to them directly, great.

French cinema audiences usually don't express anything. Certainly not satisfaction.

It was Vikram Bhatt and 'Raaz' that got me interested in the medium of cinema. Before that, I was like any other youngster dabbling with various things - modelling, films - without a definite direction or focus. Now that I'm working with all of them, life has come full circle for me.

I grew up watching movies that just transformed my vision, not just in cinema, in life, and you discover that this - it's an endless tool.

If people go to IMDB, they will see that I'm very comfortable with independent cinema, and doing studio films too. For me this is not an either/or situation.

At a very young age I was allowed to go into the cinema and watch adult films.

There are some films that arrive here from the international festival circuit almost incandescent with self-importance. They hover into the cinema in a kind of floating trance at how challenging and moving they are. They are films with a profound reluctance to get over themselves. They look up at the sceptical observer with the saucer-eyed saintliness of a baby seal in culling season, or a charity mugger smilingly wishing a nice day on the retreating back of a passer-by. One such is Babel.

I was raised in a family where cinema was a way of life. It was not only about making films, it was relationship, passion, love, everything at the same time.

It might be David Adjaye talking about how the structure of jazz music informs his architecture, it might be the musician Terry Riley talking about how he thinks so much about cinema. I'd love to see more of a rupture between mediums and a flow between them.

Indian cinema seems to be growing very well at its own pace.

In Majorca, I can be myself. I go to the supermarket and the cinema, and I am just Rafa. Everyone knows me, and it is no big deal. I can go all day - no photographs.

I think people need to understand that with plays and with cinema, when you hear about it, call and get a ticket then or go and see it then. It's especially with the play, which I can do because it's a limited run.

In the U.S., some extraordinary movies have been made on politics and social issues. We learned lots of things from American cinema. But in the last ten or fifteen years, this has changed drastically. Today, that kind of movie is much easier to make in Europe.