Quotes About Films

Some of these things I saw in foreign films - African films, Cuban films - long before I decided to really go on this course as an actor. I started to think about what values I saw in those films that I wanted to bring to my projects

One filmmaker makes films that are deep, intellectual, profound and confrontational. And the other one makes purely vacuous, escapist films. I'm not sure the one who makes escapist films is making a poorer contribution than the one who makes the deeper films.

The thing is, right now the films don't need to be overtly political to be about our times. We also need films that are just human, that are about people. People need that, too. It's like we need to reconnect to what it is to be human. Not just what our political situation is. That's not what I'm thinking about exclusively. Human content is needed again, as it was in the '70s. I think films were more human than they've been since then.

What most of us must be involved in--whether we teach or write, make films, write films, direct films, play music, act, whatever we do--has to not only make people feel good and inspired and at one with other people around them, but also has to educate a new generation to do this very modest thing: change the world.

Films with female protagonists don't attract many eyeballs. Most of them are perceived as feminist films. If Bollywood starts giving women major roles in entertaining movies, then the audience, too, will open up to the idea of watching commercial films in which the actresses do more than just play the role of the hero's love interest.

Once the script is done, I put it aside for a month. I start thinking of all the films that have influenced me, which I have liked for different reasons, and not necessarily the look, but films that have moved me. Some very strange films came to mind.

I prefer the films that put their audience to sleep in the theater. Some films have made me doze off in the theater, but the same films have made me stay up at night, wake up thinking about them in the morning, and keep on thinking about them for weeks.

Even before the economic crisis in Greece there was no structure for making films - no proper industry, and the structure didn't help filmmakers at all. So filmmakers had to help each other, and make very, very low-budget films. Now with the crisis, things got a bit worse, but filmmakers are still going to be making films. It didn't change that much.

The truth is I don't see a lot of movies. I see the Oscar films. I see the films that are sent to me and a few films throughout the year.

There's a level where the themes of a film are very relevant to me and also the idea of finding out how relevant one genre is to another. I think that westerns and samurai films and superhero films have a lot in common. It's just that the scale of the visuals in tentpole films can sometimes overwhelm the drama.

When I stopped making films, they were getting on to the more realistic films and the explicit films and all. They were depicting life as it is, and some of it was unpleasant. I gradually moved away from that.

In the beginning, it wasn't even a question of deciding I'm going to do independent film and not commercial films - I wasn't being offered any commercial films, and there wasn't an independent scene.

I am often asked at what point in my love affair with films I began to want to be a director or a critic. Truthfully, I don't know. All I know is that I wanted to get closer and closer to films.

I'm very fatalistic about life. Whatever happens, happens. The imperative for me is that I do my contribution for my people, for my culture. I still want to make films for them. I still want to make films that confront our struggles.

I think of horror films as art, as films of confrontation.

The whole tradition of cinema is dominated, really, by films about good guys versus bad guys, good versus evil. But we have very few films about the nature of evil itself.

I didn't start out thinking that I could ever make films. I started out being a film lover, loving films, and wanting to have a job that put me close to them and close to filmmakers and close to film sets.

Filmmakers need to realize that their job isn't done when they lock picture. We must see our films through. Studios no longer do this for a large percentage of films. The odds that your film will get a major campaign are dim these days. So you must find and nurture your own audience and make sure your film has a life.

There are films that are difficult. There are films that would actually affect your personal life because of the length of the production, how long [you're away] from the family.

Like most filmmakers and writers, there are roots in my own life, but they are stories that I invent. There was a period of time in my life when I made directly autobiographical films where I truly told what happened to me. But, now, I don't make directly autobiographical films anymore. I am more for renouncing that and being in front of history. The large part of my work tells about something I know. It's close.

I have a lot of films that I haven't gotten made, and that continues to trouble me. But someday, some way or another, I think I will. It's all about timing. There's a moment when you're hot and studios will make your next film, and then there's a moment when you're really cold, and they couldn't care less what you want to do next. That's when you have to recede and make lower-budgeted films.

When you meet people that you know from other films - as often happens to me, and as tends to happens to you when you're an actor, you constantly meet people that you've seen in other films. But when it's people who've kind of had a seismic effect on your life, it's quite extraordinary.

Whereas European films have traditionally been able to go into adult relationships. I think there's a huge audience in America for those kinds of films.

I wasn't that familiar with silent films. I didn't know, for example, how hugely popular silent films were in the 1920s, how people would go to the movies several times a week.

I love films. I love fiction films, too. I do. I love making them, but it has to be the right one. Hopefully, I'll never become a director for hire. It's horrible to make a film that you're not really interested in.

There are lots of great movies coming out of the U.S. but it's not something I've ever really been interested in. They're great films but I much prefer the smaller independent films, which are more thought provoking and experimental.

I love the grandiosity, how sweepingly entertaining films can be. And I think there's a place for films that pry more into the human condition.

Women sometimes really love to look at other beautiful women on the screen. But they don't look at a woman the way a man looks at a woman. They want to be that woman. They like if a woman is beautiful or sexy, especially if she's powerful. They like to see her catch a man, or to be powerful in the world. I think this is why a lot of women love noir films and classic films because they can really identify with these really strong, beautiful women. That's the kind of power that women have lost culturally.

In terms of romantic films, all-time romantic films, I really like 'Gone With the Wind.' And I realize I sound so cliched saying that, but there's something so absolutely romantic about it.

I like directors that give their composer a juicy role in their films. Some films have a small, minor role for music, some have a larger role.

I'm a fan of films in general; I mean, I don't think I've ever considered myself specifically a horror fan even though I do enjoy horror films, find them really entertaining.

As the years go by and I make more films, I am increasingly interested in capturing place as a vivid backdrop for my films.

There's a lot of crap out there. Most of the science fiction films alone are abominations, you know. They're mindless. So you can't learn from those kinds of films.

When I was a kid, I thought movie stars were women and men who were in these great films that we still look at now. But I don't think there are too many films coming out these days that we're going to look at in the future and say, "This is one of the great ones."

Do you like foreign films?” “With subtitles?” “Yes.” “I hate those types of films.” “Me too,” Cliff says. “Mostly because - “ “No happy endings.

I've been on lots of film sets. I've produced films and written films and been around, so it wasn't my first rodeo in terms of that stuff. Nothing particularly surprised me, I have to say. I came in and I enjoyed the first day and I enjoyed the last day.

I think the films and the paintings erase each other. The paintings are extremely slow and constantly going on in the studio - they're constantly regenerating themselves in this slow, monotonous way that's a physical struggle and can be a pain in the ass. They're all based on very specific math and diagrams. And the films, when I'm making them, are very fast, very collaborative, with a lot of improvisation.

You look at Japan and Hayao Miyazaki's films are the biggest films ever made in Japan; domestically there and they play to critical acclaim around the world. He won't put more then 5 or 10 percent computer imagery in his movies. It's disappointing to me. It's a silly choice that some studios made to move out of animation. It's part of the unfortuneate preconception that I think the public has going into see animation.

As far as acting in films, there is not much out there that is very interesting to do. The ones that are interesting to me are independent films and they have trouble raising money. With people putting their money into blockbusters, there is not much left for the independents.

I prefer the countryside to cities. This is also true of my films: I have made more films in rural societies, and villages, than in towns.

I don't want to make pompous, serious films; I like films that have a kind of vivacity about them.

I intend more of a kinship with silent films than more modern film. I like the old cinema. My films are more of a hybrid - a different style of filmmaking to what I call talking head movies. Some people don't get it. Especially the more academic types.

I love doing short films because they're much more intimate and there's far less waiting around than on the bigger films.

I'm considered to some degree a successful director working in Hollywood, making films my way but using studio financing. But with almost every single one, I get praised up the wazoo by people who never would have financed the films. It's: "Gee, this movie is so new and different - what do you want to do next?" "This." "Oh, that's too new and different."

I have never intended in any of my films to sell violence or to glorify it. Even in the most intense action sequences in my films, there is a message about how evil violence is.

The main reason why I'm a documentary filmmaker is the power of the medium. The most powerful films I've seen have been documentaries. Of course, there are some narrative films that I could never forget, but there are more documentaries that have had that impact on me.

So often times we see these films that erode human dignity...films that deny the transcendent moral order of the moral universe. They're always eroding natural affections for families. Fathers betray their commitments, children's are always portrayed as brats and disobedient, marriages are always in crisis and struggle. I think (for) most of us, that's not the lives we live. We're always being challenged, we always have challenges but we love our families, we love our spouse, we love our children.

Most of my films I call arena films. I deal with a confined area -- an arena -- and I try to cover every aspect of it.