Quotes By Contemporary American Film Directors

Written by Robert Adziashvili

William Friedkin:

I really think that sex always looks kind of funny in a movie.

Violence is not funny.

Style is something that’s extremely important, but it must grow naturally out of who and what you are and what the material calls for. It cannot be superimposed.

I tend to be attracted to characters who are up against a wall with very few alternatives. And the film then becomes an examination of how they cope with very few options. And that’s, I guess, what interests me in terms of human behavior.

Technique is of less interest than character and story.

The informing idea of what you want to say and do, that’s what will take you from film school to professional – the idea. That’s what is original to you.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I feel pressed and tense almost every day of my life about something or other. And I think it’s the one thing, as I look into people’s eyes, that I think I share with almost everybody.

The first work of the director is to set a mood so that the actor’s work can take place, so that the actor can create. And in order to do that, you have to communicate, communicate with the actors. And direction is about communication on all levels.

Francis Ford Coppola:

‘You have to really be courageous about your instincts and your ideas. Otherwise you’ll just knuckle under, and things that might have been memorable will be lost.’

Terrence Malick:

‘Nostalgia is a powerful feeling — it can drown out anything.’

Martin Scorsese:

‘When I’m making a film, I’m the audience.’

Brian De Palma:

‘So I like to try to go back and develop pure visual storytelling. Because to me, it’s one of the most exciting aspects of making movies and almost a lost art at this point.’

Steven Soderbergh:

‘I think I’m good at amplifying an actor’s strengths, and minimizing their weaknesses. And they all have strengths and weaknesses.’

‘The key to making good movies is to pay attention to the transition between scenes.’

‘A success, to me, is the ability to keep working. That’s success. It has nothing to do with money; it’s the ability to keep getting things made, period.’

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu:

‘From the time we open our eyes, we live in a Steadicam form, and the only editing is when we talk about our lives or remember things.’

‘Filmmaking can give you everything, but at the same time, it can take everything from you.’

Time starts out as a notion. But after you turn fifty, time is not a notion anymore but a fact that you start feeling clearly, and in a way, it pushes you to become present in the present.

Gus Van Sant:

‘I had never had a positive leading character – somebody that wasn’t an antihero, or who wasn’t more of a guy that you’re supposed to be on the side of.’

‘There’s always a risk if you don’t do things the way you’ve done things before.’

‘I’m not being analytical. I just create everything intuitively. If you’re too analytical, what you’re doing probably ends up being too specific.’

‘Modern-day cinema takes the form of a sermon. You don’t get to think, you only get to receive information.’

Paul Thomas Anderson:

‘We’re all children of Kubrick, aren’t we? Is there anything you can do that he hasn’t done?’

“Screenwriting is like ironing. You move forward a little bit and go back and smooth things out.’

‘There’s a lot for screenwriters to steal from songwriters, in terms of getting to the point.’

Stephen Gaghan:
‘It’s tricky to ask a filmmaker to explain his own work; usually we’re the least qualified to make sense of what we’ve done, unfortunately, because of the tunnel vision required to create anything over four years.’

‘The movie business has been in enormous flux. It’s always changing, and you’ve got to scramble. The Internet came along and devoured the DVD backend of the movie business. Suddenly you’re watching dollars turn into nickels, and that’s interesting to me’

‘At the beginning, everything’s possible and everybody gets equal time, all the characters, all the ideas. You don’t know who’s going to be the main characters; they’re all fighting it out. It’s like kind of the best time in a way.’