Quotes about film
page 4

Waheeda Rehman photo
David Bowie photo
Mark Hertling photo
Peter Greenaway photo
Christopher Lloyd photo
Roger Ebert photo

“It amazes me that filmmakers will still film, and audiences will still watch, relationships so bankrupt of human feeling that the characters could be reading dialogue written by a computer.”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/summer-school-1987 of Summer School (22 July 1987)
Reviews, Half-star reviews

Attila the Stockbroker photo
Nastassja Kinski photo
Akira Ifukube photo
Patrick Stump photo
George A. Romero photo

“I don't like the new trends in horror. All this torture stuff seems really mean-spirited. People have forgotten how to laugh, and I don't see anybody who's using it as allegory. The guy I love right now is Guillermo del Toro. I'd love to make a film like Pan's Labyrinth.”

George A. Romero (1940–2017) American-Canadian film director, film producer, screenwriter and editor

As quoted in "10 Questions for George Romero", TIME, (June 07, 2010) http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1992390,00.html

Errol Morris photo
Lee Evans photo

“I don't come out on film. I get the red eye. Blokes like that: [imitates knocking someone out] "You fuckin' will in a minute, ya twat!"”

Lee Evans (1964) English stand-up comedian and actor

The Different Planet Tour (1996)

Sienna Guillory photo

“It changes colour every time I do a film but I have this great guy called Rosario who works at a London salon called Hair Expressions who really knows what he’s doing. I’ve been told 80 times that I’ll have to have it all cut off because it’s ruined and then he fixes it. He’s the best hair man in the world.”

Sienna Guillory (1975) British actress

Sienna Guillory Interview by Jenni Baden Howard http://www.kappakoi.com/copy/archives/2007/06/sienna_guillory.html. The Sunday Times. 2001.
Guillory speaks about coloring her hair for film roles.

Roman Polanski photo

“My films are the expression of momentary desires. I follow my instincts, but in a disciplined way.”

Roman Polanski (1933) Polish-French film director, producer, writer, actor, and rapist

As quoted in The Everything Cryptograms Book (2005) by Nikki Katz

Jordan Vogt-Roberts photo
Roman Polanski photo

“I never made a film which fully satisfied me.”

Roman Polanski (1933) Polish-French film director, producer, writer, actor, and rapist

Polanski : His Life and Films (1982)

Peter Weir photo

“When you get a cut and think, 'I'm going to make a halfway decent film.”

Peter Weir (1944) Australian film director

When asked for his 'high point'
Portrait of the artist: Peter Weir, director (2011)

Nathan Lane photo

“Since I was a child, I’ve used my imagination to escape from life. At the same time, my imagination has plagued me with both reality-based anxieties as well as anxieties based entirely in the imagination, such as the fear of Hell I was taught to have by the Catholic Church. Paired with a talent for literary composition, a talent that it took me over ten years to refine, I became a writer of horror stories. To my mind, writing is the most important form of human expression, not only artistic writing but also philosophical writing, critical writing, etc. Art as such, especially programmatic music such as operas, seems trivial to me by comparison, however much pleasure we may get from it. Writing is the most effective way to express and confront the full range of the realities of life. I can honestly say that the primary stature I attach to writing is not self-serving. I’ve been captivated to some degree by all forms of creativity and expression—the visual arts, film, design of any sort, and especially music. In college I veered from literature to music for a few years, which is the main reason it took me six years to get an undergraduate degree in liberal arts. I’ve loved music for as long as I can remember. Since my instrument is the guitar, I know every form and style in its history and have written the classical, acoustic, and electric forms of this instrument. I think because I have had such a love and understanding of music do I realize, to my grief, its limitations. Writing is less limited in the consolations it offers to those who have lost a great deal in their lives. And it continues to console until practically everything in a person’s life has been lost. Words and what they express have the best chance of returning the baneful stare of life.”

Thomas Ligotti (1953) American horror author

Wonderbook Interview with Thomas Ligotti http://wonderbooknow.com/interviews/thomas-ligotti/

Roger Ebert photo
Andy Warhol photo
J.M. Coetzee photo
Michael Johns photo
June Vincent photo
Johnny Depp photo

“I always figured that once I wrapped a film, then anything beyond that is none of my business. If I can avoid seeing the final product, then all I have in my head is feeling good about the experience.”

Johnny Depp (1963) American actor, film producer, and musician

Quoted in Ron Dicker, "Going deep with rebel Johnny Depp," http://www.johnnydeppfan.com/interviews/sunpotcarticle.htm Baltimore Sun (2003-07-08)

Amitabh Bachchan photo

“We had forgotten the art of using silence to convey emotions in our films and that's what you seem to have mastered. You've used silence to great advantage in the film. It's brilliant.”

Amitabh Bachchan (1942) Indian actor

To Farhan Akhtar, after a private screening of the film, Lakshya, reported in Cine Blitz‎ (2004).

Roger Ebert photo
Lillian Gish photo

“When I was in films, we pretended to kiss but we didn't. It was considered unsanitary. Now they swallow each others' tonsils. It's disgusting.”

Lillian Gish (1893–1993) American actress

http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20097815,00.html

David Bowie photo
Andrei Tarkovsky photo
George Lucas photo

“The Johnson film wasn't terrible. I just didn't agree with the politics. I'm not a fan of big government and propaganda films are distasteful.”

George Lucas (1944) American film producer

On a United States Information Agency Film about President Lyndon Johnson's trip to Asia, which he worked on as an editor
1970s, Interview with Judy Stone (1971)

Damian Pettigrew photo

“We lunched in Fregene: grilled sardines sprinkled with parsley and lemon. Federico ate daintily, like someone with no appetite. The beach was deserted, the wind brisk. In the distance stood the abandoned lighthouse he filmed for 8 1/2. Like someone about to propose a toast, he stood up and "recited" from King Lear :
Hark! Have you heard the news? The king fell off a cliff.
O horrible! Were you very close to him?
Indeed, sir. Close enough to push.
We laughed until he brusquely sat down again, scraping the fish scales off his fingers, staring at the age spots that covered his hands. The beautiful adolescent waitress asked for his autograph. He drew himself as a man-lion in a hat and scarf with huge paws chasing her, and signed it "Féfé." We spent the afternoon visiting Ostia and returned to Rome in a sweltering twilight. He asked to be driven home for a change of clothes. We invited Giulietta, who wore a green velvet turban, to join us for dinner. (Had she already lost her hair from chemotherapy?) Graciously, she declined while smoking cigarette after cigarette. At Cesarina's, Federico drew hilarious, pornographic sketches on the table napkin saying, "If you have not made love today then you have lost a day!"”

Damian Pettigrew Canadian filmmaker

The entire restaurant was at his feet. He was twenty years old now and as thin as Kafka. He was Rome. He had adopted us the way Rome adopts everyone, and we loved him.
On Fellini's final years
Federico Fellini: Sou um Grande Mentiroso (2008)

Michael Haneke photo

“All of my films constitute a reaction against mainstream cinema. Every serious form of art sees the receiver as a partner in the undertaking. In fact, that's one of the preconditions of humanistic thought. In cinema, this fact, which should be self-evident, has been overlooked and replaced by an emphasis on the commercial aspects of the medium.”

Michael Haneke (1942) Austrian film director and screenwriter

In response to the question, "You're well known for not wanting to impose interpretations on your films. Is this because you believe that audiences have become accustomed to being spoon-fed and told what to think?"
as interviewed by Richard Porton, "Collective Guilt and Individual Responsibility: An Interview with Michael Haneke," Cineaste, Vol. 31, No. 1 (Winter 2005), pp. 50-51

Karl Freund photo
Amitabh Bachchan photo
Bala photo

“It was a tough subject to deal with, Bala has deftly handled the film. Frankly, I never expected a film like Naan Kadavul from Tamil. That shows how different Bala is in his thinking and approach.”

Bala (1966) Indian film director

Shaji N. Karun on Bala's work in Naan Kadavul http://movies.rediff.com/report/2010/jan/28/why-bala-got-his-national-award.htm (28 January 2010

Hema Malini photo
Fred Astaire photo
Joseph L. Mankiewicz photo

“Every screenwriter worthy of the name has already directed his film when he has written his script.”

Joseph L. Mankiewicz (1909–1993) American film director, screenwriter, and producer

Quoted in Leslie Halliwell, Halliwell's Who's Who in the Movies, 15th edition (Harper Collins, 2003, ISBN 0-060-53423-0, p. 312

Peter Greenaway photo
Aamir Khan photo

“It's not important to me… people will see my films if they want to. Also, I cannot deal with so many things, I have bandwidth only for that much.”

Aamir Khan (1965) Indian film actor, director, and producer of Hindi Cinema

Aamir Khan turns down Madam Tussauds http://www.ibosnetwork.com/newsmanager/templates/template1.aspx?a=21052&z=4.

Fred Astaire photo

“The fact that Fred and I were in no way similar - nor were we the best male dancers around never occurred to the public or the journalists who wrote about us…Fred and I got the cream of the publicity and naturally we were compared. And while I personally was proud of the comparison, because there was no-one to touch Fred when it came to "popular" dance, we felt that people, especially film critics at the time, should have made an attempt to differentiate between our two styles. Fred and I both got a bit edgy after our names were mentioned in the same breath. I was the Marlon Brando of dancers, and he the Cary Grant. My approach was completely different from his, and we wanted the world to realise this, and not lump us together like peas in a pod. If there was any resentment on our behalf, it certainly wasn't with each other, but with people who talked about two highly individual dancers as if they were one person. For a start, the sort of wardrobe I wore - blue jeans, sweatshirt, sneakers - Fred wouldn't have been caught dead in. Fred always looked immaculate in rehearsals, I was always in an old shirt. Fred's steps were small, neat, graceful and intimate - mine were ballet-oriented and very athletic. The two of us couldn't have been more different, yet the public insisted on thinking of us as rivals…I persuaded him to put on his dancing shoes again, and replace me in Easter Parade after I'd broken my ankle. If we'd been rivals, I certainly wouldn't have encouraged him to make a comeback.”

Fred Astaire (1899–1987) American dancer, singer, actor, choreographer and television presenter

Gene Kelly interviewed in Hirschhorn, Clive. Gene Kelly, A Biography. W.H Allen, London, 1984. p. 117. ISBN 0491031823.

Roger Corman photo
Jason Mraz photo
Madhuri Dixit photo
Phil Hartman photo

“Troy: Hi, I'm Troy McClure. You may remember me from such other medical films as "Mommy, What's On That Man's Face?" and "Alice Doesn't Live Anymore".”

Phil Hartman (1948–1998) Canadian American actor, comedian, screenwriter, and graphic artist

On the Simpsons, Troy McClure

Camille Paglia photo
Amitabh Bachchan photo

“Earlier the films were given an 'A' certificate simply because they had lots of violence and horror, but nowadays there are a lot of sex and double-meaning dialogues. The themes become so predominantly vulgar and we can't possibly edit out a film's theme. So how do we re-censor these films to make them U or U/A?”

On implementing a new policy under which A-rated film cannot be recut and released for television, as quoted in " Shocker! Adult Films Won't Be Re-Censored For TV! http://www.9xe.com/3574" 9xe (9 July 2015)

Nina Paley photo
Roger Ebert photo
Michelangelo Antonioni photo
Sienna Guillory photo
Roger Ebert photo

“Dirty Love wasn't written and directed, it was committed. Here is a film so pitiful, it doesn't rise to the level of badness. It is hopelessly incompetent… I am not certain that anyone involved has ever seen a movie, or knows what one is.”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

Review http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050922/REVIEWS/509220303/1023 of Dirty Love (23 September 2005)
Reviews, Zero star reviews

Larry Fessenden photo
Leni Riefenstahl photo

“This film was pivotal in my life, not so much because it was my first successful effort as a producer and director, but because Hitler was so fascinated by this film that he insisted I make a documentary about the Party rally in Nuremberg. The result was Triumph of the Will.”

Leni Riefenstahl (1902–2003) German film director, photographer, actress and dancer

On The Blue Light: Partly quoted in: Leni Riefenstahl (1992) The sieve of time: the memoirs of Leni Riefenstahl. p. 210

Marie Windsor photo
Courtney Love photo

“I was approached to do a film script for the Beatles. I said it would have to be an absolutely original script. Paul McCartney said do whatever you like. I said that means you'll never be able to do it.”

Joe Orton (1933–1967) English playwright and author

Interview with Barry Hanson, programme notes of Peter Gill's Royal Court production of The Erpingham Camp and The Ruffian on the Stair http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/parade/abj76/PG/pieces/joe_orton.shtml (June 1967)

Alice Evans photo

“I went brunette for a film called Fascination and I loved it.”

Alice Evans (1971) British actress

Alice Evans' March 2007 Glamour Magazine column "Bright Lights, Big Hair".

Stanisław Lem photo
Lois Duncan photo

“Violence is a fact of life in today’s society and therefore it has its place in books and films, but I strongly believe that the people who create those books and films have a duty to treat the subject seriously and to show the terrible consequences.”

Lois Duncan (1934–2016) American young-adult and children's writer

On violence in the arts, 1998 interview, reprinted in The Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2016/08/25/lois-duncan-author-of-teenage-fiction--obituary/ (2016)
1990–2002

Sienna Guillory photo
John Carpenter photo
John Hannah (actor) photo
Christopher Nolan photo
Ingmar Bergman photo
Meryl Streep photo

“No! But they were here [in Los Angeles]. Here they were surprised, because it was difficult to finance, the film. A lot of the executives would say, 'I just don't get it.”

Meryl Streep (1949) American actress

Her indignant comments on the runaway success of her musical Mamma Mia!, which grossed a $575m across the globe.
"Meryl Streep: Movies, marriage, and turning sixty," 2009

Joseph McManners photo
Tony Conrad photo
Hariprasad Chaurasia photo
Roger Ebert photo
Mumtaz (actress) photo

“I am bored to talk of my films. I cannot even bear to see most of them.”

Mumtaz (actress) (1947) Indian film actress

Mumtaz, November, 1966 (Filmfare, December 7, 2011)
Quotes from Mumtaz
Variant: Women are meant to be loved and not understood.
Source: Best of Filmfare http://www.angelfire.com/celeb/mumtaz/spicerack.htm

Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh photo
Aldous Huxley photo
Johnny Depp photo
Robert Smith (musician) photo
Roger Ebert photo

“Films like Fargo are why I love the movies.”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/fargo-1996 of Fargo (8 March 1996)
Reviews, Four star reviews

Andy Warhol photo

“If you want to know all about Andy Warhol, just look at the surface; of my paintings and films and me, and there I am. There's nothing behind it.”

Andy Warhol (1928–1987) American artist

1963 - 1967
Source: Andy, My true Story 3, Gretchen Berg, Los Angeles Free Press (17 March 1967); as quoted in Andy Warhol, retrospective, New York and Boston Museum of modern Art & Bullfinch Press / Little Brown, 1989, pp. 457 – 67

Anthony Burgess photo

“I had felt sick before and had been saved by Sekt. Now I was beginning to feel sick of the Sekt. I would, I knew, shortly have to vomit…. I started gently to move towards one of the open windows. The aims of the artistic policy enunciated by the National Chamber of Film might, said Goebbels, be expressed under seven headings. Oh Christ. First, the articulation of the sense of racial pride, which might, without reprehensible arrogance, be construed as a just sense of racial superiority. Just, I thought, moving towards the breath of the autumn dark, like the Jews, just like the. This signified, Goebbels went on, not narrow German chauvinism but a pride in being of the great original Aryan race, once master of the heartland and to be so again. The Aryan destiny was enshrined in the immemorial Aryan myths, preserved without doubt in their purest form in the ancient tongue of the heartland. Second. But at this point I had made the open window. With relief the Sekt that seethed within me bore itself mouthward on waves of reverse peristalsis. Below me a great flag with a swastika on flapped gently in the night breeze of autumn. It did not now lift my heart; it was not my heart that was lifting. I gave it, with gargoyling mouth, a litre or so of undigested Sekt. And then some strings of spittle. It was not, perhaps, as good as pissing on the flag, but, in retrospect, it takes on a mild quality of emblematic defiance…”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

Fiction, Earthly Powers (1980)

Vannevar Bush photo
Werner Herzog photo

“Someone like Jean-Luc Godard is for me intellectual counterfeit money when compared to a good kung fu film.”

Werner Herzog (1942) German film director, producer, screenwriter, actor and opera director

Herzog on Herzog (2002)

Saeed Akhtar Mirza photo

“The demolition of the Babri Masjid was the last straw. Naseem (1995) was almost like an epitaph. After the film, I had really nothing to say. I needed to regain my faith and retain my sanity. So I decided to travel around India and document it on a video camera”

Saeed Akhtar Mirza (1943) Indian film director

‘Once again, I feel I have something to say’, Interview, Page 1 http://www.indianexpress.com/news/-Once-again--I-feel-I-have-something-to-say-/471304 Indian Express, Jun 07, 2009.

Madhuri Dixit photo

“Good films flop, atrocious films do well. Uncertainty is the only certainty in this business.”

Madhuri Dixit (1967) Indian actress

Quote, When personality comes first.....

Roger Ebert photo
Lana Turner photo
Michael Moore photo

“I just decided to make a movie. I had no training, no film school, but I had been to a lot of movies.”

Michael Moore (1954) American filmmaker, author, social critic, and liberal activist

As quoted in "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me" (23 June 2007)
2009

Hugo Weaving photo