Quotes about film
page 8

Robert Hooke photo
Rani Mukerji photo
Nastassja Kinski photo

“I always fall in love with someone while I'm working in a film. It's a joy to get up in the morning. Sometimes when I'm not infatuated, I just make things up in my mind. Making a film is such an intense thing. You're eliminating everything in your life and you're absorbed into the world of the movie. It's exciting. It's like somebody saying you have an illness and you only have this short time to live. Then you live it that life is over with. Good-bye. You never see any of the people again. But meanwhile you have this short life in which you can do and feel and fantasize about all kinds of things because you know it will soon be over. So I always fall in love. Then you slip out of it, like a skin you take off, and you're naked and you're cold but it's exciting because there is going to be something new. My relationships are as intense and as giving and as short as my parts are. I would pump everything into a person. I would give my left arm that it was for life, but it dies so shortly. And when it dies, it doesn't even leave traces. The relationship vanishes into space. When I finish a part, it's the same feeling. I leave people and people leave me, I leave parts and parts leave me. I say it is 'the flow of life,' but it affects me terribly. Every once in a while I have such a breakdown, question every move.”

Nastassja Kinski (1961) German actress

As quoted in Denise Worrell (1989), Icons: Intimate Portraits.

Jim Henson photo

“I wanted to do a film where the creatures didn't look like us.”

Jim Henson (1936–1990) American puppeteer

Interview about The Dark Crystal (1982)

Harlan Ellison photo
Marwan Kenzari photo
Ralph Bakshi photo
Paul Newman photo

“You can talk film theory till you're blue in the face, but in the end, the thing that may haunt you most about a movie is a pair of eyes.”

Stephanie Zacharek (1963) American film critic

Seduced and Abandoned, Salon.com, 1997-05-09, 2006-08-25, http://web.archive.org/web/19990828005105/http://www.salon.com/may97/vep970509.html, 1999-08-28 http://www.salon.com/may97/vep970509.html,

Gwyneth Paltrow photo

“I think that it’s a very smart decision actually to have women that are capable and intelligent because it appeals to women. You know, so it’s not only a film for fifteen-year-old boys. It’s a film that can relate to a lot of people on a lot of levels. A lot of my girlfriends like it because of the romance or like Scarlett is in the trailer and it is appealing. 'Ooh who is she?”

Gwyneth Paltrow (1972) American actress, singer, and food writer

and it doesn’t look gratuitous. It looks like there are interesting women in the movie.
Of her role in Iron Man 2; Teen Hollywood http://www.teenhollywood.com/2010/05/03/interview-gwyneth-and-scarlett-iron-mans-ladies (3 May 2010)

Burt Ward photo
Roger Ebert photo

“Once is the kind of film I've been pestered about ever since I started reviewing again. People couldn't quite describe it, but they said I had to see it. I had to. Well, I did. They were right.”

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

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/once-2007 of Once (24 December 2007)
Reviews, Four star reviews

Kirk Douglas photo
Phil Hartman photo

“Troy: Hi, I'm Troy McClure. You may remember me from such other nature films as "Earwigs, Ew." and "Man Vs Nature… The Road To Victory".”

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

On the Simpsons, Troy McClure

Stanisław Lem photo
Olly Blackburn photo

“I think when you’re shooting on such a tight budget and schedule, the insanity and the energy and the sense of spirit is what makes the experience unique. Ten percent more isn’t going to make enough of a difference and anything that would — double the budget, triple the time — then you’re making a different kind of film.”

Olly Blackburn Film director and screenwriter

[Filmmaker Magazine, ”Donkey Punch” co-writer-director, Olly Blackburn, Jason, Guerrasio, 15 January 2008, 23 February 2012, http://www.filmmakermagazine.com/news/2008/01/donkey-punch-co-writer-director-olly-blackburn/, Independent Feature Project]

Ansel Adams photo
Nicole Kidman photo

“It wasn't about, 'Oh I want to make a film where I get to kiss a 10-year-old boy'. To me it was I wanted to make a film where you're trying to understand love.”

Nicole Kidman (1967) Australian-American actress and film producer

During a Press Conference at the Venice Film Festival 2004, on the polemic scene from her movie, "Birth"; quoted in Jamaica Gleaner http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20040909/ent/ent2.html

Andy Warhol photo
Isabelle Adjani photo

“I was amazed that the miniature set constructed for GAMERA - THE GUARDIAN OF THE UNIVERSE was so tiny. It's hard to believe that a film made with such a tiny set could receive such good reviews!”

Kenpachiro Satsuma (1947) Japanese actor

As quoted by David Milner, "Kenpachiro Satsuma Interview III" http://www.davmil.org/www.kaijuconversations.com/satsum3.htm, Kaiju Conversations (December 1995)

Karl Freund photo
A. R. Rahman photo
Haruo Nakajima photo
Andrei Tarkovsky photo
Paul Newman photo

“I cannot bear to look at a film that I made before 1990. Maybe 1985. There's no sense even trying to explain it. I really just can't watch myself. I see all the machinery at work and it just drives me nuts, so I don't look at anything.”

Paul Newman (1925–2008) American actor and film director

Quoted in John Hiscock, "Still the blue-eyed boy," http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2002/07/13/bfnewm13.xml The Telegraph (2002-07-13)

Jessica Chastain photo
Draft:Udit Narayan photo
Jesse Ventura photo
Roger Ebert photo
Anthony Burgess photo
Lindsay Lohan photo
Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Sr. photo
Salma Hayek photo
Kamal Haasan photo

“Roecker seems to have been as inspired by Todd Haynes's legendary underground film "Superstar" -- in which he told Karen Carpenter's life story with surprising tenderness using Barbie dolls and a bootlegged soundtrack -- as by the stop-motion animation of Ray Harryhausen and the "Frosty the Snowman" cartoon.”

John Roecker (1966) American film director

Ann Hornaday — quoted in The Washington Post, The Washington Post Company, One Forgettable 'Freak' Show, January 27, 2006, Ann, Hornaday http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/26/AR2006012600739.html,
About

Roger Ebert photo
Peter Greenaway photo

“I think it is really important to be in some way provocative -- either intellectually or viscerally -- in the films one makes.”

Peter Greenaway (1942) British film director

From an interview in Art and Design, no. 49
Interviews

Rani Mukerji photo
Gene Youngblood photo
Michael Moore photo
A. R. Rahman photo
Makoto Shinkai photo

“I think most directors and people who make anime would agree that their latest film is probably the one they feel the most confident in, that they have done their best and put everything into.”

Makoto Shinkai (1973) Japanese anime director and former graphic designer

Interviewed on Anime News Network https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interview/2013-05-01/makoto-shinkai-the-garden-of-words-interview
About The Garden of Words

David Attenborough photo
Aron Ra photo

“The original 1954 Japanese film, Gojira was iconic, and only made a couple mistakes of any significance. (1)They killed him in the end, and we saw his body turned to skeleton. Not the best way to begin 60 years worth of sequels. (2) Godzilla was depicted as a dinosaur, and was associated with living trilobites. Even if there was some sort of ‘realm that time forgot’ out in the Pacific somewhere, Trilobites were already extinct before the first dinosaurs, and Godzilla was clearly no dinosaur. The conceptual artists reportedly referenced illustrations of dinosaurs, but that’s not what they rendered. All bi-pedal dinosaurs [Therapods] were digigrade, walking on their toes, like birds, and usually only three or four digits. Godzilla was plantigrade and pentadactyle, (having five digits and walking on the whole foot) just like lizards. It even looks like a lizard, apart from the fact that no reptile has an actual nose or external ears. In a sense, what Toho pictures created was actually an oriental dragon. These tend to mix reptilian and mammalian traits. Amusingly in 1954, Toho made a giant lizard and called it a dinosaur. In 1998, Tristar re-designed Godzilla as a dinosaur, but called it a lizard. Of course that wasn’t the only thing Tristar did wrong. They tried to ruin the monster completely. They took away the only thing that worked in decades of sequels, the look of the monster itself. Then they took away everything that made Godzilla appealing to Kaiju fans, then they tied it down and shot it. Such disrespect. If you’re going to make a movie that already has a fan-base, and they are the ones who will decide whether your film will pay off, respect those fans and the story they’re paying to see.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

Patheos, Weighing in on Godzilla http://www.patheos.com/blogs/reasonadvocates/2014/06/08/weighing-in-on-godzilla/ (June 8, 2014)

Kamal Haasan photo
Ingmar Bergman photo

“I don't watch my own films very often. I become so jittery and ready to cry… and miserable. I think it's awful.”

Ingmar Bergman (1918–2007) Swedish filmmaker

BBC article http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3616037.stm (10 April 2004).

Pierre-Gilles de Gennes photo
Ang Lee photo
Waheeda Rehman photo
Roger Ebert photo
Orson Welles photo
Alan Hirsch photo
Rachele Brooke Smith photo
Carson Grant photo

“As actors, we need public relations to campaign for our next possible role, and any media promoting our work seems positive in nature; but whether in theater or on a film set, a bad unprofessional photograph at the wrong angle may not be as flattering to some actors, and may be considered a harmful exposure.”

Carson Grant (1950) American actor

Ernest Dempsey, "Camera Shy?", Digital Journal: Arts, Jan 10, 2011, p. 1
Pointing to the negative publicity factor with unsolicited photographs, article printed in Digital Journal 2011.

Bill Mollison photo
John Banville photo
Angela Davis photo
Edmund White photo
Marshall McLuhan photo

“African audiences cannot accept our passive consumer role in the presence of film.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

Source: 1960s, The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962), p. 44

Ben Stiller photo

“There's an old saying in Hollywood: It's not the length of your film, it's how you use it.”

Ben Stiller (1965) actor, Comedian, director, writer

Reported in Inside Oscar 2 (2002) by Damien Bona

Joseph Massad photo

“Moreover, the lie that the film propagates claiming that I would equate Israel with Nazi Germany is abhorrent. I have never made such a reprehensible equation.”

Joseph Massad (1963) Associate Professor of Arab Studies

Massad, in "Intimidating Columbia University" in the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram, on the short film Columbia Unbecoming concerning claims of mistreatment of students with opposing viewpoints. (2004)
On Comparisons of Israel to Nazi Germany

Shahrukh Khan photo

“Actually another thing that keeps me going in the industry is trying to do a film that impresses”

Shahrukh Khan (1965) Indian actor, producer and television personality

his kids
From interview with David Light

Jorge Luis Borges photo

“Films are even stranger, for what we are seeing are not disguised people but photographs of disguised people, and yet we believe them while the film is being shown.”

Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, and a key figure in Spanish language literature

Comparing film and stage theatre in "The Divine Comedy" (1977)

Ayelet Waldman photo
Harold Wilson photo

“David Dimbleby: You couldn't - you couldn't set our minds at rest on the vexed question of what the Sunday Times did actually pay you for the book?
Harold Wilson: No, I don't think it's a matter of interest to the BBC or to anybody else.
Dimbleby: But why..
Wilson: If you're interested in these things, you'd better find out how people buy yachts. Do you ask that question? Did you ask him how he was able to pay for a yacht?
Dimbleby: I haven't interviewed …
Wilson: Have you asked him that question?
Dimbleby: I haven't interviewed him.
Wilson: Well, has the BBC ever asked that question?
Dimbleby: I don't know …
Wilson: Well, what's it got to do with you, then?
Dimbleby: I imagine they have..
Wilson: Why you ask these question, I mean why, if people can afford to buy £25,000 yachts, do the BBC not regard that as a matter for public interest? Why do you insult me with these questions here?
Dimbleby: It's only that it's been a matter of..
Wilson: All I'm saying, all I'm saying..
Dimbleby: … public speculation, and I was giving you an opportunity if you wanted to, to say something about it.
Wilson: It was not a matter of speculation, it was just repeating press gossip. You will not put this question to Mr. Heath. When you have got an answer to him, come and put the question to me. And this last question and answer are not to be recorded. Is this question being recorded?
Dimbleby: Well it is, because we're running film.
Wilson: Well, will you cut it out or not? All right, we stop now. No, I'm sorry, I'm really not having this. I'm really not having this. The press may take this view, that they wouldn't put this question to Heath but they put it to me; if the BBC put this question to me, without putting it to Heath, the interview is off, and the whole programme is off. I think it's a ridiculous question to put. Yes, and I mean it cut off, I don't want to read in the Times Diary or miscellany that I asked for it to be cut out. [pause]
Dimbleby: All right, are we still running? Can I ask you this, then, which I mean, I.. let me put this question, I mean if you find this question offensive then..
Wilson: Coming to ask if your curiosity can be satisfied, I think it's disgraceful. Never had such a question in an interview in my life before.
Dimbleby: I.. [gasps]
Joe Haines (Wilson's Press Secretary): Well, let's stop now, and we can talk about it, shall we?
Dimbleby: No, let's.. well, I mean, we'll keep going, I think, don't you?
Wilson: No, I think we'll have a new piece of film in and start all over again. But if this film is used, or this is leaked, then there's going to be a hell of a row. And this must be..
Dimbleby: Well, I certainly wouldn't leak it..
Wilson: You may not leak it but these things do leak. I've never been to Lime Grove without it leaking.”

Harold Wilson (1916–1995) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Exchange with BBC interviewer David Dimbleby recorded for a documentary called "Yesterday's Men" broadcast on 16 June 1971. The BBC did agree not to show this portion of the interview, but Wilson's fears of a leak were justified as a transcript was published on page 1 of The Times on June 18, 1971. A fuller transcript appeared in Private Eye during 1972.
Leader of the Opposition

Derek Jarman photo

“People say to me, "You make fantastic films" and I say, "No, I make documentaries."”

Derek Jarman (1942–1994) British film director and artist

In Bergen Filmklub http://www.bergen-filmklubb.no/Arkiv/LENGRE_ARTIKLER/VAaREN_2005/DEREK_JARMAN.html

Warwick Davis photo
Roger Manganelli photo
Camille Paglia photo
Charlie Brooker photo

“Actually, I think this might be an Al-Qaeda recruitment film.”

Charlie Brooker (1971) journalist, broadcaster and writer from England

Screenwipe

Cedric Bixler-Zavala photo
Jean-Luc Godard photo

“Film begins with DW Griffith and ends with Abbas Kiarostami.”

Jean-Luc Godard (1930) French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic

Cited in: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2005/apr/16/art

“I only work every couple of years. I go into retirement between films.”

Interview with Spence D. - USA, April 21, 2001

Brian Urlacher photo

“We watched the film and everybody was saying that he just turned into the Incredible Hulk the last four minutes of the game, just killing people and running over and tackling whoever had the ball.”

Brian Urlacher (1978) All-American college football player, professional football player, linebacker

Lightning strikes twice for Urlacher, English http://www.chicagobears.com/news/NewsStory.asp?story_id=2561,
Devin Hester's commentary after Urlacher's performance against the Arizona Cardinals

Neal Stephenson photo
Peter Sellars photo
Martin Landau photo
Shreya Ghoshal photo

“Seriously! Acting in films is not my cup of tea. The joy I find in being a pucca musician is unparalleled.”

Shreya Ghoshal (1984) Indian playback singer

About acting in films http://web.archive.org/web/20161005115944/https://twitter.com/shreyaghoshal/status/114406431003914240

David Fincher photo
Dylan Moran photo
Shahrukh Khan photo
Ingmar Bergman photo

“I liked Truffaut a lot, I've felt a lot of admiration for his way to address the audience, and his storytelling…. La nuit américaine is adorable, and another film I like to see is L'enfant sauvage, with its fine humanism.”

Ingmar Bergman (1918–2007) Swedish filmmaker

On the works of filmmaker Francois Truffaut
Variant translation: I liked Truffaut enormously, I admired him. His way of relating with an audience, of telling a story, is both fascinating and tremendously appealing. It's not my style of storytelling, but it works wonderfully well in relation to the film medium.
Jan Aghed interview (2002)

Aldous Huxley photo
Peter Jackson photo
Fernand Léger photo
Emily Deschanel photo
Anne Hathaway photo

“My entire film career's been dependent on my ability to look unattractive.”

Anne Hathaway (1982) American actress

As quoted in "Anne Hathaway: 'I'd Rather Be Strong Than Skinny'" in in People magazine (8 March 2007) http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20014366,00.html

Roger Ebert photo
John Waters photo
Liam Hemsworth photo

“Yeah, the physical stuff is always fun. I'm a physical and active person, so I would have loved to have done more of this, but my character does a lot more in the other films.”

Liam Hemsworth (1990) Australian actor

Commenting on decreased physical role of his character from book The Hunger Games as changed for adaptation to film. — — [Davia L. Mosley, 'The Hunger Games' exclusive Cast members share highlights, behind-the-scenes action, Marietta Daily Journal, Georgia, United States, March 13, 2012]

Akira Ifukube photo