Films Quotations | Page 4

I like films to be pure cinema, but I also like them to provide a snapshot of a family, a society or a character - something that can nourish you as a human being as well as an actor.

I don't want to be typecast as a heroine who does a certain kind of cinema, which is why I experiment with the types of films that I do. But yes, I won't deny that romantic love stories or romantic comedies are what I enjoy doing the most, because as an audience those are the kind of films that I like watching.

The reason I am unemployed for six months out of every year is because I have to turn down most of the films I'm offered. If I didn't, I'd only ever play a dark, satanic count on a horse.

As a bookish child in Calcutta, I used to thrill to the adventures of bad girls whose pursuit of happiness swept them outside the bounds of social decency. Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Emma Bovary and Anna Karenina lived large in my imagination. The naughty girls of Hollywood films flirted and knew how to drive.

The physical journey in my films is indicative of the internal journey that my characters take.

I am happy with all the films I've done. I have not become the victim of an image. I have managed to do different roles, and I am proud of that.

I want lot of luck and want all my films to be really super hits. I don't want to hear that the film is not good, but you did a good job. I am tired of hearing that. I am hoping for little luck so that my films do really well.

All this technology has not changed the way NFL Films does business and our process. Yes, with one touch of a button now you reach millions of people but it is still the same approach that my father and I started out with.

I offer originality: you don't know what my films are like until you go to them. I think that's the reason I've been getting all this attention.

There are films that cost a lot of money that might be decent films. But if they don't perform in that first weekend or two, they're gone.

Now, after the communist take-over in 1948, the amount of feature films produced dwindled to three a year, while the school was, you know, every year another three, four, five students.

It seemed like a wonderful honor to have the Film Society of Lincoln Center screen 'The Films of Raquel Welch.' It shows a lot of a variety in what they've chosen; it kind of runs the gamut of my film career.

What is attempted in these film is of course a synthesis. But it can be seen by someone who has his feet in both cultures. Someone who will bring to bear on the films involvement and detachment in equal measure.

As I get on and films take four years to complete, I tend to have a hankering for very short projects so you can move on to the next idea. It's the ideas I'm interested in. What comes out of your head.

'Raiders of the Lost Ark' made me want to make films. I am wild about the films of John Carpenter, Ridley Scott, Howard Hawks and Sam Peckinpah.

Neither Rainer Werner, nor any of us could have succeeded, or produced the number of films that we did, just on our own. We showed our films to each other, discussed them vigorously and rarely agreed.

My friend once sculpted me a bust of Admiral Ackbar from 'Star Wars.' He's my favourite character in the films after Han Solo. He's that goldfish-type alien in the white costume. 'It's a trap!' I'm a big geek.

We as women have a voice and we are decision makers in what film to see. We always support our boyfriends and husbands by going to see the male dominated films, but we don't compel them to see films with female casts.

I think I just love films where men have complete breakdowns.

My folks were busy. My dad was a teacher, and it was during the Second World War, and my mother was working. So I got my stories from films and books. I read a lot, and I love to read to this day.

I thought every other kid was like me. I'd watch films and act them out on my own and wish I could be one of the actresses. When I saw 'Pride And Prejudice,' the one with Colin Firth, I just absolutely knew that was what I wanted to do, and for 'Cranford' to be my first job was poetic, really.

I've heard about brothers making films, but I've never heard about whole families making films like this. We didn't intend to do it; it wasn't something that we planned - it just gradually happened.

And as I've gotten deeper into the process of making films and television and such, I think I have more trust in the fact that you really never know what you're going to find after the twenty-fifth take.

Films do seem prestigious and glamorous, but when you create something, you want people to see it. TV still reaches so many more people; it still really appeals to me.

I love doing features, but it's a very different ballgame. Sometimes I yearn for short films again, working with a small team, getting my hands on the clay.

Tender Mercies is a very low-budget film, but it was a huge budget compared to anything I had done in Australia. My fee for Tender Mercies was something like five times all of my Australian films combined.

Also, there are now new laws in Brazil which create incentives for Argentine and Latin American films to be premiered and distributed in Brazil and vice versa.

I want to be talked about for the films I am doing rather than a party I attended, the dress I wore, and the men I may have met and dated. In any case, by and large I think I have spoken about more for the profession I am in than my personal life. That's the way I like it because frankly, I don't really have a personal life to begin with.

These films however, have ambiguity built into them, because it's too easy in film to make a strident work of propaganda or advertising, which are really the same thing anyway, meaning the message is unmistakable.

I just want to make great films and be good in them. And I think that my perception of what's great in a film is constantly evolving.

The strange thing is that since I've been offered lots of films I think that maybe they think that I've sold out to Hollywood. Which is not the case if anybody's listening.

I can't stand on a podium and beat my chest saying I'm the best. I just think I've been the luckiest of all. Yes, I'm talented. The movies that I've chosen and the way they've fared have also helped. I've always done films I would love to watch. I have stayed away from films which I thought were depressing.

You have kids studying master class visual arts who are pushed to make films that will be successful economically; that's what they focus on. So they work for corporate interest instead of artistic expression.

Sometimes I know a film might not pull the audience to the theatres and have a great collection at the box office. But I need to do these films for creative satisfaction and give something different to the audience.

Pure Flix makes evangelistic films, but we also make family films. I think the viewer wants to see quality entertainment that the whole family can watch, and many nonbelievers watch our films because they can watch with their family and young kids.

I've always been excited by rotoscoping, the technique used in films like 'Waking Life,' which fuses animation with real-life emotion. It seemed like it was a process ripe for innovation.

I loved Gwyneth Paltrow in 'The Royal Tenenbaums' and Reese Witherspoon in 'Election.' I love quirky films and characters like that.

I don't know if my films are about women in a kind of frolicking - here's a grab bag of women's issues. They are about women of substance with very particular stories.

I think us gals need to stay in and just change the way it works, so men aren't being workaholics and avoiding life and relationships, and they can make films in a reasonable amount of time, so you can have a family and a life outside of work. And have more balanced, content-driven, enjoyable movies.

At the end of the day, it is about working in a good film. It's the films that you leave behind that matter.

We like to make the Marvel comics films because they're fun. Families can go see them together. They're entertaining. They aspire to inspire, and that is cool.

It never occurred to me that I'd be on a television show or in feature films but when those came into play my dreams changed along the way.

I personally enjoy theatre, but preferably I do films so that I can reach up to maximum audience. If you want to give a serious message, it will reach out to maximum people through films. But through theatre, you can hardly reach out to about 3,000 audience at a time.

It is a very unusual sector and the one thing I would ask of them is to understand that for most of them one-third of their films are being financed by the taxpayer and that carries huge accountability and responsibility.

I've done five films directed by women. I did like it. They had qualities, particularly in the romantic tenderness of scenes. I felt sometimes they were a little bit soft, but maybe they were clever to get the guys working the way they wanted them to.

As much as we'd like to believe that our work is great and that we're infallible, we're not. Hollywood movies are made for the audience. These are not small European art films we're making.

Films are not mathematics - that's the first thing you need to understand. At least, that's how I feel. They are not words on paper. Films are made with people, with teams and with individual bundles of creativity coming together to fulfill the vision of an individual who is the director of the film.

I think indie films have more of a fresh, experimental vibe about them, whereas studio films know what they want and can basically get it.

I think early in my career, I didn't choose films that were crappy films, necessarily, but I didn't go out and campaign for smaller, better roles.

I think one of the blessings that I've had in watching, you know, films be made now from four of my books is to realize that it's a separate thing. It's a separate work.

'Once Upon A Time In America' is one of the cleverest films of all time, because you can get out of it whatever you want to get out of it.

'Out of Sight' is one of my favorite films ever. Love Steven Soderbergh. 'Goodfellas' was a huge influence on me in terms of the use of camera. 'Black Orpheus,' a beautiful love story that very few people actually have seen, and that was an influence on 'Beyond the Lights,' too, in terms of the look of the film.

I have a production company called Home Theater Films which makes faith-based films.

I am a great movie buff, and I devour films regularly.

I have a very strong political outlook, and that is something I'd like to take more responsibility for in my life. I don't believe in utilising certain aspects of the power I have with celebrity to push that forward, but I would like to make some films that address some of those political issues.

I don't make movies for the same reason that a lot of people do. I make films because I need to see them exist in a very specific way.

I'm a Hollywood kid, and I know that there are only so many stories. Only so many tales around the campfire that we have to tell. Then we have to regurgitate them. Our grandparents' movies were all remakes of silent films - we forget that, but it's true.

Suddenly, the screens were dominated by American entertainment to the extent of something like 95 percent. As a result, audiences turned away from the kinds of films that we used to make.

I knew early on that I was a nerd and that films were my refuge. Those first few minutes before the lights went off, and you're alone in the theater waiting, were really pleasurable.

You make a lot of films, do you? You make a lot of films yourself? Yeah, I'd like to see you make a film first before you get to talk about it. What a jerk.

As you know, in America there's no rights for the artist, so whatever films I've made kind of belong to the studio, so if they want to remake it they can.

My agent in London says all New York films are wonderful if they're really New York films because they're like travelogues.

Theatre is done largely for the love of the craft. Television makes you famous. And films immortalize you. That's the relationship between the three.

This is certainly not to excuse the violence that exists on TV and films and on the Internet. But the truth is that wherever you go in Europe, there are American films and TV shows that are just as popular as at home. And you don't have that sense of violence in any other place other than America.

I didn't know this about myself, but when 'Pirates of the Caribbean' came out I realised that I didn't enjoy a huge amount of recognition. I didn't react to it well, but I think life is about finding out who you are and what you like. So I started doing independent movies and art-house films instead.

I'm very successful and do lots of films but I've never actually done anything extraordinary.

I used to do films for money earlier. I never knew what perception meant. I didn't give too much attention to scripts. It was either to buy a house or to buy a car. There was a certain frivolity to the way I used to pick up things. I wasn't taking my career seriously.

I knew Vincent Price from films - he was a big movie star - but the first time I met him was when we filmed 'The Oblong Box.'

For me, competition is good; that is what keeps me on my toes and keeps me going. I am always trying to better my own work, do better than my earlier films... do films that are challenging and exciting for me.

My films don't give you an easy ride. I can see that. The sense I get is that people have quite a physical experience with them. They feel afterwards that they've really been through something.

Films don't decide my whole life. They are just a part of who I am. What I do in my personal life should be of no concern to the filmmakers or the fans.

I don't pay much attention to the press. My films always get good reviews and bad reviews. I just try to make the best film I can.

I feel old films should not be remade.

The message films that try to be message films always fail. Likewise with documentaries. The documentaries that work best are the ones that eschew a simple message for an odd angle. I found that one of the most spectacular films about the Middle East was 'Waltz With Bashir,' or 'The Gatekeepers,' or '5 Broken Cameras.'

Actors used to carry films because people would have to actually go to the movies to see them. It was the only place. But now there's none of that mystique, and so there's less of a reason to buy a ticket.

My films seem to be about men's struggle with failure.

I'm so not interested in producing, other than doing my own work, producing my own films. I only do it as favors, for other people to get their films made.

Working on the Obama campaign was a life-changer for me. I realized during that campaign that structure is the name of the game, and so, soon after the election, filmmaker Adam Baran and I started Queer/Art/Film, a monthly series at the IFC Film Center in downtown New York that invites queer artists to present the films they love to an audience.

Well, you know the old line - to be nominated is what it's all about. I think that I've done pretty well - I've had about 46, or 47 nominations from my movies, and my films have won about 12 awards in total, so I don't really have any complaints.

If African film makers had one-tenth the amount commanded by film makers the world over - even the amount used by so-called shoestring film makers - I think we would see quite an explosion of African films on the world scene.

All of my films have been autobiographical - it's all I've got to go on.

As soon as television became the only secondary way in which films were watched, films had to adhere to a pretty linear system, whereby you can drift off for ten minutes and go and answer the phone and not really lose your place.

I'm a Sufi Muslim, I would say. I believe in using the medium to create a good vibration because art is so important to society. Some projects I don't do because I feel that it's going to create a bad vibe. I don't do propaganda films that are anti another religion, anti-Muslim or anti-Hindu.

I generally try to avoid talking about my old films - I find it difficult.

The entertainment options for young people are a lot broader now, and the quality of films is slumping a little bit.

Action films can be like watching paint dry. You can just die in the trailer waiting for them to set up a shot, then you go out for a few minutes or an hour of endurance testing.

I want all my films to look distinctly different, like some other directors I admire. But in a way, I can't really take myself completely out of the movies I make.

I'm much more experienced now, so I can find films that are interesting quicker and cut out the films that don't really matter. It means more to me now because my kids are going to see them, and I want them to be proud.

We can't deny that films have a bigger reach. After the popularity of the 'Slumdog Millionaire,' a lot of people started reading Vikas Swarup's 'Q & A'. From a business sense, films are a good tool to increase the number of readers.

I firmly believe that emotions are universal, and I know that when they connect with the audience, it works. There is no such thing as an entertaining or a serious film; there are good films and bad films. Good films will always find a vast audience.

I realize that although I'd like to make films as a career after I'm done playing, I really love basketball; I really love my career, an opportunity to compete every day and to push myself physically, mentally and emotionally.

I want to move people, stir something within them that makes them feel. That's what a movie should do and an actor should do, make you feel something. I think that's why people love films so much.

The most heinous shift in American films is that they reinforce good things like 'couples' and 'relationships.'

I'm quite proud of some of the films I've done, but less for the acting than for the fact that they're unpretentious and entertaining. I'm proud of having made unpretentious choices.

Honestly, I wish I could be a part of all the remakes of my father's films. But on second thought, I wouldn't want to be a part of any. The thought of being compared to him is unnerving. I'd rather do my films than live in the fear of living up to his standards.

Buster Keaton's 'The General,' from 1927, I think is still one of the great films of all time.

There are lots of wonderful actors doing animated films these days, but I prefer it when you can't recognise them - it means they've really become the character.

I have zero interest in performing in films to try to convey any kind of message. My job is to be entertaining. There's a very different point of view about messages in films in Europe than there is in the States. Audiences rebel because they feel that they are being preached to.

It is an entirely selfish decision to turn producer because I want my kind of cinema to last and flourish, and helping young filmmakers make those kind of films is the best way to do it.

You've got these big studio films and these tiny independent films now. It's very much either/or. With the independent films, it's always a beautiful risk - it might never be seen. With the studio films, you're conforming to the formula of what's always been in place.