Alexander Payne Film Quotations

I'm attracted to short screenplays. Nobody really wants a film to be over two hours, or at least I don't.

I want all of my films to belong to me.

Joe E. Lewis said, 'Money doesn't buy happiness but it calms the nerves.' And that is how I feel about a film being well-received.

Hollywood films have become a cesspool of formula and it's up to us to try to change it... I feel like a preacher! But it's really true. I feel personally responsible for the future of American cinema. Me personally.

But it's just that the whole country is making generally lousy films these days and has been for quite a while. That's the big problem that we all have to think about.

I always wanted 'Sideways' to be like a great 1960s Italian film.

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

I'm hoping one day I can make one really good film.

I like voice-over in films, and most of my films have been voice-over films.

I like to think of film-making not just as an act of personal self-aggrandisement but rather as an act of public service.

In the moment of making films, I want to share my observations of life, not of other films.

There is an audience out there for literate films - slower, more observant, more human films, and they deserve to be made.

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

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.

To be fair-not that I really care about being fair to anyone, ever-but to be fair, I'm sure that same ratio of bad films to good probably exists in every studio.