Atom Egoyan Quotations

You can talk about Holocaust denial, but it's really marginal for the most part. What is compelling about the Armenian genocide, is how it has been forgotten.

My parents taught me to believe that through the creative act, we're able to transcend and give a response to desecration.

The whole film is about people being convinced that they can reduce themselves to their archetypes.

The father's greatest folly is that he believes he can be a much more simple person than he is; he is not really able to deal with his own complexity as a human being.

There is a certain moment in the film when the son is in the nursing home and he goes to the television and turns it off because he sees himself in the image.

I have always felt that this story is universal. When I began to understand the details of the history, I felt that the most compelling aspect was not what happened, but what continues to happen and how it is denied.

I suppose I had these concerns but I really felt that I had to keep my scope very, very concentrated.

It is about this very abstract sense of displacement that he feels the moment he turns off the television.

These are very subtle things, of course, and I don't expect everyone to pick them up consciously, but I think that there is something there that you must be able to feel, there is an energy at work that I must trust my audience will be able to pick up at some level.

Working on the themes I was interested in, through the context of a particular family, was a very economical way of dealing with a lot of the issues I was concerned with.

I've just been very, very lucky with the film having been introduced in the right way.

When I was planning Family Viewing, the Ontario Film Development Corporation came into existence.

It is not as though the process of production holds any mystery for me, I know exactly what it involves and I know the predominant concern in shooting one of those things is production values - or as they would say, seeing it all up there on screen.

It was very important that it be done in such a way that it be executed with complete conviction. If I had done it both ways, if I was trying to cover myself in case it didn't work, then it would have been to no purpose.

That's a very odd notion because it involves seeing money up there on the screen - if something cost $5 million to make, they want to see that $5 million up there.

The programme has ended, something has finished, and he has a sense of something having finished its course, and then all of a sudden he turns away and this other thing has just finished its course, this other person.

As a producer, I think one of the most important decisions you make is not necessarily the material you are working on but the production apparatus that you choose to develop the project with, and that determines what funding you go to, it determines many factors.

I mean, if you are directing actors to do one thing and then directing them to do something else entirely because the one thing you wanted them to do may not work, then you are just shattering their confidence in the project.

I think if you look at the themes that are presented in the film, some are inherently social, and I think that any film which deals with the family is dealing with the smallest social unit in our society - and in a sense it is a question of scope.

I think the situation in Toronto is such that there are funding organizations which make it easy for a film to raise more money than it needs and very often that works against a film.

I think ultimately if you have a very high expectation of your audience and you know exactly what it is you're trying to express through the medium of film, there will always be an audience for you.

I wanted to make sure that the environment of the shooting itself was not that controlled, and the way to go about that course was to work with as small a crew as possible.

Once we were in the studio, we realized we were getting certain effects through the shooting of the dramatic scenes on video, shooting off a screen and then getting wave patterns and stuff like that.

Right now my career is totally schizophrenic, because when an American production like Hitchcock Presents asks to see my work I would never dream of showing them my independent films.

That is where the irony of the film comes off, in terms of the language it employs - where he tries desperately to be a 'TV Dad,' to give advice and it's so pat it becomes ridiculous.

The film camera's ability to physically move through space, not zoom through space - every time we have a video camera the movement is through zoom; every time we have a film camera it is a physical movement.

These sorts of things can happen, identities can be switched, the emotional implications are something that he has not been trained to feel. His whole life has been about separating himself from these sorts of actions.

Though I am still very vulnerable to audiences - and it happens all the time - where for some reason the energy doesn't connect and, since the film is very personal, obviously I am made to feel very vulnerable by that.

When you make a film like this, you must have the highest expectations of your audience. Having worked in situations where we have the lowest expectations of our audience.

When you're working with a smaller budget I suppose one of the things that has to be in your mind when you are writing is that you have to keep the characters down to a minimum.

You are traveling and see these people shooting the entire experience of going through a city, and maybe in the back of their minds they sustain the illusion that they will edit it all, but I don't think that's it.

When we first shot it, something very, very weird happened, and it's a good example of how things work intuitively or are improvised.

There are no guidelines. You sign this quite confidently, but you don't really know until you show it to the MPAA.

We hear about the experiment that is Canada but we are now entering the most interesting phase of that, where people are interacting with their own culture and understanding the degree of tolerance we have created in this place.

People make decisions that may have one intent and yet are somehow perverted into something else. And sometimes it's because of design. Sometimes it's because of happenstance. But very often, it's mysterious to them.

Sometimes you think you want to know something, but it's actually more exciting and more resonant when you have to try [and figure it out].

I love when people are resilient and when they form ways of dealing with grief or dealing with some traumatic episode, and sometimes those are the wrong choices.

We're lucky to be making films. My crew and I have been working together for a long time. I think that that's what emanates.

I believe my signal of maturity as a filmmaker iswhen I'll actually acknowledge the fact that the first take is usuallythe best.

The biggest problem with the independent film sector in Toronto is that they find themselves having to make that budget show on screen.

I make my living doing freelance directing for North American television shot in Toronto, series like Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Twilight Zone, and so forth.

I just think I love the process of making films. It's not tortuous for me at all. I love being with my crew. I love actors. There's a joy to the process.

The fathers greatest folly is that he believes he can be a much more simple person than he is; he is not really able to deal with his own complexity as a human being.

Every actor has a different temperament. Part of my job is to know what those boundaries are. The actor has to know you'll be there at the other end, that you're trying to represent them in the best light, who they are as they're harnessing these roles. The methods vary from actor to actor.

Try to produce your own films, avoid directing for hire.

I find it deeply upsetting when I see justice not being served. How do we as human beings deal with the unknown? The West Memphis Three trial is a joke on so many different levels.

April 24th was another commemoration of the genocide of Armenia people by Turkey. The perpetrator never admitted the crime. I was raised with that, this question: how do you actually find the truth of such a traumatic event? I'm obsessed with that issue.

One of the huge advantages of shooting in the winter is that locations that wouldn't have been available to us suddenly were, like Yorkville. ... It's just specific streets and specific angles. I think that's what's always kind of shocking about some cities: they are really about intersections.

I started in theater and I wanted to write plays, but I never really found an original voice as a playwright.

Don’t get depressed about not being where you want to be. This nagging feeling of anxiety is actually called ambition. Ambition is your friend.

My exposure to mainstream forms of production has taught me what I am up against and actually clarified for me where I'd like to go.

I guess I'm naive. I really had no idea it would be a problem. I just heard the deciding factor could be thrusting. Apparently, anything over three thrusts and you're in trouble. Well, nobody told me. I didn't even do covering shots, so there's nothing I can cut away to. This is what you get.

I don't think anyone knows how tight or strict those guidelines are.

I think that's one of the real joys of working with a small budget - that you have to determine exactly what it is that you need and want to say.

I wasn't happy with the version I showed this morning. The good news is the film will go out as it was originally intended.

unwarranted response given the story it's telling and the way it needed to be told.

The good news is the film will go out as it was originally intended,

You have to be able to deploy the themes that you want to address with a minimum of means, otherwise you aren't going to be able to get it made.

We couldn't trim any more without destroying the heart of the movie.

And then of course there is a whole dialogue between the spirit of the film camera, which is something I was focusing on very strongly in the film.

As a parent, I would feel comfortable taking a mature 16- or 17-year-old to this movie. I feel dismayed that they wouldn't now be able to see it in a theater. Yet there is a double standard, because anyone can watch it at their home.

As a parent, I would feel comfortable taking a mature 16, 17-year-old to this movie. I feel dismayed that they wouldn't now be able to see it in a theater. Yet there is a double standard because anyone can watch it at their home.

It's crazy, it's totally outrageous, it's very upsetting, and I can't understand it,

It's not as though I'm working in some sort of vacuum, I do know exactly what my options are and it is a creative choice to go one way or the other.

If I knew how restrictive (the MPAA was), I would have had an entirely different conversation with the actors.

He's my hero, so any time I get to wade into his world is pretty satisfying.

I could have made it better this is the proof. If it was good enough to win the award, I thank you.