Sydney Pollack Quotes

Editing feels almost like sculpting or a form of continuing the writing process.

Every single art form is involved in film, in a way.

I think it's a terrible shame that politics has become show business.

I mean, certainly writing, painting, photography, dance, architecture, there is an aspect of almost every art form that is useful and that merges into film in some way.

I didn't grow up thinking of movies as film, or art, but as movies, something to do on a Saturday afternoon.

But, I've made films in Japan, in Yugoslavia, all over Europe, all over the United States, Mexico, but not Hollywood.

I have one life. I am a certain age. I'm married to one person. I have a certain number of children. I won't have another life other than that, but I do have many lives through the films.

I mean, the truth of the matter is, I like the failures as much as I like the successes, it's only the world that doesn't like the failures.

One wants to be able to experience being other people, remaking a reality, remaking a life, remaking a certain world.

Making films is much more difficult than people imagine, and so the experience of actually directing them is not one I've ever relished.

There's a religious basis to their [Bush and Chaney] kind of conservatism. It's rooted in a kind of fundamentalism. I'm afraid of that. I don't like that idea. I think all extremism is suspect.

You are not an active creator of the film.

And I taught acting for years, and without knowing it that was the real thing that started bending me toward directing.

Film is a collective experience, as you know.

Well, I was born and raised in the Midwest, in Indiana specifically, and my childhood was full of weekend movies, you know, the Saturday and Sunday popcorn movies.

The very reasons sometimes that you make a film are the reasons for its failure.

Burt Lancaster was largely responsible for me becoming a director.

You know, essentially when you do a play you're reinterpreting a work of art that already exists. That's not what happens with a movie.

Well, there's no question that a good script is an absolutely essential, maybe the essential thing for a movie.

I personally have never made a movie in Hollywood, because I don't want to get up in my own bed and then go to the movie set, and then come home at night to my real life.

I mean, movies are like your kids or your fingers and toes or something, it's pretty hard to pick favorites.

I don't know about liberal bias, but people of a liberal mentality are probably attracted in greater numbers to the arts than people of a conservative mentality.

Reading a novel of a private experience, very, very different, the nature of it is very different.

You can be moderate in a way and still intense in your views. It's the extremism that gets frightening; religious fundamentalism and wacko-left liberalism is crazy.

The dance that happens, between actor and director, is a very delicate thing...it's why people tend to work together on many films over and over.

When you make a film you usually make a film about an idea.

I'm not going to be an interpreter at the U.N. I'm not going to live in Africa on a farm or whatever, but I am going to see the world through those eyes when I make those films.

OK, I know this is going to disgust you, Michael, but a lot of people are in this business to make money.

Well, the wonderful thing about making movies, oddly enough, is that they're sort of highly motivated graduate studies in one or another field.

The essence of acting is seeing the world from another point of view. That's what acting is.

We talked about Tootsie, the idea in Tootsie is that a man becomes a better man for having been a woman.

You don't normally do another presentation of All About Eve. You do one All About Eve, and that's it.

I mean, certainly it's the single biggest event, I think, in terms of popular entertainment, or art even, if you say that, of the 20th Century. It's been film. It's the 20th Century's real art form.

If we were a primitive society, movie stars would be gods.

What I really want to do is produce. There isn’t much patience with a slow developing story line anymore.

I didn't believe that I'd ever be lucky enough to be able to make a living as an actor.

No, I never went to college. Always regretted it, always envied people who did.

When you work without a script, you are in a sense working in a much more improvisational way than when you are prepared totally.

Obviously its a good feeling to know that something you've done has lasted.

It's always interesting to play people different from yourself, it would be boring for me to play myself.

Most human beings who are accustomed to attempting to see the world from various points of view tend to be more liberal than conservative.

I don't consider myself a teacher of moral and political positions. I don't want to be that. I can't help but have a point of view when I make a film, but my first job is to entertain you.

I've produced my own films for twenty years now - it means I have to talk to less people.

I'm not a very good predictor in any area of art, particularly my own. I don't know how to evaluate that.

You mustn't regret decisions that you make. Because the decisions are made out of your gut in a way and you have to stick with them.

I tend to be what I would call more progressive than conservative, but I think either extreme is excessive.

People aren't interested in paying $10 or $12 to go to the movies and to be lectured to politically. I'm not either. So I don't try to make those kinds of films.

You can't trust your memory. You change it to suit yourself.

I remembered myself as an unpopular and rather sad kid.

In terms of level of difficulty, it would go comedy, thriller, and then romantic drama.