Film Quotes

Don't get seduced by your own stuff; work hard to keep a blank slate state of mind each time you watch your film.

I always think it's better to take a smaller role in a great film rather than a leading role in something that you don't have complete faith in.

Failures are inevitable. Unfortunately, in film they live for ever and they're 40 ft wide and 20 ft high.

I get mad when people call me an action movie star. Indiana Jones is an adventure film, a comic book, a fantasy.

I stopped making films to look after animals.

Being a systematic theologian allows me to indulge all my interests - in literature, film, art, music - by relating them all to God.

I mean, I did a film, a musical of 'Scrooge', in '70, and the tricks were done by flat clothes and mirrors. I hope that the day will come when we don't have to turn up at all.

Acting is not a competition; everything must be done for the good of the film or else everybody loses.

I don't normally do big movies. I'm new to this world. And I've always been afraid that jumping onto a big budget film, you would lose the relationships in favour of special effects.

I have a desire to create more film, more beauty, more art, more love, but I don't feel desperate. It's not about creating or building a career.

Well it's always been an element of the horror film to show us the gross out. I mean that's one option for all filmmakers making a horror film and it's not something I've found myself above either.

All of us have our individual curses, something that we are uncomfortable with and something that we have to deal with, like me making horror films, perhaps.

I just want to make films that are personal, but interesting to an audience.

When I'm making a film, I'm the audience.

One thing I love about making an ensemble film is that you can have ten people come away from it with ten different messages.

There has never been a great film unless it was created in the spirit of the experimental filmmaker.

In film, other actors' performances really are not your concern. If the other actor isn't giving you what you want, act as though he were.

You're constantly changing man. But the film's not changing. The film stays the same. That's the beautiful aspect of it.

A film needs more than you can give it in a lifetime.

Bad films gave me the courage to try making a movie

It was closer to manual labor than shooting a film. I always think of something Michael Caton-Jones told me: 'Pain is temporary. Film is forever.'

The films I liked were European films - Federico Fellini, Michelangelo Antonioni, François Truffaut.

I always try doing a different character for every film so it's not just changing one.

It's a difficult thing when you try and make a film of a book that you really love. You have about two hours to tell the story, and it's never going to be enough.

I always tell younger filmmakers, it's not just about the acting or the art itself. It's about how big of an audience watches your film.

When I really love a movie, I don't want to spoil it by too frequent visits. But I like to come back to certain films, which I admire.

Every film is a challenge. I always say that making a movie is like film school - you're always learning. But unlike most schools, you never get done with it. You never learn everything.

Film school is a complete con, because the information is there if you want it.

Many people will say, well, clothes should be worn; but I think people can look at them in public, like seeing a film. I think museum exhibitions are very important

The censor boards are mere redundant forces conspiring to keep the 'bold' films out of reach of the audience.

The universe couldn't care less about us. I say this very clearly in the film [ "Into the Inferno"]: our planet is "indifferent to scurrying roaches, retarded reptiles and vapid humans alike."

Film students should stay as far away from film schools and film teachers as possible. The only school for the cinema is the cinema.

The best reason to make a film is that you feel passionately about it.

Nico was gothic, but she was Mary Shelley gothic to everyone else's Hammer horror film gothic. They both did Frankenstein, but Nico's was real.

There are many vampires in the world today - you only have to think of the film business.

I like some of the early silent films because I love to watch how actors had to play then. What would interest me today is to do a silent film.

I discovered you can get closer to a characters thoughts and feelings in a book than in a film.

I want to make films about the human condition, what we're doing to the world or ourselves.

It's important that a film is loud and I hope many people agree. You should be inside of a film when you go into a theater. It should surround you, envelope you, so you can live inside a dream.

When you're making an independent film and you care about it so much you do all the prep work beforehand.

Working in theater, film or television are three different jobs for an actor, and I accept them as such.

I don't want people to sit there and objectively watch the film. I want them to experience it as something that's under their skin, so you try to make the films really tactile.

Film spectators are quiet vampires.

Censors tend to do what only psychotics do: they confuse reality with illusion.

For me, filmmaking combines everything. That's the reason I've made cinema my life's work. In films, painting and literature, theatre and music come together. But a film is still a film.

If I wasn't a trader, I would probably be in the film business in some capacity and writing in some other form. I went to NYU Film School and London Film School.

I think Queen songs are pure escapism, like going to see a good film.

The first thing one must remember about film is that it is a young medium. And it is essential for every responsible artist to cultivate the ground that has been left fallow.

A whole film is just about arriving at a moment where you hopefully transfer some feeling to the audience.

Ever since I started painting, I have tried to get the fluidity and surprise of image connection, the simultaneity of film montage, into painting.