Debra Granik Quotes
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I always think that my assignment is to seek out stories that are experienced by people who don't get the ticket for Easy Street.
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Some of the subject matters that I like to make stories about are definitely not inherently commercial. So I have to look for a very special kind of financing and go down a very gentle path in order to make my films, as do basically all social-realist filmmakers. It's a long process.
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I'm looking for a living wage and to continue my work. The frustration comes from when I can't do the things that matter most to me. It's when someone comes and says, 'I will finance your movie if you cast so and so.'
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Festivals are where I see other peoples' films, where we talk, where I get to learn what was working about the film, I get to have a discussion with viewers... and people who enjoy reading films - I enjoy reading other peoples' films, and what discussions can come of that.
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We just started filming 'Stray Dog' really close to the finishing of 'Winter's Bone,' down in Southern Missouri.
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A role is never just a ready-made thing.
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It's funny: your happiness is contingent on a bigger picture besides just yourself.
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I will always face the conundrum that the subjects I'm attracted to aren't essentially commercial.
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In documentary, mostly, people are going to say untoward things; people are going to have gnarly beliefs. People aren't perfect.
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I need and want to see capable women. I don't like to see them weep all the time.
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The immigration process is so unbelievably complicated and expensive and endless!
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I think one thing that's always a concern to me is you see a role, and you're not seeing the character; you're seeing so-and-so do it. Then I'm taken out of the story considerably, personally.
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When I'm interested in an aspect of someone's life, I want to ask about their experiences, their survival strategies, and what they do to keep their lives interesting.
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My first narrative films developed out of a documentary process - finding someone who was willing to be filmed, watching, listening, taking copious notes and many hours of video footage.
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You will never go wrong with actually photographing process. It's primitive. Humans love to see the bipedal animal in us finish things. We just like it!
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I don't want to be on a soapbox, but I feel like a lot of documentary filmmakers are part of the ancient tradition of writing down notes, of saying, 'Hey people, hey people!'
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In the U.K., working-class lives are depicted with the characters' humour, but in the U.S., people with difficulties are often depicted with pious or simply dreary lives.
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Film is a team thing. There is no auteur.
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History has shown that there needs to be some agora, or public spaces, and I think that we already live a lot of our life on a laptop, or even smaller devices that we hold in our hands.
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When men's lives become extremely hard, women learn how to deal with them and assist them but also develop quiet systems of coping and managing.
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I'm reaching for emotion and drama, the drama of the everyday: what happens when you don't have shelter, food, and clothing. There are some stakes. If you're displaced or evicted, there's a suspense: How will you solve that?
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Every filmmaker has this short book of films that don't get made - for a whole host of reasons.
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Our necks are getting injured from looking down, and the movie screen gives you opportunity to look up, you know? It gives you an opportunity to possibly have a discussion with someone afterwards.
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A big part of the equation for 'Winter's Bone' was making it for so little that we owe nobody. We had a guaranteed loan and were able to pay it back.