William Friedkin Quotes
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In the case of a film like The Exorcist or To Live and Die in L.A., I saw the whole movie in my head before I went to shoot it. I never did storyboards, or anything like that. I had the film in my head.
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Violence is not funny.
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There are many untalented people making millions of dollars in the film business.
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I don't go to the movies much anymore. There's very little that draws me. I watch mostly the older stuff, and I often don't sit through the new films.
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I don't look back or analyze my films. I just make them. It's for someone else to look at.
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I have control over every single frame on Blu-ray. If I want a scene bluer, I get that scene bluer. Originally, there was some fluctuation with the prints. If you made a thousand, or a few thousand prints, there is no control over any of that. But now I can make a master using the digital process.
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To me, the art of cinema is the same as the art of painting. The artist takes a 2D medium and gives you the illusion of depth. If you look at any of the great paintings, you have the illusion of depth. Which is part of the art. The same with the great movies.
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None of the chase scenes that I did had any opticals. We had to do all of that physically. The first thing you have to do is see it in your mind's eye. You have to envision it. Imagine someone knitting a sweater or a scarf. They either have a pattern in front of them, or they see a pattern in their mind's eye. Then it's one stitch at a time. That's what shooting a chase is like.
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The only gay people who remain in the closet are those who choose to, who don't want to publicly declare their sexuality, which is true of heterosexual people as well. I don't walk around with a button or a T-shirt that says "I am a heterosexual." I don't think sexuality defines a person. It's one small part of who you are, in my view. You are many things, and I never felt that people were defined by their sexuality solely. Although God knows, as a minority, gay people have taken serious lumps for their sexual preferences. As has every minority.
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One of my themes is that there is good and evil in everyone. I was not out to make these guys heroes. I really don't believe in heroes. The best of people have a dark side and it's a constant struggle for the better side to survive and to thrive.
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When you go to a studio with something you want to make, or they come to you with something they want to make, more often than not, it's a tent pole. Not something one single person is really passionate about on a creative level.
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To me, the art of movies is to take a two-dimensional image and give the illusion of depth.
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The digital process gives me total control over how I want the film to look. The films look like they did when I was first looking through the viewfinder.
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The first work of the director is to set a mood so that the actor's work can take place, so that the actor can create. And in order to do that, you have to communicate, communicate with the actors. And direction is about communication on all levels.
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I'm not a fan of Star Wars. That is not for me. That is for my nephews and nieces. I don't get it.
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Technique is of less interest than character and story.
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All the great countries are at odds with one another over something, and yet if they don't cooperate they're going to blow up.
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I really think that sex always looks kind of funny in a movie.
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I have to see the whole scene in my head before I go out and do it. Which I do. I will envision the entire scene before I shoot it.
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Every time you run a 35mm print, it picks up scratches. It picks up dirt. Sometimes it breaks, and you have to re-splice it. You lose frames. This doesn't happen with digital or Blu-ray. I think that's great. Because I love the new media.
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The studios mostly threw away the negatives of the classic films. They had no interest in their legacy.
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I had absolutely no focus as a kid. I never paid attention at school, I never went to college. Not because we were too poor; we were. But if I wanted to go to college, I would have found a way.
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'Star Wars' gave birth to all the computer-generated superhero films.
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Sam Jackson is a director's dream. Some actors hope to find their character during shooting. He knows his character before shooting. Sam's old-school. I just got out of his way. I never did more than two takes with Sam.-william friedkin