Todd Solondz Quotes
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I always have to presume that each movie is my last movie because I never know if I'll get money again.
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Like everything, what compels one to put pen to paper is a great question.
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People call you "director," but it really should be "economic manager." Because everything is "Well, we can do another take here, but then you're gonna lose that shot over there." Or "The sun's going down, sorry, you're outta luck. We can't afford to." You know? And meanwhile, how do you get the performer's performance? I'm thinking the whole time all about "How can I get my day done?" And my performances are primarily a result of casting the right people at the right time in the right parts. And then I do little modifications.
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Art has a smaller audience than, say, movies or other forms of mass consumption. But that doesn't mean the work doesn't have an impact in a way that transcends just a few cultural arbiters.
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I've always said that I myself am not the best audience for my own work, because I'm just not that receptive to comedy.
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Storytelling is the only studio movie where the censorship is perfectly clear, the only studio movie with a big red box covering up a shot. I take pride in that - and, of course, in having avoided the fate of Eyes Wide Shut.
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We say we embrace humanity, but what does that mean? We are all defined by our limits, so to what extent can we embrace all this? Because we all contain within ourselves equally the capacity for kindness, as much as for cruelty or evil. And the best of us are able to suppress those baser impulses, instincts. That's the war within.
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A movie takes on its own life, and you have to respect that and be open to it.
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I love working with actors. If you cast the right person in the right part at the right time, they make you look like a better writer and director than you really are.
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I always make mistakes and I always fix things up, as best I can, in the cutting room.
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Some directors hardly talk to the actors at all.
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You always have to be ahead of the audience so that they have to always catch up and know the movie's not quite going exactly where you think it's going, or expecting it to be going.
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I think there are many advantages to not knowing any of my prior work. The narrative threads, I think, are totally accessible to anyone who may never have heard of me. There's a beginning, a middle, and an end - I don't think there's going to be any confusion there.
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There are a lot of ideas I have that I think would be very marketable and commercial, but they're not as compelling to me as the ones that are unmarketable, uncommercial, and unprofitable.