Ira Sachs Quotes
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I've always been interested in how the individual comes to know and accept him or herself, which I think has been hard for me.
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I think it's interesting: What is the generational effect of the experience of being a gay person in America? For my generation, it was very difficult.
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As I've gotten less righteous, less pedagogic, I have become more loving of the artificiality, the art form, the imitation of life in film.
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I came to N.Y.C. in 1988 and got very involved with Act Up. I also started making movies, including two very gay shorts, 'Vaudeville' and 'Lady.' It was the height of the AIDS epidemic, and New York City was both dying and very alive at the same time.
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Movies are romantic fantasies.
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I think there's a fear of difference in American cinema.
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I always think of my films within the context of where aesthetics meet economics. That's the nature of making art - not being naive about what is possible and getting what you need to tell the story you want to tell.
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You can be aware of the passing of time without being nostalgic.
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I've been hiding crucial events in my life since I was 13.
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Being an artist is in part an act of rupture.
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It's easy to make a film, but it's hard to make a career of being a filmmaker.
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I don't think I'd ever start making a film until I had both the intimacy with the subject and the distance to make it live in a certain way.
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I could not - and I still cannot - see a sustainable career as a filmmaker in which I focus fully on our gay stories.
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I've made four films about the destructive nature of relationships, of secrets and lies, and I think I'm no longer interested in that subject - which is a wonderful relief.
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Secrets make for good drama, and revealing the hidden truths and contradictions of life is, for me, one of the most exciting aspects of making movies.
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I like a film that makes the audience feel like they are in the middle of life as it is moving, and in a way, they are catching up. They are thrown into things.
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What I loved about 'Goodfellas' is that it's a film about bad behavior - but told with great energy and without judgment - but it doesn't actually shy away from the consequences of that behavior in the characters' lives, which I think is similar in 'Keep the Lights On.'
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Everyone wants to belong, and everyone needs to belong in order to make a career on some level.
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I've been close to two or three couples, gay and straight, who have been together for 45 years.
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I got into filmmaking in order to tell very personal stories, and in this day and age, the opportunity seems all the more precious.
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Capturing intimacy is pretty much the only thing I'm interested in. That's what excites me and what I find beautiful in movies personally – that almost obscene sense that we shouldn't be this close to these people. I find that very inviting and meaningful as an audience member.
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As a gay person, my life has been marginalized.
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I don't rehearse with my actors... the first rehearsal is the first time we turn the camera on... Sydney Pollack never rehearsed his actors, and I found out that's allowed... so you film reactions; you don't create them.
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By 1988, I was living in New York myself.