Alexander Payne Quotes
-
I'm so not interested in producing, other than doing my own work, producing my own films. I only do it as favors, for other people to get their films made.
-
You begin a film more with questions than with direct intentions. It's more of an exploration and discovery.
-
In the moment of making films, I want to share my observations of life, not of other films.
-
I mean, look, I love movies, not just the ones I make... In fact, I don't like the movies I make very much.
-
The most heinous shift in American films is that they reinforce good things like 'couples' and 'relationships.'
-
I don't want all of American cinema to be big cartoons that are just made to be digested by the entire world.
-
Omaha, like Rome, is built on seven hills.
-
I like to think of film-making not just as an act of personal self-aggrandisement but rather as an act of public service.
-
I guess maybe I try to make movies that are closer to real life than are many Hollywood movies. But I still try to stay within a commercial narrative, a contemporary American vernacular.
-
As the years go by and I make more films, I am increasingly interested in capturing place as a vivid backdrop for my films.
-
You just never know when you're living in a golden age.
-
I think if you watch most of my films with the sound off, you could still tell what's going on.
-
I want all of my films to belong to me.
-
When you watch a movie, you don't want to feel like a machine made it. You want to feel a soul.
-
Marketing has supplanted story as the primary force behind the worthiness of making a film, and that's a very sad thing. It's film only as a function of consumerism rather than as an important component of our culture, and that's everywhere around the world.
-
'Independent' means one thing to me: It means that regardless of the source of financing, the director's voice is extremely present. It's such a pretentious term, but it's auteurist cinema. Director-driven, personal, auteurist... Whatever word you want.
-
Well, that's what life is - this collection of extraordinarily ordinary moments. We just need to pay attention to them all. Wake up and pay attention to how beautiful it all is.
-
The biggest fear I have is to die with regrets, and of course that will come true.
-
The actors are the greatest executors of tone in a film. They're the most important cinematic component.
-
The novel succeeds on terms exclusive to literature. A good film succeeds on terms exclusive to the cinema. That's why so many bad novels can become good movies, like 'Jaws' or 'The Godfather.'
-
The best cinema is about ethics.
-
Hollywood films have become a cesspool of formula and it's up to us to try to change it... I feel like a preacher! But it's really true. I feel personally responsible for the future of American cinema. Me personally.
-
They say you can do honest, sincere work for decades, but you're given in general a 10-year period when what you do touches the zeitgeist - when you're relevant. And I'm aware of that, and I don't want my time to go by.
-
The best actors are always the ones who've directed as well, as they understand all the problems you face.