Alexander Payne Quotes
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There's a bizarre insistence on how a story should be. 'The protagonist must be sympathetic!' they say. Whatever that means. I never engage in that discussion. I never use that word, 'sympathetic.' I just know 'interesting.'
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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.
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Each one of my movies becomes easier to get off the ground.
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When you watch a movie, you don't want to feel like a machine made it. You want to feel a soul.
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You just never know when you're living in a golden age.
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It seems that our politicians see the world in black and white, so why not our artists? Did Woody Allen's 'Manhattan' have to be in black and white? No. But is it fantastic that it was? To see New York like that? Yes!
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Omaha, like Rome, is built on seven hills.
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You begin a film more with questions than with direct intentions. It's more of an exploration and discovery.
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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.'
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In the moment of making films, I want to share my observations of life, not of other films.
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I don't want all of American cinema to be big cartoons that are just made to be digested by the entire world.
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I don't think so much about verbal comedy. I always think about visual comedy. I was raised watching silents, and I'm always thinking about how to make cinema, not good talking - although I want good talking. I'm much more interested in framing, composition, and orchestration of bodies in space, and so forth.
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'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.
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I like to think of film-making not just as an act of personal self-aggrandisement but rather as an act of public service.
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I want all of my films to belong to me.
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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.
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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.
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I think if you watch most of my films with the sound off, you could still tell what's going on.
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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.
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The kindest thing a director can do is look with open eyes at everything.
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The biggest fear I have is to die with regrets, and of course that will come true.
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As the years go by and I make more films, I am increasingly interested in capturing place as a vivid backdrop for my films.
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I think that Peter Jennings is the only decent one of the big three.
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The best cinema is about ethics.