Elia Kazan Quotes
-
A film director has to get a shot, no matter what he does. We're desperate people.
-
Anybody who informs on other people is doing something disturbing and even disgusting.
-
I was both very successful and very left; the living demonstration of how you could be on the left and still be in the gossip columns and be envied for the money you made.
-
The world was like a huge red carpet out ahead of me to be walked on. And it stretched on and on, no end.
-
I've come to believe that everything worth achieving is beyond one's capacity - or seems so at first. The thing is to persist, not back off, fight your fight, pay your dues, and carry on. Effort is all; continue and you may get there despite everything.
-
I was the true future. I understood Communism better than they did.
-
There was no doubt that there was a vast organization which was making fools of all the liberals in Hollywood and taking their money, that there was a police state among the Left element in Hollywood and Broadway.
-
There is only one thing I respect in so-called Broadway actors... and that is their competitive sense.
-
You can't just sit there and do the lines. You have to do something revealing or unusual.
-
Very often the Group actor is a critic when he's acting and an actor when he's criticizing.
-
Acting... was the biggest charge I ever had. What other artist has it so good? Approval so quick?
-
I question the value of stars. I think they're overrated. They get too much money, too much praise.
-
I was the hero of the young insurgent working class art movement.
-
The makers of entertainment must try, in our field, to be honest and grown-up.
-
The first thing you should do with an actor is not sign a contract with him. Take him to dinner. And take him for a walk afterwards.
-
For years after I resigned, I was still faithful to their way of thinking. But not in the American Communists.
-
I wouldn't go up on a stage now if you paid a thousand dollars for one minute of acting. It's a nasty experience. You're up there all by yourself. You're so damn exposed.
-
I was able to capture on film things the actors didn't even know they were doing.
-
TV has made us get down to the nub and new films will begin to live up to what the medium can be.
-
When you know what an actor has, you can reach in and arouse it. If you don't know what he has, you don't know what the hell is going on.
-
I'm very pro-America, but I feel it necessary to keep in touch with Europe to maintain a perspective.
-
I've been ratting on myself all these years and I didn't know it. I'm glad what I done.
-
I don't remember anything anybody said in any Jack Ford picture. Nothing happens except action.
-
It's difficult, if not impossible, to get away with anything false before the camera. That instrument penetrates the husk of the actor; it reveals what's truly happening - if anything, if nothing. A close-up demands absolute truth. It's a severe and awesome truth.