Elia Kazan Quotes
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The motion pictures I have made and the plays I have chosen to direct represent my convictions.
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Take it from a director: if you get an actor that Sandy Meisner has trained, you've been blessed.
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I've been ratting on myself all these years and I didn't know it. I'm glad what I done.
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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.
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What's called a difficult decision is a difficult decision because either way you go there are penalties.
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I was even superior to the Communists and when they didn't go along with me, I quit them.
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I think there should be collaboration, but under my thumb.
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I thought what a terrible thing I had done; not the political aspect of it because maybe that was correct but it didn't matter now. Correct or not, all that mattered was the human side of things. I felt no political cause was worth hurting another human being for.
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I used to spend most of my time straining to be a nice guy so people would like me.
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I was always a self-conscious person.
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TV has made us get down to the nub and new films will begin to live up to what the medium can be.
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If there is a better performance by a man in the history of film, I don't know what it is.
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You've got to keep fighting; you've got to risk your life every six months to stay alive.
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I didn't have the problem of finding myself at 45 on the wrong course - I always wanted to be a film director.
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I'm going to make a film where not one word is really important. I'm going to make it all action.
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The physical life of the scene is determined by whether the set squeezes people together or whether the set has an escape place in it.
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You have to remind people of their own struggles. It's a responsibility.
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I won't go back to the theater. I like some of the things they're doing but it's different now, not something I could do. I'll go on making films the rest of my life.
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The writer, when he is also an artist, is someone who admits what others don't dare reveal.
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One final thing a director needs: The ability to say 'I am wrong' or 'I was wrong.' Not as easy as it sounds. But in many situations, these 3 words, honestly spoken, will save the day.