Film Quotes
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I discover what my film is by embarking on the journey of making it.
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I do not make films which are prescriptive, and I do not make films that are conclusive. You do not walk out of my films with a clear feeling about what is right and wrong. They're ambivalent. You walk away with work to do. My films are a sort of investigation. They ask questions . . .. Sometimes I hear that some Hollywood studio is interested in me. Then they discover that this is the guy who works with no script, that there is no casting discussion, no interference, that I have the final cut, and that does it.
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Honestly, I want to do films. I want to make that move from actor to producer, like Will Smith.
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I just hope that my films will survive me.
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I entered the film industry sprinting, but not for long.
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The first really important book I read about filmmaking was The Film Technique by Pudovkin. This was some time before I had ever touched a movie camera and it opened my eyes to cutting and montage.
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I cannot bear to look at a film that I made before 1990. Maybe 1985. There's no sense even trying to explain it. I really just can't watch myself. I see all the machinery at work and it just drives me nuts, so I don't look at anything.
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I'm always curious about how actors cry on film.
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You should love literature. You should live in the library. Forget about films.
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It's a great privilege just to be in a film not because you're some packaging that some agent has done with the studio exec: "We need a John Travolta film."
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Most of the women in film are there to be beautiful to the man.
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I'm happy to work. I know things have changed recently, but I tend to prefer film. I don't know what it is.
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Bad films gave me the courage to try making a movie
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A film star is a kind of public monument, and everyone's staring at them, and they've kind of got railings around them, and they're rather miserable most of the time.
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I'm just thinking of 2001, which I think is the most expensive independent film ever made - which is great, someday I hope I will do one. But I know the parameters when I got onto this project - I have to take care of everyone, make sure that they are all on board, and this process interests me.
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While I was doing the residency in Paris, I found out that I was chosen as one of the five winners of the Focus Features Africa First Program. All this happened less than a year after I made my first two short films.
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I like doing personal films, after doing a bigger movie, I enjoy doing smaller, intimate films.
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I definitely pay attention to details. I think one of the hardest things about making a movie is that it can be scrutinized over and over again. If anything just isn't right, it's going to take you out of the film.
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Different films have different places in people's lives. I don't get to see a lot of films, so I want to watch films I learn from.
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You get paid the same for a bad film as you do for a good one.
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Critical opinion on my films has always been salvaged by what I would call subsequent critical opinion.
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I feel like if a film is well-written, then the character's arc is complete. There really is very little room to expand on that afterwards.
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I've never watched my films with an everyday audience so it was really crazy to watch people clap at the end of my film - with no one there, no actors, no people from the film. It was just a spontaneous reaction, so I thought that was probably the best compliment you could get from an audience.
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Hollywood was a good influence because I was madly in love with films, and the films had a direct influence on me.
