William Friedkin Quotes

I'm not a fan of Star Wars. That is not for me. That is for my nephews and nieces. I don't get it.

Star Wars is one of a handful of films that changed the zeitgeist forever.

The first work of the director is to set a mood so that the actor's work can take place, so that the actor can create. And in order to do that, you have to communicate, communicate with the actors. And direction is about communication on all levels.

The informing idea of what you want to say and do, that's what will take you from film school to professional - the idea. That's what is original to you.

With The Exorcist we said what we wanted to say. Neither one of us view it as a horror film. We view it as a film about the mysteries of faith. It's easier for people to call it a horror film. Or a great horror film. Or the greatest horror film ever made. Whenever I see that, I feel a great distance from it.

I don't like 3D. I don't believe there is any film that I have seen and loved that would have been improved by a scintilla in 3D. To me, it's just a gimmick.

The thing that interests me is the good and evil in everybody. I don't have conventional heroes in the films that I directed, because I believe there's good and evil in everybody.

I believe it's true that there's good and evil in everyone and it's a constant struggle to have your better angels prevail.

You are always cheating for the audience.

Violence is not funny.

I don't think sexuality defines a person. It's one small part of who you are, in my view. You are many things, and I never felt that people were defined by their sexuality solely.

I believe today that there is no film and no shot in a film that is worth a squirrel getting a sprained ankle.

I really think that sex always looks kind of funny in a movie.

There is a thin line between the policeman and the criminal. The best cops are always crossed. The best cops are the ones who are able to think like criminals. But for a quirk of fate, they might have been criminals.

I don't believe that Citizen Kane or Gone With the Wind, or any damn picture that you can name, would be better off in 3D. I think it's a gimmick. I find 3D distracting.

There are many untalented people making millions of dollars in the film business.

Sure, you could go out and make Jaws today. But all of the sequels to Jaws weren't good. They are all worthless. The Godfather II is the only sequel that I have ever seen that is as good as or better than the original.

When you make a Blu-ray, its not the same as the print process was. You have little or no control over any print that was ever made. You are a victim of the 35mm printing process.

Every time you run a 35mm print, it picks up scratches. It picks up dirt. Sometimes it breaks, and you have to re-splice it. You lose frames. This doesn't happen with digital or Blu-ray. I think that's great. Because I love the new media.

The studios are making fewer films. They are making more expensive films. Profits are tougher to come by. Not only because of the expense of production. But also because of the expense of promotion and hype. To boil that all down, it's more about hype than it is about filmmaking.

The Blu-ray is the real cinematech of world cinema. That's how it's being preserved. All of these guys that are trying to preserve 35mm negatives? They are wasting their time. There are better ways to see and project this stuff. It's called digital.

I had absolutely no focus as a kid. I never paid attention at school, I never went to college. Not because we were too poor; we were. But if I wanted to go to college, I would have found a way.

If Star Wars had failed, you wouldn't have 90 percent of what's out there today.

We all wind up the same way, no matter what our goals or ambitions are. We have nothing at all to say about how we got into this world or how are going to leave it.

The art of movies is to allow the audience to suspend their disbelief. They need to use their imaginations.

To me, the art of movies is to take a two-dimensional image and give the illusion of depth.

All of the films I have made, that I have chosen to make, are all about the thin line between good and evil. And also the thin line that exists in each and every one of us. That's what my films are about.

With all of my films that are on DVD and Blu-ray, I have spent weeks with them in a color timing room. Just changing or enhancing them. I have been desaturating the color. Sometimes I will make a scene bluer or redder. I do use the new medium. I believe in it.

Ive never seen a more terrifying film than THE BABADOOK.It will scare the hell out of you as it did me.

If you're a movie star, the studios don't want you to act. They just want you to show up and look good and chase girls and have a lot of laughs.

Technique is of less interest than character and story.

I can't sit through the superhero films. But I watched Draft Day, and it was kind of sweet in an old-fashioned way.

And it was only a week later that I realized a close up of Steve McQueen was worth the greatest landscape you could find.

You don't need great actors to do a 3D picture. All of this condescending stuff that they put out? "Oh, we will always need actors." Bullshit! They are able to take anybody and put some markers on them, and have them walk through an empty room. Then they paint in the background.

I don't go to the movies much anymore. There's very little that draws me. I watch mostly the older stuff, and I often don't sit through the new films.

None of the chase scenes that I did had any opticals. We had to do all of that physically. The first thing you have to do is see it in your mind's eye. You have to envision it. Imagine someone knitting a sweater or a scarf. They either have a pattern in front of them, or they see a pattern in their mind's eye. Then it's one stitch at a time. That's what shooting a chase is like.