Filmmaker Quotes

Some of the mini-worlds that filmmakers have created are so ingrained in my love of culture. ~ Drew Barrymore

My friend, the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, was murdered in 2004 for having been insufficiently reverent toward Islam. ~ Ayaan Hirsi Ali

When people see the conventions, they think they're going to get the straightforward genre - I don't give them that and they get mad. People see that and they think I don't understand the conventions because I'm not a good filmmaker. ~ Mary Harron

I had played sports all my life, and I thought that was going to be the way. But I saw where the potential in football was going to end. When it comes to decision-making, I just follow my gut at the end of the day. And if I don't, I get in trouble. I wanted to become a filmmaker. ~ Jason Wiles

Because I'm a filmmaker at heart, I know a villain can't be too humanized and the audience can't empathize with him too much. ~ Sharlto Copley

It's like two years straight out of your life doing a film. It's very enjoyable, especially working with the guys, but I kind of like the idea of traveling and growing, and developing as a writer and as a filmmaker. ~ Martin McDonagh

I'm always cribbing from real life. I'm not a very creative filmmaker. ~ Kevin Smith

I'm a product of older filmmakers I guess, the past where you get to make movies and scenes are what they are. You know if you think about Scorsese back in the day when he was making Taxi Driver, or Coppola or Frankenheimer, Sidney Lumet, they're making films where you witness violence in a real way. ~ Antoine Fuqua

As a filmmaker, I'm very collaborative. I don't pretend to know everything that is needed to make a movie. What I like to do is get together with a group of people, starting with developing the story and bounce around ideas. ~ John Lasseter

You know, I was really privileged to meet Woody Allen, who is now a filmmaker, let's be honest. He's also an actor. And he's classic. And because I have no conception of what classic fashion is now, I respond to his slightly outdated sensibilities. ~ Ezra Miller

I guess what inspires me most is the desire to draw out feelings that feel best expressed on the written page by really good authors, and I'm not a really good author. I feel like my job as a filmmaker is to eff the ineffable, to take feelings that only poets could describe with words and try to project them on the screen for viewers to feel. I don't think I've succeeded once but in the act of trying I've come up with all these other results which sometimes intrigue me. ~ Guy Maddin

Most directors make films with their eyes; I make films with my testicles. ~ Alejandro Jodorowsky

If a Million People See My Movie, I Hope They See a Million Different Movies. ~ Quentin Tarantino

I am very filmmaker oriented, as a producer. I think the most important thing is that you have to really choose the players carefully. ~ Nina Jacobson

I moved out to L.A. to be a filmmaker or director. I didn't even think about doing comedy or even acting. I wanted to be like Paul Thomas Anderson or Wes Anderson, but I wasn't going to a lot of comedy. ~ Bill Hader

It might sound crazy, but filming in a conflict zone, in Afghanistan, and being a female filmmaker was the easy part. I found people open and understanding of the importance and beauty of filmic storytelling. I never had to explain why Jake Bryant, my Director of Photography, and I were climbing up a ladder to get a high shot, or running ahead to get an arrival shot, or filming weeks after weeks, months after months, collecting so much material. The process was respected and honored. ~ Pietra Brettkelly

I suppose once in a while, a filmmaker makes a movie that's more than just a sum of its parts, more than good acting or good filmmaking. It's something else that has nothing to do with what you've done. This is in 1999, made by people in 1999 for people in 1999 about people in 1999. ~ Sam Mendes

I think it's a very strange question that I have to defend myself. I don't feel that. You are all my guests, it's not the other way around, that's how I feel. ~ Lars Von Trier

There's really no difference between what I do and what a male filmmaker might do. I mean we all try to make our days, we all try to give the best performances we can, we try to make our budget, we try to make the best movie we possibly can. ~ Kathryn Bigelow

I like filmmakers that try to touch upon the metaphysical, the things that are behind all this, that you can't actually physically interact with, but are somehow intuitively there. Maybe you can see the ashes of that fire or the echoes of something happening on a domain not-here, whether that be coincidence, whether that be familiarity with somebody who's a stranger. ~ Mike Cahill

An unpopular apres-garde filmmaker (Watt) either suffers a temporal lobe seizure and becomes mute or else is the victim of everyone else's delusion that his (Watt's) temporal lobe seizure has left him mute. ~ David Foster Wallace

I've worked over four dozen nine-to-five jobs before taking the chance to chase my dream of wanting to become an actor and filmmaker. Growing up in Brooklyn and Harlem, working at jobs like the bus company were great. I had benefits, a great salary, and security. But it wasn't my dream. ~ Malcolm Goodwin

Filmmakers began to experiment with special effects almost as soon as motion pictures were invented. The history of special effects is the history of motion pictures. ~ Ben Burtt

Don't get seduced by your own stuff. Don't get high on your own supply. The hardest thing as a filmmaker is when you're watching a film that you've worked on for several years. You know every frame so intimately that holding lots of the objectivity of a new viewer who has just seen it for the first time is the hardest thing. Every aesthetic decision you make - and you make thousands of them every day, have to - in theory, must be done from you being a blank slate. You almost have to run a program, like a mind wipe, every time you watch the movie. ~ James Cameron

I want to work with great filmmakers and great actors and get better as an actor. ~ Bradley Cooper

Everyone has their truth. Mine lies in the cinema. ~ Dawn Garcia

I read a blog about this young filmmaker in the Philippines who made a short film, and one of the characters in the film reads my novel and then starts discussing the novel with someone. The idea that my book can inspire another artist and be part of that other artist's work ... that's the reason I write. ~ Miguel Syjuco

I think 99% of the whole thing is to have passion about the idea yourself. I think part of your job as a filmmaker is to tell someone that might not think it's going to work that, actually, it will work. ~ Alice Lowe

What she thinks and feels is this: This is a world of men. They come into your country, they invade your home, they kill your family. They turn your body into the battlefield - the territory of all violence - all power - all life and death. And we take it. We do. We keep taking it. We have lost track of the reasons we do not slaughter the world of men, but we do not. Yes, there are good men. She sees the face of her father. She sees how the filmmaker loves the writer. She sees the yet-unwritten life of the writer's son. She sees her. brother. Beautiful smear. But it is the world of men that creates pure destruction. And this is a truth we cannot bear: Since we bear them into the world, we cannot kill them. Cannot be done with them. Cannot exile them into oblivion. ~ Lidia Yuknavitch

I would love to have been a documentary filmmaker; I just didn't have the resources to do that. ~ Anna Deavere Smith

I think the biggest challenge was being aware of a certain audience that was going to see this film [lone survivor]. There's a big difference from a typical movie, journalists and critics and film goers that go see it find that, that's the general experience you have as a filmmaker. So that just kind of proves my point that there's a really different audience. ~ Peter Berg

Outcasts may grow up to be novelists and filmmakers and computer tycoons, but they will never be the athletic ruling class. ~ Chuck Klosterman

As a filmmaker, you want nothing more than to have people say, 'I love your movie.' ~ Peter Jackson

I think filmmakers all secretly wanna be musicians and all musicians secretly wanna be filmmakers. ~ Win Butler

Now is a very interesting time because of the digital cameras, and the fact that you can edit anywhere. It's a great time to be a filmmaker, is a great time to be starting off. ~ Michael Pitt

A lot of times you get credit for stuff in your movies you didn't intend to be there. ~ Spike Lee

A filmmaker doesn't have to suffer to show suffering. You just have to understand it. You don't have to die to shoot a death scene. ~ David Lynch

You can't second-guess yourself as a filmmaker. ~ Ralph Bakshi

There's more emphasis on art and culture in Europe than there is in the United States and I think that a lot of American directors and writers are just trying to copy other American horror films, they don't pick up much in the way that European filmmakers do. ~ Wes Craven

As filmmakers, we're constantly always looking for something to bring the audience deeper into the reality of the story we're telling. ~ Jeff Bridges

The more unique your film is and unusual it is and difficult it is, the harder it is to get it financed. That's why a lot of good filmmakers are doing television. They do HBO movies. ~ David Cronenberg

Most filmmakers go out with the first feature and nobody cares. ~ Fede Alvarez

As a filmmaker, you've got to have a nose for what's going on culturally. You have to feel it. It doesn't have to be manga or music, but you need some kind of antenna. That's very important. ~ Takashi Miike

I'm not a master; I'm just a hard-working filmmaker. I would like everyone to see me as a friend rather than a master. ~ John Woo

Part of the process of reading is constantly hitting the pause button, and now and then the rewind button, to ponder a word that's been chosen by the author as exquisitely as the filmmaker chooses an image or a sound editor chooses a sonic clue - the tolling of a bell in the distance to evoke memory, for instance. ~ Steve Erickson

As soon as something like Monty Python's 'The Life of Brian' appears with a Muhammad figure as the main lead, directed by an Arabic Theo van Gogh, the controversial late Dutch filmmaker, we will have taken an enormous step forward. ~ Ayaan Hirsi Ali

I'VE NOTICED, FROM MY EXPERIENCE, IF THE EXTERNAL, EMOTIONAL CONSTRUCTION OF IMAGES IN A FILM ARE BASED ON THE FILMMAKER'S OWN MEMORY, ON THE KINSHIP OF ONE'S PERSONAL EXPERIENCE WITH THE FABRIC OF THE FILM, THEN THE FILM WILL HAVE THE POWER TO AFFECT THOSE WHO SEE IT. ~ Andrei Tarkovsky

As a European filmmaker, you can not make a genre film seriously. You can only make a parody. ~ Michael Haneke

I was a filmmaker. I made movies. I made films. And I always took photos and made films, always from the beginning. ~ Robert Barry

Me, as a moviegoer, before being a filmmaker, I try to think about what movie I would like to see. ~ Alexandre Aja

Better a street-sweeper in Mexico than a filmmaker in Germany! ~ Rainer Werner Fassbinder

But I always see myself as the filmmaker. I wonder if everybody else sees me more as an actor. ~ Evan Glodell

Television happens very quickly. It was like a shot of adrenaline into me, as a filmmaker, and my career. You can hit town, do the show, and leave with this incredible energy behind you. ~ Michael J. Bassett

I'm always intrigued by new challenges and things that I've never done before and new experiences. It sounds so simple, but the primary interest is just something that's good and instills within me some kind of gut feeling that feels like something that I'm passionate and excited about, and there can be multiple variables that can instill that. It can be simply a filmmaker, it can just be a character, it can just be the script, or a combination of all those things. But, I'm always just looking to do things that I've never done before, primarily. ~ Elijah Wood

I started to do theater when I was a little boy at school, and then, I think because my father was a documentary filmmaker and worked for German television, I was of course fascinated by what he did. ~ Daniel Bruhl

Well, I think one of the reasons Chicago became so popular as a filmmaker location is because New York had been used so many times that Chicago, I think, was rediscovered maybe in the late '60s, early '70s for a long time as a new location. ~ Richard Roeper

When I wanted to become a filmmaker, there was nobody for me to look up to. ~ Allison Anders

Anybody that makes films knows the film is never finished. It's abandoned or it's ripped out of your hands, and it's thrown into the marketplace, never finished. It's a very rare experience where you find a filmmaker who says, "That's exactly what I wanted. I got everything I needed. I made it just perfect. I'm going to put it out there." ~ George Lucas

I didn't have the sensibilities of your ordinary filmmaker, let alone your ordinary African-American filmmaker. My heroes were John Waters, Pedro Almodovar, and actors that were part of that world. ~ Lee Daniels

The wide screen reminds me of a roll of toilet paper. ~ Yasujiro Ozu

A lot of first-time filmmakers are almost apologizing for their movie by saying, 'Well, we only had 18 days to shoot, you know.' ~ Mark Waters

If the goal is to get the best artists, actors, and filmmakers in the world to create the best movies, Hollywood does a decent job. And I think no one would disagree with me that it also makes a ton of bad movies and employs a bunch of hacks. ~ Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Unnamed entertainment industry moguls are now telling the New York Times that they intend never to work with Mel Gibson again. After all, how dare Mel Gibson challenge the public by producing a film that spurs public discussion, that pushes the envelope, that takes an old story to a new level. How dare Mel Gibson follow his own passion as a filmmaker. How dare he make $20 million on the opening day box office! ~ Laura Ingraham

David O. Russell is probably my favorite filmmaker. He's not only a great director, but he's also a great writer. ~ Adam McKay

(When asked what a director does) I help. ~ Krzysztof Kieslowski

If you are not a New Yorker, when you arrive there for the first time you have the impression you grew up there because you've seen it in so many films. It's been filmed from every single angle and by so many different filmmakers that you know the streets, the sidewalks, the architecture, the cabs, the temper of the people. ~ Deniz Gamze Erguven

A great movie evolves when everybody has the same vision in their heads. ~ Alan Parker

A filmmaker has to have great vision in order to tell a compelling story that is both distinctive and stylistic. I remember playing all movies in my head hundreds of times before they were ever made. You have to see it in your imagination. It has to be real to you. ~ Nicholas Ozeki

I'm a filmmaker, and I was most influenced by Hitchcock's films. How he could plant such deep enriched characters and then make us care both about the antagonist and protagonist was masterful. ~ Paul Haggis

You have to really be able to trust the director. It's about the filmmaker and whether or not I'm going to be able to have a relationship with them and want to follow them down that road, wherever it may lead. ~ Cameron Diaz

Films are always pretentious. There's nothing more pretentious than a filmmaker. ~ John Milius

You still get the movies made. A filmmaker can always scrape up money to do a movie. The passion drives it. And you'll get the money. Money's the easiest thing. But the hardest thing is finding a way for people to see your movie. ~ Allison Anders

I like doing commentary. As a filmmaker and film student, I think it's really interesting to hear what a director did and how they figured out how to do things. I often like the technical commentaries myself. ~ Catherine Hardwicke

I call myself a feminist, not a feminist filmmaker. If somebody asked me if I had a feminist sensibility it would be pretty hard to deny, but is it the theme of my work? Not necessarily. I'm interested in a lot of things. ~ Callie Khouri

I am very happy to be part of European and world cinema as a British filmmaker. ~ Mike Leigh

For my part, as a filmmaker, I've never been a fly-on-the-wall documentarian. I have no commitment to that method. I believe it's a lie. ~ Joshua Oppenheimer

I come from a family where my father is a filmmaker and professor of film. ~ Derek Magyar

Personally I find there is just as much if not more creativity among game makers as there is among feature filmmakers. ~ Wesley Snipes

When I was a teenager, I thought maybe I'll be a filmmaker, making film documentaries. My dream when I was a girl was I would be hired by 'National Geographic' or work with David Attenborough, but it didn't happen. I became a model. ~ Isabella Rossellini

I think I've always admired sort of dynamic filmmakers, which doesn't shy away from strong expressions. Which might be a little more theatrical at some points. ~ Fredrik Bond

A movie is just like a work of art or a book or a piece of music. The intent of its maker is one thing, but its interpretation by an audience is something else. I don't stop at what the filmmaker wanted to do. ~ Wesley Morris

The biggest misconception is that I only write about shitty people. Or that I'm trying to be shocking. I just think people are super weird, so I like to write characters that get addicted to things, lose their minds, hurt others, put themselves in bad situations. I'm just more interested in that. ~ Leslye Headland

I love a good harsh horror movie, when it's done well. But there are times when it feels cynical. You can tell when a filmmaker loves the genre, and you can tell when someone's just cashing in a paycheck. Then it becomes a dumbing down - a fetishisation of violence that I react very strongly against. ~ Drew Goddard

If I was American, I think I'd live in New York, because I like that East Coast mentality. There's nothing wrong with Hollywood. If you want to be a big time filmmaker, you should go to Hollywood. ~ Danny Boyle

In most films music is brought in at the end, after the picture is more or less locked, to amplify the emotions the filmmaker wants you to feel. ~ Ken Burns

One filmmaker makes films that are deep, intellectual, profound and confrontational. And the other one makes purely vacuous, escapist films. I'm not sure the one who makes escapist films is making a poorer contribution than the one who makes the deeper films. ~ Woody Allen

When I was young, my idea was to become a filmmaker. ~ Patrice Leconte

I don't want to become an ivory tower filmmaker. That sounds peculiar, but I want to be a mainstream filmmaker. I want the largest possible audience that I can find - but, of course, on my terms. ~ Peter Greenaway

Always be reading. Go to the library. There's magic in being surrounded by books. Get lost in the stacks. Read bibliographies. It's not the book you start with, it's the book that book leads you to. Collect books, even if you don't plan on reading them right away. Filmmaker John Waters has said, "Nothing is more important than an unread library." Don't worry about doing research. Just search. ~ Austin Kleon

It's easy to make a film, but it's hard to make a career of being a filmmaker. ~ Ira Sachs

It's exciting to try to do something in a totally different way - to bring out something totally different in me as a filmmaker. It's time to try something totally different. ~ Drake Doremus

Filmmaking is a chance to live many lifetimes. ~ Robert Altman

The field (of filmmaking) is suddenly sexy, ... so it's deluged with these wannabes who say 'I don't want to be a secret agent, I'll be a filmmaker.' I think a lot of people are really kind of naive. ~ John Landis

On the comedy side of what I love as a filmmaker are Richard Pryor, Lenny Bruce, and Eddie Murphy; those are my favorites. ~ David Dobkin

Each one [movie] is very important to us and from a fiscal responsibility, filmmakers understand that it's highly personal for us and they've been great about it. ~ Thomas Tull

What I love about the filmmakers that I mentioned [Danny Boyle,Leo Carax], is that it's visual but it's also, you see that the characters are the most important thing. The actors are the most important thing. ~ Fredrik Bond

I felt film is art and there are people that constructed that art - and that made me want to be a filmmaker. ~ Simon Kinberg

I learn so much from watching films like that with commentary and then when you get to hear another filmmaker talk about their films it's a really great experience. ~ Jay Roach

For me, whether or not a film has some kind of massive budget or is an independent film, or however it's getting made, it's always about the filmmaker and, hopefully, being a vessel for the filmmaker's vision. That's what really attracts me to projects. ~ Bryce Dallas Howard

The directing of a picture involves coming out of your individual loneliness and taking a controlling part in putting together a small world. A picture is made. You put a frame around it and move on. And one day you die. That is all there is to it. ~ John Huston