French Film Quotes

I was really into old musicals. When I was seven or eight, my mum and dad would be like, 'How does she know who Ginger Rogers is?' Then, one weekend, Josephine Baker popped up in a French film called 'Zouzou,' and I was so stunned because she looked like me. ~ Cush Jumbo

I made a French film called 'Merry Christmas' which is a very European film. It's a World War I piece. ~ Diane Kruger

What makes international cinema so interesting is that each territory has its own sensibility. When you look at an Indian or French film, there's a certain flavor. And even though the language is different, if the film is successful, it has something very common and understandable. ~ Wong Kar-Wai

African films should be thought of as offering as many different points of view as the film of any other different continent. Nobody would say that French film is all European film, or Italian film is all European film. And in the same way that those places have different filmmakers that speak to different issues, all the countries in Africa have that too. ~ Elvis Mitchell

I think that what people abroad want from French film, inside French film becomes our worst fear, "Oh, another film about love!" ~ Louis Garrel

I consider myself a 'local' actor in France. I started out in France, I went to drama school in France and the French film community was very welcoming to me when I was a young actress. ~ Diane Kruger

I saw the original that Gela Babluani wrote and directed called '13 Tzameti,' and that was very interesting. I believe it was a French film, and I was just intrigued by the awkwardness; the off-beatness of the film really just grasped me. ~ David Zayas

It never ceases to surprise me, the people I get to work with. I'm in a French film with Sandrine Bonnaire? I adore Sandrine Bonnaire. I'm doing a picture for Robert Redford? The Sundance Kid? I have to pinch myself sometimes. ~ Kevin Kline

ALPHA-60: Your name is written "Ivan Johnson," but it is pronounced "Lemmy Caution," Secret Agent Zero Zero Three of the Outlands. You are a threat to the security of Alphaville.
CAUTION: I refuse to become what you call "normal."
...
ALPHA-60: You cannot escape. The door is locked.
CAUTION: Try to stop me, pal. ~ Jean-Luc Godard

When I make an American movie it's going to come out all over the world-it doesn't happen the same way for an Italian film or a French film. ~ Monica Bellucci

I have found in the world of film many movies including Beyond Rangoon, The Crow, Gandhi, Doctor Zhivago, and The Big Blue, a French film, convey similar understandings. I'm sure the list is endless. These are just a few of my favorites. ~ Frederick Lenz

But strangely, [in] the original Matt Helm books, he's just this super hardass assassin. They sort of made it into a sexy romp for the movies. The books are very, very dark. I also watched OSS 117: Cairo, Nest Of Spies, which is a French film. They just made a second one, I think, which is based on like, 100 novels. They're just fantastic. They're set in the '60s. A lot of the visual inspiration definitely came from 1960 James Bond movies and OSS 177 and also Pink Panther movies. ~ Adam Reed

I haven't thought about making a music film, but if I did, that would be a very interesting idea. ~ Lenny Kravitz

The cinema has done more for my spiritual life than the church. My ideas of fame, success and beauty all originate from the big screen. Whereas Christian religion is retreating everywhere and losing more and more influence; film has filled the vacuum and supports us with myths and action-controlling images. ~ John Updike

There is something particularly fascinating about seeing places you know in a piece of art - be that in a film, or a photograph, or a painting. ~ Sara Sheridan

Poor Englishwomen! When it comes to their clothes- well, the French reaction is a shrug, the Italian reaction a spreading of the hands and a lifting of the eyes and the American reaction simply one of amused contempt. ~ James Laver

The French revolution taught us the rights of man. ~ Thomas Sankara

I love film, but it's bringing me away from music. Singing is what I'm probably most passionate about. ~ Mandy Moore

I've made the film 'The Good, the Bad, the Weird,' which was an Eastern Western film. Obviously, the Western film is American and American only; there's really no Western genre over in Asia. ~ Kim Jee-woon

At the end of the day, it's all one version of telling a story. I treated this as if it was a two million dollar independent film. I did a lot more physical work than I'd probably have to do for a two million dollar independent film with four months of training and stuff. But as far as the character's psychology or emotional life goes, I treat it just the same. ~ Colin Farrell

To make a kung fu film is like a dream come true, because I'm a big fan of kung fu movies and I'm learning kung fu for a long time. ~ Stephen Chow

I have spent too much time with my eye glued to the viewfinder and ended up missing both the image of the mind and that on film. ~ Doug Peacock

Dorothy looked at everything as though it might vanish. The bright daily pottery, the spice-jars, the sweep of the staircase, the pigeons in the stable yard. What had been real was now like a thick film, a coloured oilcloth, spread over a cauldron of vapours which shaped and reshaped themselves into shadowy forms, embracing, threatening, glaring. ~ A.S. Byatt

She often felt like she had been cast in a supporting
role with the film that was Louise. And there was more melodrama to be found there than a full-scale Merchant-Ivory period production. Tonight, she was certain, would be no exception. ~ Kerri Thomson

Our film industry, must cease portraying us as a nation of decayed values, fallen moralities and juju-obsessed people. ~ Sunday Adelaja

I write in the most classical French because this form is necessary for my novels: to translate the murky, floating, unsettling atmosphere I wanted them to have, I had to discipline it into the clearest, most traditional language possible. ~ Patrick Modiano

The Irish are hearty, the Scotch plausible, the French polite, the Germans good-natured, the Italians courtly, the Spaniards reserved and decorous - the English alone seem to exist in taking and giving offense. ~ William Hazlitt

The film's title star, Christian Bale, told me in June that he'd signed a multi-picture contract. When I caught up with Batman Begins ... All I can tell you is, we're talking. There was quite an air of secrecy around the development of 'Batman Begins,' and there will be even more around the development of another film, if they move forward. ~ Christopher Nolan

The scripts for Marco Polo are absolutely, positively fantastic. The challenge of making that show in China has proved to be as formidable as we feared. It's not like making a movie in China where, once you load up and you leave, you're gone. We have to be able to come back and capture something that's going to feel like a major feature film, on a television budget, and do it, hopefully season after season, so we are taking more time than the producers thought. ~ Chris Albrecht

We knew each other to our fingertips. No, that's not right. We only knew each other in our fingertips, and that was nothing at all, and for a while that was okay. We could have been a love story, a fairy tale, an indie film about high school and selective insanity featuring a boy of angel parts and a girl made of dreaming. We could have been all the best things: bracelets sliding down arms while shots slid down throats, laughter and crashing music in dark and flashing rooms, kisses that started hesitant but didn't stay that way. ~ Amy Zhang

There's a lot of time sitting in movies, so you can put alligators in people's trailers in your spare time. So it [making a film] moves slower, which in some ways is great, because you can live with a scene and invest in it a lot. And in some ways it's hard, because sometimes you can start to lose your energy a little bit, but both are fun. ~ Mary-Louise Parker

Of course, like all film-makers I've been mesmerised by cinema since I was a child. ~ Anthony Minghella

I studied classical opera, so I was always singing in Italian and German and French. ~ Wang Leehom

Thierry had no idea why they were called French doors. His native countrymen weren't stupid enough to put them in their homes. ~ Lynn Viehl

It's nice to have proper film fans respecting and appreciating your work. ~ Antonia Thomas

I remember reading the script for 'Dangerous Liaisons' and thinking that I could quite happily spend the rest of my life watching this film; the story and the writing were so wonderful. ~ Stephen Frears

WI played a young Helena Bonham Carter in a BBC film called 'A Dark Adapted Eye,' and I thought she was a completely spellbinding person. Totally unmoved by other people's expectations, fashions or opinions. She's probably the coolest English actress there is. Incredibly idiosyncratic. ~ Honeysuckle Weeks

The British are supposed to be particularly averse to intellectuals, a prejudice closely bound up with their dislike of foreigners. Indeed, one important source of this Anglo-Saxon distaste for highbrows and eggheads was the French revolution, which was seen as an attempt to reconstruct society on the basis of abstract rational principles. ~ Terry Eagleton

Sometimes you don't know you wanted something until you have it. Sometimes you don't know you need something until it's there. ~ Nicole French

How do you create a film that can reach millions of people and engage them in the subject? You have to take risks and try something new. ~ Sam Branson

There's a lot of great stuff on television and that's very appealing to actors who want to work, who do good quality and high quality work. But you're always concerned that the time demands on television will interrupt or interfere with your film work. ~ Wesley Snipes

I have no relationship to the French bourgeoisie. I don't like connecting with them. ~ Claire Denis

I've done movies that I've been advised not to do. 'Dog Soldiers,' the movie I did 11 years ago now, I remember my agent at the time was like, 'You shouldn't do that. It's a weird film about werewolves,' and it became a cult hit. ~ Kevin McKidd