David Fincher Quotes

You have a responsibility for the way you make the audience feel, and I want them to feel uncomfortable.

People will say, 'There are a million ways to shoot a scene,' but I don't think so. I think there are two, maybe. And the other one is wrong.

Everything seems really simple on paper until you take a camera out of the box.

People go to the movies to see things they haven’t seen before. Call me a radical.

I don't know how much movies should entertain. To me I'm always interested in movies that scar. The thing I love about JAWS is that I've never gone swimming in the ocean again.

I don't think that digital technology will ever take away the humanity of storytelling, because storytelling is entirely, in and of itself, a wholly human concern.

I think intelligence is totally subjective; it's like sexiness.

In film, we sculpt time, we sculpt behavior and we sculpt light.

I like characters who don't change, who don't learn from their mistakes.

My idea of professionalism is probably a lot of people's idea of obsessive.

If I could be anyone, it would be Brad Pitt.

I was always interested in films that scar.

It's a bad day when you don't get the work done that you need to get done or you don't get it done to the satisfaction.

I want people to flourish. I want them to walk away from the experience going, "That's what it should be like."

I think title sequences are an opportunity to sort of set the stage or to get people thinking in different terms than maybe whatever they understand the movie to be going in.

People always ask why I don't make independent movies. I do make independent movies - I just make them at Sony and Paramount.

Human beings are amazing at finding ways to waste their own time.

I do agree you can't just make movies three hours long for no apparent reason. For a romantic comedy to be three hours long, that's longer than most marriages.

Take ownership of every decision you make because you will be hold responsible for the film, whether good or bad.

How do you shoot a 150-day movie? You shoot it one day at a time.

You know, I don't think I've ever listened to someone's commentary. Ever.

Movies aren't finished, they're abandoned. And you have to make your peace with that.

I've never been to Harvard, I've never been to college, so I don't know what dorm life is like.

Hire the right people and get the hell out of the way.

Oh, yeah, I love DVD's. I don't have what you'd call an extensive collection, maybe a couple of hundred or so. But I have something on almost all the time.

Entertainment has to come hand in hand with a little bit of medicine.

I'm totally anti-commercialism.

I was a disinterested student.

I don't have the Tom Hanks fans. When you make the kind of movies I make, you get weird letters from people.

Perfume is pretty good because nobody has to hold the product by their face or use it.

I have demons you can't even imagine.

I want people to surprise themselves. Instead of saying "Oh, god, didn't we already do this 17 times?"

I like the idea of R-rated franchises.

Hollywood is great. I also think it's stupid and small-minded and shortsighted.

I don't know how to depict intelligence.

I like people that like to work the way that I like to work.

You can do something that walks a line, and invariably, whatever that line is, it will be crossed by people who don't know any better and want to ape the success.

And I love shooting football.

I always say everyone was lucky enough to be in a Cate Blanchett movie.

Every child is different. Every child responds in a different way.

I loved Luke Skywalker and I loved Darth Vader and I loved watching them work it out.

I have great appreciation for people who do anything well. I think that it's very difficult to do what you do well.

If you read the good reviews you gotta read the bad reviews. I kind of think of it as like being a quarterback: you get way too much blame when it's bad and way too much credit when it's good.

A movie is made for an audience and a film is made for both the audience and the film-makers.

There are some movies I can watch over and over, never get sick of.

Awards movies are normally sort of... life-affirming and noble. It's probably too much of an intellectual conceit and, you know, people don't like it when you don't lead the bad guy off in cuffs.

I learn the most from making my own mistakes.

It's a very American thing to hide away from death.

When you make the kind of movies I make, you get weird letters from people.

For a romantic comedy to be three hours long, that's longer than most marriages.