Film Quotes

With a book you can read the same paragraph four times. You can go back to page 21 when you're on page 300. You can't do that with film. It just charges ahead.

The more film I watch, the more John Ford looks like a giant. His politics aren't so good, and you have to learn to accept John Wayne as an actor, but he's a poet in black and white.

Good films demand to be looked at several times in order to be observed completely.

It can take a long time for some people to find out how to ground themselves, and film sets are an odd atmosphere to do it in - especially if, like me, you finished school early.

You really have to keep people interested, at all times, until the punch comes. You can do that with a film that lasts 90 to 100 minutes. That's very difficult to do at 160 minutes.

There's not much of a difference shooting something for TV and shooting something for film; the difference is film is in a cinema and TV is in your home.

I got paid 20 grand for my first film. And that's the lowest I ever got paid.

I sit every once in a while and I think about plays and films I can do with William Petersen into our eighties. He's the most incredible scene partner I've ever had.

Film, as any immigrant will tell you, television and movies is the way we make sense of America when we first got here.

As a filmmaker, I make the films that I love, that are in my heart. That's what I care about.

How can I make a movie about the violence of the police if the police aren't going to let me film it?

The stage is suspension of disbelief. Film is a literal medium.

Pretty much all films I've seen that depict the life of Christ end with the Crucifixion, almost like the filmmakers don't know what to do after.

But it's a strange thing when people judge you because you're not doing some big Hollywood film. Are you suggesting I should be in The Dukes of Hazzard? I mean, hello?

Tom [Cruise] is a great producer himself. He's got great sense of story. It's always great to have the perspective of the person who's playing the character in your film.

I'd like to have the script in a much better place from day one of shooting, rather than trying to continue to work on it while you shoot it. I think those are lessons you learn on any film.

I think that while you're making the film it's important to just keep your eye on the ball and make the best movie you can, and then realize that it's out of your control.

Any film is a collaborative process, you've got thousands and thousands of people working on it.

I don't really think about film or television or going directly to the internet. I just think about doing something that people are going to get excited about.

As a filmmaker, I've had films that over-achieved and I've had films that under-achieved. You always go in trying to do your very best.

What's better these days, television or film? It's a dead heat. In fact, one could argue for television with more regularity.

One important thing, just being a film composer in general, is to have a great respect for the art that you're working on - a great respect for the film and a great respect for the filmmakers.

That's what I love about film scoring. Every situation is new. Every show is a new adventure.

What I love about film scoring is that all the answers are in the story. You just need to get in tune with the story and realize it musically.

You have to know that your collaborators want you to make the movie that you want. Don't back down because you think it's nice to them. You need to have the film be the way that you want it.

The biggest challenge for me in every film is believing that what I have to say is important enough to have lots of people collaborate to make a whole movie. I work on this belief every day.

The films I find boring are the ones that have no space for the audience's misconceptions.

Truthfully, my films don't get funded, they get adopted - and are made thanks to the generosity of others.

I'm very happy to be involved with great filmmakers.

You know, honestly, acting in film is remarkably independent. You're doing your thing and someone else is doing their thing.

I just want to make good films on my own wherever I can.

I get bored with the same old film coming out every weekend. It feels like it's the same story all the time, and the same visuals, and the characters' dilemmas are remarkably similar.

There are some films that really break the mold, and some films that don't. I've been looking for films that break the mold a bit.

I'm not limited by genre and it doesn't really matter what the genre is as long as the film is going to be new and have some real artistic integrity.

X-Men films have always been big, and necessarily so, because of the stories they have to tell.

I'd been a fanatic of movies since I was a wee lad, so I got into the films before I got into the comics.

I love acting, every job is a dream job when you're an actor. I'd like to do eventually more film work and to collaborate with the best actors and directors in film.

Each film is difficult, in its own particular way. There's a unique set of challenges on every movie.

In writing scripts now, having made a film, I'm much more conscious of what it means to shoot and edit a movie, and that affects the writing.

I would never make an artwork that I wouldn't want to make forever. Wouldn't you want to make Trash Humpers [Korine's 2009 film] forever?

Independent films are really one of the greatest resources these days to actually find unfiltered truth.

Music plays a huge role in the movie. The music in Star Wars, I can't imagine what the movie would have been like without it. It made the film.

I ultimately have faith though, that good films will find their audience.

So the fact that the first movie about Steve Jobs was made by a guy who was completely entrepreneurial and outside the film industry, I think is very appropriate.

When you're making a film, you have an obligation to fill the frame with life.

I've seen [Trump] appear in a film or a TV show cameo or the tabloids, and he's a grotesquely distasteful human being and always has been, always made me want to take a shower.

I've always said that if anything - whether it was film or television - was something I responded to, then I was open to it.

I love magazines and film critics, so I eat it up. I'm not one of those people who says 'I never read anything.' I generally read all of it.

The only film I ever made for money was something called Music From Another Room, which I really didn't like.

I would love to produce a film. I have written a script and am in the process of writing another, so maybe it will happen down the road. I would love to do a film in Africa.