Explore Quotes by John Frankenheimer

The importance of the assistant director cannot be overemphasized.

I think that you can't make a movie without a script. But you also can't make movies without actors. You also can't make movies without technicians. And there has to be just one person in charge of everybody, and to me that one person is the director.

I really, really love directing films.

First, speaking for myself, I don't want to ever be in a position where I'm telling other directors how to make movies, because I don't think it's any of my business.

A disk unbeknownst to the director can go to the producer in another city or in another office and that producer can edit behind the director's back much easier than in the old days. Since these dailies are now put on videotape, more kinds of people have access to dailies.

It's very eclectic, the way one chooses subjects in the movie business, especially in the commercial movie business. You need to develop material yourself or material is presented to you as an assignment to direct.

There are two things I will never do in my life. I will never climb Mount Everest, and I will never work with Val Kilmer again. There isn't enough money in the world.

To do that I try and keep myself in pretty good shape physically and I try to lead my life in such a way that I'll be able to be as strong at the end of the movie as I am in the beginning.

There are so many effects and so many things that are done digitally now that it's so hard for the director to really control the process, because there are more and more experts that come in.

The first thing I can really tell you is I really love the work.

One of the first lessons you learn as an actor is to listen.

I think I've made some pretty decent films in the '80s and '90s.

I mean, this whole digital revolution is really eroding the director's importance on a movie because, number one, just from a practical standpoint, with floppy disks and the ability to put all of the film onto a disk, more people have access to the movie.

I have gotten to a point in my life where I don't want to have dinner with someone I don't like.

But I really am very active in the choice of the line producer with the producer of record and the distributing company, because I've had some terrible, terrible experiences with some line producers, particularly in cable.

I think all great actors - and I don't classify myself as one of them, incidentally - but I think all great actors listen well and I've learned that from a lot of the very good actors with whom I've worked - to really listen to what people say.

You have to really work with someone who you think is going to be a collaborator, who you think understands what you want to do with this movie and how you want to do it.

Then I usually leave the choice of the second assistant director and any other assistant directors to the first assistant director, who will choose because he or she is responsible for the conduct and the efficiency of the second assistant directors.

So I've had really great assistant directors for my last seven movies.

If you don't cast well, you can be in real trouble.

I've found that the more experts you have on a movie, the less control the director has.