You don't make a film because the audience is ready for it. You make a film because you have questions that are in your gut.
Paul HaggisRead
Film is an emotional medium; it's not a logical medium. It's not an intellectual medium, so every decision you make as a filmmaker and an actor has to be emotional in some way, even in the rejection of logic.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Film should primarily evoke emotions rather than relying on logic or intellect.
Paul Haggis emphasizes that filmmaking is fundamentally about conveying emotions. He argues that decisions made in film should stem from emotional truths rather than logical reasoning, suggesting that the power of cinema lies in its ability to connect with the audience on an emotional level, often transcending rational thought.
Themes
FilmEmotionArtFilmmakingExpressionConnection
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a film studies class to discuss the importance of emotional storytelling in cinema.
More from Paul Haggis
All quotes →If there's magic in boxing, it's the magic of fighting battles beyond endurance, beyond cracked ribs, ruptured kidneys and detached retinas. It's the magic of risking everything for a dream that nobody sees but you.
Paul HaggisRead
Similar quotes
People on the outside think there's something magical about writing, that you go up in the attic at midnight and cast the bones and come down in the morning with a story, but it isn't like that. You sit in back of the typewriter and you work, and that's all there is to it.
Harlan EllisonRead
I started to write as a child as soon as I could read, or even before, when my mother read me Beatrix Potter at bedtime. Writing seemed to me to be the only sensible way to live and be happy.
Jane GardamRead
Very often people looking at my pictures say, 'You must have had to wait a long time to get that cloud just right (or that shadow, or the light).' As a matter of fact, I almost never wait, that is, unless I can see that the thing will be right in a few minutes. But if I must wait an hour for the shadow to move, or the light to change, or the cow to graze in the other direction, then I put up my camera and go on, knowing that I am likely to find three subjects just as good in the same hour.
Edward WestonRead
It is really so nice here-country-busy-busy with so many different kinds of things-... I must say I feel far away in another world here-... always we go to a new place...the people have a kind of gentleness that isn't usual on the mainland.
Georgia O'KeeffeRead
I know I'm not the greatest singer or dancer, but that doesn't interest me. I'm interested in being provocative and pushing people's buttons.
Madonna CicconeRead
and the sad notes floated out to the patio and hung in the trees like birds too tired to fly
Hunter S. ThompsonRead