Quotes on Directors

My directors of photography light my films, but the colours of the sets, furnishings, clothes, hairstyles - that's me. Everything that's in front of the camera, I bring you.

No matter how much crap you gotta plow through to stay alive as a photographer, no matter how many bad assignments, bad days, bad clients, snotty subjects, obnoxious handlers, wigged-out art directors, technical disasters, failures of the mind, body, and will, all the shouldas, couldas, and wouldas that befuddle our brains and creep into our dreams, always remember to make room to shoot what you love. It's the only way to keep your heart beating as a photographer.

Vincent Gallo has put a curse on my colon and a hex on my prostate. He called me a 'fat pig' in the New York Post and told the New York Observer I have 'the physique of a slave-trader.' He is angry at me because I said his 'The Brown Bunny' was the worst movie in the history of the Cannes Film Festival... _x000D_ it is true that I am fat, but one day I will be thin, and he will still be the director of 'The Brown Bunny.'

We all steal, but if we're smart we steal from great directors. Then, we can call it influence.

You never know what you do that could be totally out of left field, which actually might work and give something fresh to the whole scene, to the character, whatever. If you have that with a director who then knows how to shape it, either in the direction, in the moment, or in the editing, then that's good.

When we say there's a dearth of women directors, it's not that there's a lack of women who direct: it's a lack of opportunities and access for women to direct and be supported in that.

Corporations are totalitarian institutions. Board of directors at the top of managers give orders, everyone follows orders..... At the very bottom of command, if you are lucky you can rent yourself to it and get a job , and if you are sufficiently propagandized you may even buy some of the junk they produce and so on.

The idea of making audiences feel like they matter, that the theatre matters, and that they're a partner in the event—that's what fuels me as a director . . . I believe it's actually radical to think about the audience.

Chekhov directors and Chekhov actors love working on his plays because there seems to be no end to what you can find out about the micro-narrative when you're investigating a text.

In the best of all possible worlds, directors would obsess about the quality of their storytelling, and not the details of their technical methods.

I would love to see more women directors because they represent half of the population and gave birth to the whole world. Without them the rest [of the world] are not getting to know the whole story.

Film’s thought of as a director’s medium because the director creates the end product that appears on the screen. It’s that stupid auteur theory again, that the director is the author of the film. But what does the director shoot-the telephone book? Writers became much more important when sound came in, but they’ve had to put up a valiant fight to get the credit they deserve.

The magic doesn't come from within the director's mind, it comes from within the hearts of the actors.

When an actor plays a scene exactly the way a director orders, it isn't acting. It's following instructions. Anyone with the physical qualifications can do that. So the director's task is just that – to direct, to point the way. Then the actor takes over. And he must be allowed the space, the freedom to express himself in the role. Without that space, an actor is no more than an unthinking robot with a chest-full of push-buttons.

In a rehearsal room, your real resource as an actor aren't the things around you; your resources are your imagination and your director and the other actors. In those close quarters, your imagination and your skills are what you turn to.

I know a lot of editors who are very bitter about the directors they work with. They feel they could have done a better job, and I say to them, 'Oh really? Why don't you go try - it's not easy.'

You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover is yourself.

Good directors don't answer questions with their work. They generate debate and create discussion.

Editing is not merely a method of the junction of separate scenes or pieces, but is a method that controls the 'psychological guidance' of the spectator.

Remember, success is a journey not a destination. Have faith in your ability. You will do just fine.

My filmmaking education consisted of finding out what filmmakers I liked were watching, then seeing those films. I learned the technical stuff from books and magazines, and with the new technology you can watch entire movies accompanied by audio commentary from the director. You can learn more from John Sturges' audio track on the 'Bad Day at Black Rock' laserdisc than you can in 20 years of film school. Film school is a complete con, because the information is there if you want it.