Quotes on Film

The only thing I really wanted was the freedom to be able to get what I want on film. I’ve dealt with the MPAA since 1973, so I know how to renegotiate and rework.

More and more people are seeing the films on computers - lousy sound, lousy picture - and they think they've seen the film, but they really haven't.

Imagine that we are sitting in an ordinary room. Suddenly we are told that there is a corpse behind the door. In an instant the room we are sitting in is completely altered; everything in it has taken on another look; the light, the atmosphere have changed, though they are physically the same. This is because we have changed and the objects are as we conceive them. That is the effect I want to get in my film.

I often make films about subjects I don't really know much about. Maybe it's laziness, but I don't go in there having done a tonne of research; the research happens while I'm making the film.

My wife comes with me on all the movies, but she is not an appendage to a film star or anything like that. She is a completely intertwined partner. She is the other half of me. Also, we're still very much in love with each other. We always have been, we always will be.

When I am shooting a film I never think of how I want to shoot something; I simply shoot it.

You don't merely give over your creativity to making a film - you give over your life! In theatre, by contrast, you live these two rather strange lives simultaneously; you have no option but to confront the mould on last night's washing-up.

To me, bad taste is what entertainment is all about. If someone vomits while watching one of my films, it's like getting a standing ovation. But one must remember that there is such a thing as good bad taste and bad bad taste.

Because of how much movies cost, it's dangerous to be experimental on one film after the other. But we can experiment with television. We can do things that are fringe and bring ideas to the table that are offbeat and original.

Please join me in applauding the ESA - European Space Agency’s historic efforts with the Rosetta Mission and landing a spacecraft on rotating comet. It may seem like a work of fiction, but it is very real, very impressive, and will help us to further uncover the mysteries surrounding the formation of the solar system. They made a beautiful short film using an imaginary landscape to illustrate today’s historic feat.

I think of Ray Harryhausen's work - I knew his name before I knew any actor or director's names. His films had an impact on me very early on, probably even more than Disney. I think that's what made me interested in animation: His work.

I think producers are more interested in backing concepts than directors and writers. I don't think that's the right way of making a decision about whether you're going to back a film or not.

I do not know if it has ever been noted before that one of the main characteristics of life is discreteness. Unless a film of flesh envelopes us, we die. Man exists only insofar as he is separated from his surroundings. The cranium is a space-traveler's helmet. Stay inside or you perish. Death is divestment, death is communion. It may be wonderful to mix with the landscape, but to do so is the end of the tender ego.

No - Kajol can never go anywhere. Kajol is absolutely hearts and minds and memories and silloys for ever and ever. I think if I was to, I wouldn't be exaggerating I if say in our times of film-making she's a beautiful living legend.

The main thing that I learned from editing is that most people, when they're making a film, they start too early into the story. They will try to set up the characters, they will try to establish things before the plot actually starts.

I loved doing 'Pennies from Heaven.' Because you have to understand that I'd been doing comedy for 15 to 20 years, and suddenly along came the opportunity to do this beautiful film. It was so emotional to me. I loved it. I don't think it was a good career move, but I have no regrets about doing it.

You can't intellectually purge yourself of who you are. Whatever that is, it's going to come out in the wash, the film wash. What you are is going to be relevant, if not to yourself, to the movies you make.

I'm tempted to say, 'Writing treatments is like designing a film by hiring six million monkeys to tear out pages of an encyclopedia, then you put the pages through a paper-shredder, randomly grab whatever intact lines are left, sing them in Italian to a Spanish deaf-mute, and then make story decisions with the guy via conference call.' But no... compared to writing treatments, that makes sense, too.

"Dirty Love" wasn't written and directed, it was committed. Here is a film so pitiful, it doesn't rise to the level of badness. It is hopelessly incompetent... I am not certain that anyone involved has ever seen a movie, or knows what one is.

Every great film should seem new every time you see it.

Am I nostalgic for film? … I mean, it’s had a good run, hasn’t it? You know, I’m not nostalgic for a technology. I’m nostalgic for the kind of films that used to be made that aren’t being made now.