Quotes on Filmmaker

Lots of people have criticized my movies, but nobody has ever identified the real problem: I'm a sloppy filmmaker.

I'd have been a filmmaker or a cartoonist or something else which extended from the visual arts into the making of narratives if I hadn't been able to shift into fiction.

To be a film-maker, you are almost forced to be surrounded by contradictions... You must have talents of so many different kinds - talents that are contradictory.

Movies become living organisms that graduate from a filmmaker's sphere of influence and pretty much look back and tell you how they need to be said goodbye to. A movie often turns around and looks at you and says, "Here is who I am, and that's maybe now how you see me, but that's who I've become." And you've got to be open enough to go with that.

A day without laughter is a day wasted.

When everything is added up, the frequent blows weighted against the sporadic triumphs, this is I have to say not just a vocation, it's a great gift. But you also know this, for your work, for your passion, every day is a rededication. Painters, dancers, actors, writers, filmmakers. It's the same for all of you, all of us. Every step is a first step. Every brush stroke is a test. Every scene is a lesson. Every shot is a school. So, let the learning continue.

Maybe, as a Chinese woman, I was never told I would be a filmmaker, so I didn't have the ego set up.

You don't go make 'Schizopolis' if you're trying to protect some idea of yourself as a filmmaker.

A dream is a wish your heart makes, when you're fast asleep.

People have forgotten how to tell a story. Stories don't have a middle or an end any more. They usually have a beginning that never stops beginning.

It's not a filmmaker's job to explain his technique but to tell his story the best way he can.

If there's specific resistance to women making movies, I just choose to ignore that as an obstacle for two reasons: I can't change my gender, and I refuse to stop making movies.

People have forgotten how to tell a story.

When a filmmaker does not make films it is as if he is jailed. Even when he is freed from the small jail, he finds himself wandering in a larger jail. The main question is: Why should it be a crime to make a movie? A finished film, well, it can get banned but not the director.

Miss the audience's heart as a filmmaker, and the only wallet that gets hit will be your own. That's because the heart is always the first target in story telling.

A film is - or should be - more like music than like fiction.

A man should never neglect his family for business.

I'm a storyteller - that's the chief function of a director. And they're moving pictures, let's make 'em move!

I think audiences get too comfortable and familiar in today's movies. They believe everything they're hearing and seeing. I like to shake that up.

Movies took you right up to the edge but kept you safe.

A Director Makes Only One Movie in His Life. Then He Breaks It Into Pieces and Makes It Again.