Directors Quotes

“I look at the world and I see absurdity all around me. People do strange things constantly, to the point that, for the most part, we manage not to see it.”
― David Lynch

“That's the greatest sin a director can commit; to make a film simply because he wants to make a film.”
― Krzysztof Kieślowski, Kieslowski on Kieslowski

“That's what I love most about writers--they're such lousy actors.”
― Vincent H. O'Neil, Death Troupe

“Morris Weissman [on the phone, discussing casting for his movie]: "What about Claudette Colbert? She's British, isn't she? She sounds British. Is she, like, affected or is she British?”
― Julian Fellowes, Gosford Park: The Shooting Script

“One of the common themes you will read in interview after interview is the call to keep fighting for your vision. This is a message to women directors, producers, writers—anyone who wants to work in the business. Your voice counts. Your vision matters.”
― Melissa Silverstein, In Her Voice: Women Directors Talk Directing

“Edward finds Elinor crying for her dead father, offers her his handkerchief and their love story commences. Ang [Lee] very anxious that we think about what we want to do. I'm very anxious not to do anything and certainly not to think about it.”
― Emma Thompson, The Sense and Sensibility Screenplay and Diaries: Bringing Jane Austen's Novel to Film

“A great director gives life to a work of art- gives it a heartbeat... a pulse... opens its eyes to the world.”
― Adrienne Posey

“Filmmaking isn’t if you can just strap on a camera onto an actor, and steadicam, and point it at their face, and follow them through the movie, that is not what moviemaking is, that is not what it’s about. It’s not just about getting a performance. It’s also about the psychology of the cinematic moment, and the psychology of the presentation of that, of that window.”
― David Fincher

“Making a movie is like building a watch because a watch is so small and you only can fit so many things inside it that all the pieces really do need to work together.”
― William Eubank

“Wednesdays are for writers, and directors, and actors. Wednesdays are for creating art, and poetry, and poetry in motion. Wednesdays are for protest, and rebellion, and artivism. Wednesdays, are for words from my notebook.”
― N'Zuri Za Austin

“A CEO is a board of directors personified.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Even lizard + baby can be director.”
― Robert Robert, Orijjjjjjice

“What are they doing, examining last month's costs with a microscope when they should be surveying the horizon with a telescope?

[Acerbic comment about directors of Brunner Mond, where he worked.]”
― Francis Arthur Freeth

“Yeni Türk Sineması olarak adlandırılan döneme kadar sinemada romantik (ya da devrimci romantik) anlatılanların dekoru olmaktan kurtulamayan taşra, Kasaba'da ilk kez seyirciyle konuşmaya başladı.”
― Ayşe Pay

“Gilles Deleuze, sinemada anlatıyı hareket-imgeye dayalı organik öyküleme ve zaman-imgeye dayanan kristal öyküleme olmak üzere ikiye ayırır. Karakterlerin karşılaştıkları olaylara tepki göstermesi yahut bizzat olayları tetikleyecek eylemlerde bulunmasını temel alan organik öykülemenin karşısında, karakterin sadece dünyanın görüntüleri dışarıdan seyreden bir “tanık” olduğu, saf görsel-sessel durumlara dayanan kristal öyküleme bulunur.”
― Ayşe Pay, Yönetmen Sineması: Nuri Bİlge Ceylan

“(Stanley Kubrick) worked more like an essayist than a director.”
― Emilio D'Alessandro, Stanley Kubrick and Me: Thirty Years at His Side

“Prodigious Preproduction Planning Prevents Piss-Poor Postproduction.”
― Ronald Petrie

“Unfortunately, the board of directors that the middle managers report to generally make them aggressive. Imagine being hired into a company and then being told that you have to ignore the emerging health and safety issues (This is illegal!) and not inform the workers that the system is known to be dangerous (This is illegal!). You have two options: To go to jail for illegal activities sometime in the future, or to lose your job now and have all your USA workplace rights removed for recognizing the illegal activities that your Directors want you to engage in. Welcome to the corporate America management team!”
― Steven Magee

“I feel like flying when I take my drone out into the desert or over the tall skyscrapers in the UAE (Dubai) to capture beautiful imagery.”
― NasserTone

“I hate company parties due to having to mingle with the management team!!!”
― Steven Magee

“The biggest takeaway from my long-distance relationship with Floyd Byars was that I optioned an original screenplay he had co-written with his writing partner, Laurie.
Another takeaway was a case of crabs picked up on our only vacation together in Zihuatanejo, Mexico.
I noticed a crab in my eyelashes when I was in the airplane bathroom on my way back to JFK. I feared these little critters might be other places as well, so I spent the next four hours squirming in my seat, itchy and miserable. On the taxi ride home, I made the driver stop at an all-night pharmacy so I could buy a bottle of Kwell.
But despite the footsies and the crabs, I liked the premise of his (their) Making Mr. Right script.”
― Susan Seidelman, Desperately Seeking Something: A Memoir About Movies, Mothers, and Material Girls

“Regarding Clint’s methods (as a director), he was a very impatient man who doesn’t really plan his pictures or do any homework, truthfully. He figures he can go right in and sail right through these things. Clint was just as impatient as an actor, especially in an action picture when directing himself. For example, Clint was always blowing his lines. It’s very hard for him to say more than four lines consecutively.

And no matter if Clint forgot his lines, he would insist that the camera pick up the dialogue just where he had left off, without going back and starting the lines over. It was the cameraman’s problem to choose different angles and make the pickups, or transitions, work. Notorious for doing his acting scenes with multiple pickups, Clint had an ironclad belief that everything could be fixed in the editing room. Nobody among his fans would notice the incongruities.”
― Patrick McGilligan, Clint: The Life and Legend

“I will never win an Oscar and do you know why?" Clint liked to aver. "Because I’m not Jewish.”
― Patrick McGilligan, Clint: The Life and Legend