Bruno Dumont Quotes & Sayings

I don't watch my own past films: when I watch them, I find they don't work very well, because I have changed. If I continue to make films, in fact, it is because I always want to repair my films. My inner rhythm has changed; I have changed. I have changed my way to film. — Bruno Dumont

My life is existing. Cinema is certainly not my life — Bruno Dumont

I feel I have a political duty to reach out to the general public. I want to make films that the people want to see. So if the people want to see Johnny Depp or Tom Cruise, then it is really my job to incorporate them into my films. — Bruno Dumont

Your relationship to a film, and to cinema, is very much determined by yourself, so what is relevant is you. — Bruno Dumont

To retain his dignity, an artist must live in opposition. He must be critical of his country. If not, then he is worthless. — Bruno Dumont

Cinema is made to film material: the body. By filming the material, the mechanical, the worker, we arrive at the spiritual. — Bruno Dumont

Good and evil are polar concepts - one can't exist without the other. — Bruno Dumont

No movie can claim to be a work of philosophy. They fulfill a totally different need in people. — Bruno Dumont

The battle between two men over a girl is the same as the fight for two men over a piece of land. It is all about desire. There is no difference between a love triangle and the conflict between Israel and Palestine. — Bruno Dumont

My thinking was that today's spectator is so well-versed in film language that all theories about suspense, as argued by Dreyer and Hitchcock, on what makes you scared in cinema, can be ditched. It's the spectator, finally, who's going to construct the menace and the fear. — Bruno Dumont

There's a longstanding myth about the United States that is still very prevalent in Europe [despite recent developments]. Historically the "America" of this myth is an incredible human adventure and an experiment in political democracy. But at the same time, or so we're told, it's the land of extremes where the worst can happen. — Bruno Dumont

The people follow what the media say. So if you said that Bruno Dumont is fantastic, it follows that more people would go to see my films. I have no wish to remain on the sidelines. I have no wish to make films that are only seen by bohemians in London and Paris. — Bruno Dumont

For working with non-professional actors, you have to have this particular desire to work with people who are reluctant to play in a movie. I like this relationship. I'm like a recruiter, an employment agency giving someone employment. — Bruno Dumont

There is no god. I am an atheist. It is up to us to become God. We need to be elevated, to become saints. God alienates people from themselves. — Bruno Dumont

I'm not Catholic. I don't believe in God. But at the same time, I'm obsessed by the sacred, by spirituality. The question of redemption has been present well before Christianity, but as French people are a bit stupid, they see all that in religious terms. — Bruno Dumont

An actor is an instrument. One needs to control them. — Bruno Dumont

Cinema is all about going back from shadow to light and back and forth: cinema is a place of transgression. — Bruno Dumont

I don't want actors to know anything. The more they are lost, the better they play. — Bruno Dumont

I think that the cinema is a physical thing. What I'm looking for is creating a physical shock with the audience. I don't care of the meaning. I don't care of the idea. I don't want to say something. I want to make a 'shock physique.' — Bruno Dumont

The more elaborate your narrative, the more the spectator shuts up and listens obediently. And if the filmmaker keeps quiet, the spectator will himself project his own assumptions and sentiments onto the screen. — Bruno Dumont

I like the idea of challenging Hollywood on its own turf. It's important to do that. — Bruno Dumont

Hollywood films are alienating to the spectator because they use too much dialogue, too much explication and leave no space for the viewer. They depress me. — Bruno Dumont

I think there's not a lot of real filmmakers. There are only a few people who make real cinema. I can count them on my fingers. — Bruno Dumont

The United States is such a potent political, cultural, and economic model in the evocation of the contemporary world, that to come here, select some elements from the prototype and rearrange them, that's really interesting artistically. — Bruno Dumont

Each role demands the right actor. To play an artist, one must be an artist. — Bruno Dumont

Cinema is my religion. It is a way to make people sensitive, through emotions. To make them feel, experience empathy. People are touched and act ethically when they are emotionally touched. — Bruno Dumont

The actor already comes with emotions to the scene: fear, the fear of being in front of the camera. It is this fear that spurs the emotion of the scene. I too am afraid; I don't know exactly what I am searching for. On the set, we are all participating in this fear together. — Bruno Dumont

Cinema builds memories; great films continue to exist in the spectator's mind. We are naturally capable of and prone to nostalgia. A spectator will reconstruct a film he or she has seen, years later, and may even change their original opinion. One critic, for example, once gave the finger to one of my films; later he wrote me to apologize. — Bruno Dumont

Personally, I don't give a toss about French viewers. I make films for foreigners - it's a bit like Ken Loach, who's not very popular in England but has had a lot of success in France. Cinema is always an experience in a foreign body. — Bruno Dumont

Matching character and actor is what a good director does. — Bruno Dumont

The landscape is a reflection of the inner life. Since I can't shoot the inner life, all I can shoot is the exterior but I know that when I'm filming outside, I'm filming inside. I can only really touch the inside through the mise-en-scene. So through the mise-en-scene of the outside we can explore the inside — Bruno Dumont

Sex becomes violent when you eliminate all the sentiments ... voila, it gets crude. — Bruno Dumont

When you make movies, you have to be preoccupied with the social problems, otherwise there is no point in making a movie. To have a story, you need a social problem. Not necessarily a problem, but something to get the idea for a story, otherwise there's no story. — Bruno Dumont

You can't go further than being naked. — Bruno Dumont

You can't create a movie as you think about it. And what's in the scene is not what's being seen. A shot always means something other than what it is. All are vehicles. A landscape is just a vehicle. The viewer might think different things, and I'm not going to intervene. — Bruno Dumont

Women exist in my imagination. So they are necessarily a type of abstraction. Many women criticise me for this vision, but I explain to them it's to be expected, because I am a man. — Bruno Dumont

Sound creates an intimate effect: the sensation to feel the place. It makes the viewer enter. You have the liberty to hear what you want. — Bruno Dumont