Costa-Gavras Quotes & Sayings

We don't live in Disneyland. We live in blood and in time, not in Fantasyland. We live in a tragic world. — Costa-Gavras

This crisis started probably due to the freedom they gave to the banks. First President [Ronald] Reagan and then President [Bill] Clinton. So, for [Barack] Obama it is extremely difficult to change now, to find a way to organize this banking system [differently]. — Costa-Gavras

I saw money becoming more and more important everywhere. It's one of the most abstract and important inventions by human beings. At the same time, money is capable of extraordinary corruption in every kind of relationship. I tried to see how and why, more and more, money is becoming a religion. — Costa-Gavras

My life in Greece influenced what I am. My father was in the left because he was against the king and his family, who had created a war against the Turks at the beginning of the last century to revive the Byzantine Empire. For three years, there was fighting, and all my father's friends died. So he hated the royal family. — Costa-Gavras

Aggressive capitalism leads the world, and we can see the results, especially in Europe: more poverty for the vast majority, and more riches for a few. — Costa-Gavras

The American influence is not so aggressive anymore. The American big business influence in Latin America is not as strong, so people can vote and they can have a different life than before. They can have more liberal, more interesting, and more democratic governments. — Costa-Gavras

In the U.S., some extraordinary movies have been made on politics and social issues. We learned lots of things from American cinema. But in the last ten or fifteen years, this has changed drastically. Today, that kind of movie is much easier to make in Europe. — Costa-Gavras

I decided to go to the cinema school because I thought it was a new sort of media. Nowadays, it's not anymore, but in the '50s, cinema had a half century of age. Today it's more than one century. I thought it was a new media, a new way of telling stories. — Costa-Gavras

We saw what happens with Bolsheviks. It was another catastrophe. I don't have the solution. The moviemaker can ask questions but not give solutions. — Costa-Gavras

Essentially, filmmakers have to be free and not directed by power or politicians. — Costa-Gavras

Every morning you have the economic news from all over the world, from television, radio, the Internet, and an hour later the news changes and the numbers change. People run fast from one place to another, which is very risky because they don't have enough time to think. — Costa-Gavras

You know every time you change a decade, it's a problem, because you approach the end little by little. But my decision is to keep going. The problem is always to know when the head doesn't work well. Someone has to tell you. I hope my children will tell me. — Costa-Gavras

In the U.S. more than any other place, the banking system is insane. Millions of Americans lost their houses. Because of what? Because of the banking system. This American banking system is also coming to Europe. We can say today that the banks and high financiers run the world. — Costa-Gavras

Cinema has changed the world. If you go to the beginning of the cinema, you can see that the world started meeting other worlds. It was extraordinary. We saw how other people were living and thinking. How they were sad or happy. We also saw the body - naked or half-naked people, which was prohibited everywhere by religions. This was extremely important. — Costa-Gavras

Many years ago making movies was something. It was the major entertainment just to go to the cinema, once, twice a week. At the time, something like 400 million people went to the movies. — Costa-Gavras

[Akiro] Kurosawa, no doubt, was a big influence. Movies sometimes more than directors have influenced me: The Grapes of Wrath, by John Ford, was an extraordinary discovery. Sergei Eisenstein, of course. Later on, [Ingmar] Bergman. — Costa-Gavras

Sometimes there are leftwing governments I'm very critical of. For me, being leftwing is to live in a society where there's permanent change. It also means to respect the freedom of everybody, and to not accept big organizations or rich, powerful people holding power. — Costa-Gavras

People say "the Americans" or "the United States," as if it was a kind of bloc. It's not. There's a lot of people thinking differently from other people in the U.S. This is very interesting to me and very important. — Costa-Gavras

Technology is an extension of our hands and our feet, not our spirit. — Costa-Gavras

Every time you have a crisis in a country you have an extreme wing coming up and proposing solutions. The way to fight them is by doing lots of work teaching people that every time these fascist systems gained power they ended up with big tragedies - lots of blood, lots of police, and lots of misery. — Costa-Gavras

I initially studied literature [in France], and then I went to cinema school. I discovered the Cinematheque, and saw not only action movies and westerns, but also lots of serious movies. — Costa-Gavras