Noah Baumbach Quotes & Sayings

I think sometimes bad behaviour can be liberating for certain people. They need to behave badly to find themselves - to go off path to find their path. You see it with kids all the time: They're testing boundaries, and I think that's healthy. — Noah Baumbach

I do like having books on my shelves. I do value that life. — Noah Baumbach

I think I was going through a lot of change at 27, but I didn't know it was happening until it was over. — Noah Baumbach

There was a telemarketing job one summer in high school that I was rejected for. I still walk by the building that I actually had the interview in. It's still in New York, and I always think about that job and why I didn't get it. — Noah Baumbach

I've run into more people walking in L.A. than if I drove. Because you stand out so much if you walk. People from my past have stopped their cars and said, 'Hey!' But if I was in a car, they never would've seen me. — Noah Baumbach

I thought at the time of my parents' divorce that I was upset by deeper, more profound things and I was just taking it out on the joint custody agreement. But that disruption was bad enough. That was a huge deal for a teenager. — Noah Baumbach

I don't like when you necessarily know that this is the end of the movie. I like when a movie ends abruptly. You go through this, and some of the scenes are uncomfortable, and some are funny - and then suddenly it's over. — Noah Baumbach

I think anxiety is dangerous, but it makes you think it's your friend. — Noah Baumbach

Truffaut loved Hitchcock. — Noah Baumbach

I can feel pretty critical of people, and I understand that sort of feeling of when you're going through something that's painful, taking it out on the world and projecting onto other people, finding faults with other people because it's harder to find faults in yourself. — Noah Baumbach

I'm a huge proponent of therapy and analysis, but it's something that, in a nonprofessional way, can be abused. — Noah Baumbach

I still carry the residue of the pressure I felt as a child to read and appreciate the right books. Growing up, I never allowed myself to read beach reading. I was always plowing through Ford Madox Ford's 'Good Solider' or something I wasn't equipped to understand. — Noah Baumbach

I didn't train in directing; I talk to actors the way I talk to anybody. — Noah Baumbach

I think I've always been drawn to the notion of talk as cinematic. — Noah Baumbach

I guess I'm interested in people who are very sophisticated in intellectual ways, while being completely off the mark in emotional ones, with these huge blind spots in terms of their own behavior. — Noah Baumbach

Adaptations are fun for me because they connect to the idea of filmmaking I had when I was a kid. I would see a movie and think: 'I'm gonna make that movie.' — Noah Baumbach

I call my wife and tell her I'm going to sleep at the lab. She reminds me that she left me a week ago. Louis tries to crack me up by pantomiming humping a chimp through the cage. — Noah Baumbach

I used to get up and write every day, even if I wasn't working on a specific thing. Now, when I have a thing I'm in the middle of, I do that, but when I'm not, time can go by when I'm not writing at all. — Noah Baumbach

I feel a real connection to Brooklyn, certainly, because I spent 20 years of my life there, but I don't think of myself as a Brooklyn artist any more than I think of myself as a male artist. — Noah Baumbach

Will Ferrell's made a lot of brilliant movies. — Noah Baumbach

Anyone who's putting money into your movie would always rather you cast well-known people. — Noah Baumbach

I grew up in the heat of '70s postmodern fiction and post-Godard films, and there was this idea that what mattered was the theory or meta in art. — Noah Baumbach

It's nice being friends over a period of time with people whose music you like so much, or other filmmakers, seeing people change, go through trials. — Noah Baumbach

When I make a movie, I have both a specific and vague, amorphous dream idea of what the movie is going to be. Of course, I don't actually know what it's going to be, but I'm still striving to get to some place with it. — Noah Baumbach

How you start the movie is critical. And how often you feel that there's no reason for how it's starting. — Noah Baumbach

I'm sure I've said some pretty bad pick-up lines. — Noah Baumbach

It's funny, I'm very analytical in my real life, but in terms of my films, I try to not analyze them at all and let things just go into them and let them be what they are. I mean, people ask me to this day what 'The Squid and the Whale' stood for, and I have no idea except that it's an exhibit in the Natural History Museum. — Noah Baumbach

Dance is a profession with an expiration date for many people. — Noah Baumbach

I love black-and-white movies that are about contemporary subjects. — Noah Baumbach

I get a lot of responses to my movies. Some people say, 'Oh, I thought it was really funny - I hope that's okay!' And my answer always is 'Yes. It's totally okay.' — Noah Baumbach

'The Squid and the Whale' I shot in 23 days. I would have loved more time for it at the time, but in some ways that kind of kamikaze way of shooting was right for that movie. — Noah Baumbach

It's kind of major, learning to drive. I feel like it kicked up other stuff in my life. — Noah Baumbach

To this day, I have people I might meet who will make assumptions about my life based on fictional elements of 'The Squid And The Whale.' But I think that's par for the course if you make something that feels kind of real. — Noah Baumbach

I think if we taped a lot of families that claim to be relatively normal, you'd be surprised when you hear some of the things said. — Noah Baumbach

I live in Manhattan now, because, in a way, it was my fantasy. — Noah Baumbach

It's always really special to be at the New York Film Festival, and always a real privilege. — Noah Baumbach

I like to try to shoot in the city in a way that allows the city to go about its business while we're shooting, and that's always a challenge because, unfortunately, people on the street don't know not to look in the camera or interact with the actors. — Noah Baumbach

Wes Anderson's films, 6-year-olds are crazy about them. — Noah Baumbach

I'm interested in music as an extension of character. — Noah Baumbach

When you're around your family, and you have that history and that shared language, you say things you'd be embarrassed to hear quoted back to you later. — Noah Baumbach

I've definitely been in situations where I could tell someone was interested in me, but I could tell they were insulting me in some passive/aggressive way, so I felt bad about myself at the same time. — Noah Baumbach

As a kid, I thought of myself as a funny person who secretly wanted to be serious, but now I think maybe I'm a serious person who secretly wants to be funny. — Noah Baumbach

I was late to the Knicks. My dad was a big fan. But I first started watching baseball; I became a Red Sox fan. My dad was a Mets fan. I wanted to have my own team and league. — Noah Baumbach

I think it's always interesting how music means different things to different people, and people who overthink it are looking to in some ways show off with music, versus people who just respond to a song and decide to sing it. — Noah Baumbach

I watch movies all the time, so it's hard to pick certain specific directors that have inspired me in the aggregate. — Noah Baumbach

I've always felt some kind of connection to people who are kind of over-smart. People who over-think things to the point of some sort of paralysis, and I think that certainly can be me on any given day. — Noah Baumbach

I'm curious how people build up the codes that they live their life by, and how they come to think that that's the best way for them to function. — Noah Baumbach

Being funny, in some ways, is about being connected to psychology. — Noah Baumbach

I really like my first movie a lot, 'Kicking and Screaming.' I think it's a - I'm very pleased and proud of that movie, but it wasn't the - it wasn't 'Citizen Kane' right out of the box, you know? It wasn't 'Sex, Lies and Videotape.' — Noah Baumbach

A lot of black-and-white films generally have a color version that will be used for TV. — Noah Baumbach

I'm good with a grill. I like to make cheeseburgers - I once read in a David Goodis crime novel that you're only supposed to flip a burger once. — Noah Baumbach

I like having associations with locations beyond their meaning for the specific movie. — Noah Baumbach

I don't know any writer of fiction who enjoys trying to point out or dissect whatever they produced with strangers and let them go through it and pick apart what's real and what isn't. — Noah Baumbach

I've had times in my life when I really haven't been able to figure myself out. — Noah Baumbach

'Frances Ha' is the closest final product to what I had in my head of any movie I've made. I'm not entirely even sure why that is. — Noah Baumbach

When I meet certain filmmakers, sometimes you sit down and you do have some kind of shorthand. It can be fun to see them as someone who has been through similar experiences, but also as someone who just loves film. You can talk with them about films in a way that feels really free. — Noah Baumbach

The real achievement of Woody Allen was that he was making movies that felt very personal, and for a whole group of people, it spoke to them. Then he became an archetype, like Groucho Marx or Chaplin. — Noah Baumbach

A film set becomes its own family anyway, and all family dynamics come out during a shoot. The trick is hiring people who know how to handle that. — Noah Baumbach

There are the people who overthink making mix CDs and playlists, and how that works generationally is all really interesting to me. — Noah Baumbach

I graduated in '91, so the '90s for me were very much the first years out of school, so I can't really look at that decade as independent of my own experience of my 20s, really. — Noah Baumbach

There is an isolated experience to being a director. It's very communal because there's a crew, but it's only you. You're the one on the hook. — Noah Baumbach

[Shwing] the really naked stuff I've dealt with in my own life, my own therapy and relationships - for me it just feels like a film I'm really proud of. — Noah Baumbach

I like shooting in New York because I have such a connection to the city. I have so many memories there. — Noah Baumbach

Peter Bogdanovich is a good friend. — Noah Baumbach

Other people have worked with big studios and maintained control over their movies. I see no reason why it wouldn't work for me. — Noah Baumbach

I like to have memories of a place. It brings something extra. I'm not even sure what it is. I mean, it's the same part of it as I like using friends in small parts or people I know or my doorman. — Noah Baumbach

I kind of live like a writer. I get up and I write. I've done that my whole life. — Noah Baumbach

There's always some generational-guys-hanging-out movie that is made every few years, I think, and some of them are great. — Noah Baumbach

I find a lot of writing happens when you're not actually at the computer. So I carry a notebook. — Noah Baumbach

I try to write 'and it's all very funny' after each scene description so that the reader can imagine the movie in their head. — Noah Baumbach

I think all my movies are about transitions to some degree. — Noah Baumbach

I'm interested in the way major events don't necessarily announce themselves as major events. They're often little things - the drip, drip of life that changes people or affects people. — Noah Baumbach

I made two movies very young, and then I had trouble getting a movie made, and so - which was both, I think, a plus and a minus. It was a minus because it made me unhappy. — Noah Baumbach

Friends of friends had bands in college or in their early 20s and had a moment where they had some kind of interest from a record label or manager. It's always interesting how people handle those decisions and those moments. — Noah Baumbach

Even fairly serious moviegoers can't shake this shadow of the corporate world. — Noah Baumbach

Manhattan is so tailored. It's driven by appealing to the very wealthy and tourists. — Noah Baumbach

Defining yourself by your taste is easier than defining yourself by any genuine stance on something. — Noah Baumbach

I don't agree with the idea that my characters are unlikeable. — Noah Baumbach

I like the way corduroys feel. I like the sort of jean aspect of corduroys, but also the texture of them. They probably remind me of my childhood, too, I think. I wore cords, and my dad had a corduroy jacket. — Noah Baumbach

I try to procrastinate, if I can, productively, like I'll work on something else as procrastination. Or I take a walk. Because often I find, if you get out, more things come to you. — Noah Baumbach

It's near impossible to make a movie in black and white in the system. — Noah Baumbach

With 'Greenberg,' I wanted to make a movie about Los Angeles ... my great love for it and also the way that I felt not at home and alienated there. — Noah Baumbach

Woody Allen's movies are so much a part of me. I grew up watching them over and over and would read all his comic pieces for the New Yorker. In some ways, his influence is so much there that I can't even locate it any more. — Noah Baumbach

When you find yourself on the Internet when you're supposed to be writing, you've already lost. It's even beyond procrastination when you end up on the Internet. — Noah Baumbach

When I'm editing, I tend to cut, go back over it, cut, go back over it, cut, so by the time I'm done, even with a cut, I don't have a rough cut and then work on it so much. I have a pretty rigorous cut of the movie that's usually in the range of what the final movie is going to be. It doesn't mean I don't work on it a lot after that, but I get it into a shape so I feel I can really tell what it needs, or at least it's ready to show people. — Noah Baumbach

Many of the crew members I work with and continue to work with were friends or have become close friends, and so we keep working together. And I like casting friends of mine or people I know in parts I know would be perfect for them. I like to bring things and people that mean something to me in to my work. — Noah Baumbach

I know people who are incredibly successful who still dress the way they did when they were 18, just because they still think that's how they look good. — Noah Baumbach

I read all the time. Sometimes I get asked if I've thought about writing a novel. — Noah Baumbach

I've had great experiences or joyful experiences making a movie that people found very disturbing. — Noah Baumbach

It's going to start really interfering with your quality of life, your health, if you don't adjust to life as it's happening to you. — Noah Baumbach

I've always liked working with friends or, you know, people I have outside relationships with. — Noah Baumbach

When I start a movie, there will be certain films that I watch again just because the vibe seems right. — Noah Baumbach

I always viewed life as material for a movie. — Noah Baumbach

My dad was a great movie companion. He wouldn't diminish 'The Jerk.' If I liked it, he liked it. He could see it through my eyes. — Noah Baumbach

I suppose some studio executive would say it's death for a comedy if people aren't all laughing in the same places, but I find with my movies that people laugh in very different places. I can't control it. — Noah Baumbach

I wouldn't say 'Frances Ha' is autobiographical, but it's definitely very personal. — Noah Baumbach

We all have these notions of cool that come about at different points in our lives, and it's interesting in how it evolves or doesn't evolve in different people. — Noah Baumbach

When I was a kid, I would fantasize about my own funeral. — Noah Baumbach

Music is like color or acting or whatever. It's really something I think about from the beginning. Not that I always know exactly what I'm going to use, but I don't see it as something like, "Let's find some songs now!" after we have a finished film. — Noah Baumbach

Being articulate, my parents could make anything sound reasonable. — Noah Baumbach