Desplechin Quotes & Sayings

There is rap music in all my films. In 'La Vie des Morts,' there is rap music too. It's because I'm French, and when it appeared in 1978, it was so new, it set off my musical imagination. — Arnaud Desplechin

I hate this idea in the Cinematheque that you must watch silent movies with no music, like it's a piece of art. It's not true. — Arnaud Desplechin

I love some films with very silent characters, people who don't speak, but I wouldn't be able to do that. — Arnaud Desplechin

Arnaud Desplechin invented me as an actor. I never imagined I'd be acting in movies. — Mathieu Amalric

It's hard work to find your own voice and not to copycat anything. — Arnaud Desplechin

I guess that in this process of trying to incorporate or to be faithful to the films I admire so much, that's how I start to find my own voice. The admiration I have for filmmakers, this gratitude, perhaps that's my only way to become specific. — Arnaud Desplechin

Deliverance is about what I went through the first time. And I chalk it up as a learning experience. — Bubba Sparxxx

I remember the first time I read Freud, I was 25 or 30, and I was expecting it to be about the Oedipus complex. But what I actually discovered confirmed my own common experience, that you also had little boys who loved their fathers and little girls who loved their mothers. — Arnaud Desplechin

One dies the way he lives. — Alireza Salehi Nejad

You can't even communicate in English. Real life is not a series of levels. — Sophie Kinsella

Being an actor only came about because Arnaud Desplechin, the guy who did 'Kings and Queen', had this curious idea to think that I could be an actor, but I had never acted before, and I was supposed to direct my own film! — Mathieu Amalric

Usually in France we prefer to say bad things about the Nouvelle Vague, but I'm always impressed with its freedom and the fact of not making a film to give your opinion but just as a piece of art, which to me means the Nouvelle Vague. — Arnaud Desplechin

I never rehearse scenes with the whole ensemble, because I need to preserve some surprise. Instead, I work with the cast individually on their characters. — Arnaud Desplechin

Crowds have one expression, cruel and fixed. You let yourself be trapped by a look. You let yourself be carried off and shut away in a place of silence. There your eyes may be ripped out, your tongue cut off, and your fingers hammered until the little bones splinter. The walls are splashed with thick clots of blood. Words are the worst kind of dog, they drag us along despite ourselves to somewhere we didn't want to go, they obsess us, they don't let us have a moment's rest, a moment's rest.

But before that? Before that is another place altogether. Memory blanks things out methodically. It has several floors, sealed off from one another and there is no passage joining them. One of them is hell. When you fall in, at the very instant you lose your footing, you forget everything, even what light is like. But once you are back in the world you retain only a faint memory of being shut up. It resonates like the dull echo of pain. — Marie Desplechin

I think one of the most important American films is 'Jackie Brown,' which is such a humble depiction of humble characters but so powerful. The film was pure depiction of the American poverty of the '90s. — Arnaud Desplechin

If prosperity means God wants us to be blessed and healthy and have good relationships then yes, I'm a prosperity teacher. But if it's about money, no, I never preach about money. I probably stay away from it more than normal because televangelists get a bad name. People put me in that category because I do believe that God does want us to be happy, healthy, and whole. — Joel Osteen

Each time I'm starting to work on a film, even if I love to settle the plot in the real world, I start to think about the plot as a fairy tale, or a dream, or a nightmare ... As if it was the best way to tell the truth about characters or narration, instead of realism. — Arnaud Desplechin

If there is something a coach might wish to see changed in a player or team, the first place to check and see if it could not be done better is in yourself. — John Kessel

I'm a great fan of Woody Allen's movies. — Arnaud Desplechin

I'm an absolute fan of Angela Bassett. I think she's a great, great actress. In the biopics, she is so moving. She's very rare. It's something that doesn't happen that much, to see an actress inventing a new way of showing 'woman' onscreen, and a new way of being beautiful. — Arnaud Desplechin