Directorial Quotes & Sayings

You're beautiful," he said softly. Simple words. Heavy weight. "There's no reason for you to be jealous of her. You're everything she isn't, and I like it. A lot. — Ilsa Madden-Mills

I wanted to get back to my style of 20 years ago after a long period of exploring horror and fantasy themes. — Dario Argento

So when we are unhappy we feel the unhappiness of others more; feeling is not destroyed but concentrated ... — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

My film directorial career has been nothing but repetition of one failure after another! — Takeshi Kitano

You are a wicked motorcar, and I shall not give you any more petrol until you go. — Bertrand Russell

I'm not rigid about directorial changes: I judge them on a case-by-case basis. In the case of a play whose text is widely familiar, I'm open to drastic changes that may alter the author's meaning, perhaps even considerably. If the results don't work, then I say so. — Terry Teachout

The Los Angeles Citizen-News (5/29/58) concurred, but felt the picture had more serious problems in the story department: Unfortunately, the story, as adapted for the screen comes off less praiseworthy, for most of the time the picture is not a little confusing. The story line is not easy to follow. ... Vertigo is technically a topnotch film. Storywise, little can be said. Hitchcock does as well as he can, considering the script, in a directorial capacity. Vertigo is not his best picture. — Dan Auiler

From a writing standpoint, maybe television is a little more satisfying because it's not all hinging on one thing. You can experiment, week to week, and you can be a little narrower in your scope one week, and then be a little broader the next week. But with film, everything can look the way you want it to look. You can really sculpt the final product. So from a directorial standpoint, film is more satisfying. But, they're both forms of media that I'd like to keep involvement in. — Seth MacFarlane

My mom choreographed the top Olympians; she's really the queen of ice in her world, so I kind of get my directorial bug from her because she's really good at telling people what to do! — Hayley Kiyoko

An Ingmar Bergman film would probably owe a sizeable bulk of its import and its direction and its quality to the directorial end and to the director because it's uniquely a Bergman film. But that again is not the general - no, that's much more the exception than the rule. — Rod Serling

You only get one world premiere of your directorial debut. — Geoffrey S. Fletcher

I do have more directorial control over animation, because it's like trial and error: If something doesn't work, you can always go back and change certain things. Whereas in live action, every day is a challenge, and you have to make decisions on an hourly basis. So in live action I have more freedom as a director, but in animation, I have more control over the final product. — Mamoru Oshii

In a great romance, each person basically plays a part that the other really likes. — Elizabeth Ashley

I believe that improvisation is really just a directorial tool. It's a writing tool. It's not so much that the actors get to say whatever they want, whatever pops into their head. It's an opportunity to write the last draft of the screenplay as you're working on it. — Ivan Reitman

I actually like acting in things that I'm directing because I'm able to control the tone of how a scene may go and I know, very clearly, what I want from myself in that scene and what I need, as far as from a directorial standpoint. — Eric Balfour

Guy Ritchie is the worst screenwriter in the world, but, to be fair, he is not the worst director. He is only the worst director of the people who actually get to make movies. As we speak, there are human beings walking the Earth
perhaps as many as a half dozen of them
with less directorial talent, but they've been safely diverted into other activities. — Mick LaSalle

It is precisely because the issue raised by this case touches the heart of what makes individuals what they are that we should be especially sensitive to the rights of those whose choices upset the majority. — Harry A. Blackmun

It is impossible to build one's own happiness on the unhappiness of others. This perspective is at the heart of Buddhist teachings. — Daisaku Ikeda

I've been aware of the work I do as an actor being directorial in feel. — Iain Glen

In 1930s mysteries, all sorts of motives were credible which aren't credible today, especially motives of preventing guilty sexual secrets from coming out. Nowadays, people sell their guilty sexual secrets. — P.D. James

Some people feel like you need to have a very specialized understanding of music to have the authority to talk about it. They are such good directors that it's perfectly possible to have conceptual and directorial and storytelling conversations about music without needing to know all the technical pieces. — Henry Jackman

It's a myth that you need to understand all the ins and outs of music. The ideal scenario is you have a conceptual, directorial conversation about what you're trying to achieve in a theme and then trust your composer to go ahead and do that. — Henry Jackman

The essence of life: be good to all souls like you seek them to be good to your soul. — Lailah Gifty Akita

The truth is that there are no "masters" in the spiritual life. Mature and wise teachers, yes. But fundamentally we are all beginners receiving and giving on our knees before God and with open hands before one another. In this business no one "lords it over" another. Pay — Richard J. Foster

I think I'm drawn to films more as a director with a directorial mind even as an actor. I make movies to make the films, not to act. — Jodie Foster

I think as he gets older, Quentin [Tarantino] is growing more and more into his directorial side, but the writer in him won't stop the pen. I don't think he deserved a directing nod. Like I said, it's beautifully shot - it's cinematography, obviously, deserves a nomination - but he's not the camera man. — Bun B.

In The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, David Thomson argues that Brennan should have won awards for even better performances in To Have and Have Not (1944), My Darling Clementine (1946), Red River (1948), The Far Country (1955), and Rio Bravo (1959). Thomson counts no less than twenty-eight high caliber Brennan performances in still more films, including These Three (1936), Fury (1936), Meet John Doe (1941), and Bad Day At Black Rock (1955). Brennan worked with Hollywood's greatest directors - John Ford, Howard Hawks, William Wyler, King Vidor, and Fritz Lang - while also starring in Jean Renoir's Hollywood directorial debut, Swamp Water (1941). To discuss Brennan's greatest performances is also to comment on the work of Gary Cooper, Henry Fonda, Dana Andrews, Spencer Tracy, John Wayne, Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Anne Baxter, Barbara Stanwyck, Lana Turner, Linda Darnell, Ginger Rogers, Loretta Young, and many other stars. — Carl Rollyson

As an actor, I was a fantastic rebel. Then I became a directorial rebel and understood rebels from both sides. So now I am a friend who gives advice - not one who knows more, necessarily, but who shares ideas. — Maximilian Schell

You need to not be able to do anything else, to be in this business. If you have other options, in those unemployed moments, those other options will take precedent. From a directorial standpoint, I think it's really Freudian, the amount of trust I have in filmmakers because I have such a trusting relationship with my dad. — Bryce Dallas Howard

'Ouija' has a steady directorial hand, some attractive young actors who taking the silliness seriously, and few admirable genre elements. It renounces the faux-found-footage ShakyCam style, instead employing a traditionally smooth visual style. — Richard Corliss

When I was eleven, I got cast in the last directorial project of Christopher Reeve. — Vanessa Marano

There's good movies and there's bad movies. The genres are never dead, it's just about how to apply them and articulate them and execute them - the story, the quality of the writing, the acting, the design elements, the directorial execution - all these things make it what it is. — Andy Garcia

I don't have a directorial overview, which sometimes is very helpful. — Julia Barr

I believe in the directorial point of view and directorial choices. — Laszlo Nemes

If your life is all about screwing things and getting hammered, then congratulations, you're a tool. — Anonymous