Quotes & Sayings About Directors Film

In theater, you're in charge of your performance, and at the end of the day you're the one who gets credit because you're in front of the audience doing it, and in film and TV it's the director who gets to decide when to cut to you on a line, which take he uses. — Jonathan Groff

I had a hard time watching Wolf Creek. It is a film with one clear purpose: To establish the commercial credentials of its director by showing his skill at depicting the brutal tracking, torture and mutilation of screaming young women. When the killer severs the spine of one of his victims and calls her "a head on a stick," I wanted to walk out of the theater and keep on walking. — Roger Ebert

I never want to make a film. I don't wake up in the morning going, 'Ooh, I'd really love to be on set making a film today'. I'm aware that other contemporary film directors perceive film-making as what they do, as what they have to do. But I would hope that I am more catholic in my tastes. — Stephen Daldry

You want the film to be critically successful - you certainly want the film to be financially successful so that you can ... well, because that's how movies like this are made, you know, they need to make money. But as a director, you can only make the movie that you want to make. — Joseph Kosinski

On a film set, we're all glorified troubleshooters, really, as directors. It's not if a problem arises. It's when. — Christine Swanson

But then male directors also have a hard time getting their movies made ... not as hard as women but it's a tough time for any movie this size. And that particular movie [The Hurt Locker] was so specific. It couldn't hurt, of course, and I'm really glad for her, but I don't know how much it will change things, if at all. The film industry is still so sexist. — Nicole Holofcener

With the film, you have a bunch of executive producers, directors, writers, scripts. There's, management, lighting, the union and etc. There are so many components a part of that game, so naturally it isn't my world. — Ashanti

In my first film, we always tried to have a script and work in a normal way, but I was constantly changing things during shooting. Because I worked as a scriptwriter for 10 years, I understood that directors always wanted to change what was originally written, to improve on it. — Wong Kar-Wai

A good [film] director is talented, imaginative, and does his homework. — Vilmos Zsigmond

In the film work, I love to work mainly from the script and from talking to the directors, so a lot of the music, big portions of the scores that I've made, have been composed before the movies were even shot. — Gustavo Santaolalla

I work in film, TV, commercials and do live PR stunts for companies. A lot of my time is spent reading scripts and looking at designing sequences, speaking to directors and producers about how they want the sequences to look, how they will work and budgeting those stunts. — Steve Truglia

I am the best film director in the world. — Lars Von Trier

I have no reason as a director to have films go up in versions that I don't like. My only experience of film after ten years is honestly that if a picture doesn't get second-guessed you're looking at four Oscars, and if a picture does get second-guessed, you're not. I've got an advanced degree in that lesson. — William Monahan

[The director's idea for the film was:] A young American or English girl goes to Tuscany to visit English expatriates. She is on a mission to lose her virginity. That's a mission easily accomplished, if that's the only mission. The story had to be more complicated than that. Because there is so little happening dramatically, there had to be something to keep you curious. — Susan Minot

The process always starts with detailed conversations with the director, followed by a spotting session (deciding where the music goes and doesn't go in the film, and what the music should be saying or not saying) in each scene. This is followed by sending the director demos of each cue for feedback. — John Keltonic

If you see, as I do, in edited film, you're going to end up as a director. — William Monahan

When we started talking to our actors and to our directors, this is with all due respect to the film, if you want to know what we're not doing, go watch the movie. If you want to know what we're doing, it's very much steeped in the world of the comics, but it also has a life of its own and that's really what television and our films really do is that we take the best ... We hope and we're very confident that this is the beginning of something that's very exciting on Netflix. — Jeph Loeb

The main thing the composer needs to do is it needs to remember that the director is there to cheer you on. The director wants you to succeed because if you succeed, you'll be helping the film. And they are truly your conscience. And they're truly your guide. — Hans Zimmer

A film actor is just a victim of directors and editors. — Helena Bonham Carter

Songs are pretty easy. They are small, they are modular, they are about as big as a bagel. They are easy to build. Films are overwhelming in their magnitude and scope. By comparison, a lot of film directors wish they were writing songs because you can do it while getting your hair cut. — Tom Waits

A huge cloud of dust is not a beautiful thing to look at. Very few painters have done portraits of huge clouds of dust or included them in their landscapes or still lifes. Film directors rarely choose huge clouds of dust to play the lead roles in romantic comedies, and as far as my research has shown, a huge cloud of dust has never placed higher than twenty-fifth in a beauty pageant. Nevertheless, as the Baudelaire orphans stumbled around the cell, dropped each half of the battering ram and listening to the sound of crows flying in circles outside, they stared at the huge cloud of dust as if it were a thing of great beauty. — Lemony Snicket

When I started my first film, there were three women directors in France. Their films were OK, but I was different. It's like when you start to jump and you put the pole very high - you have to jump very high. I thought, I have to use cinema as a language. — Agnes Varda

The best films are because of nobody but the director. — Roman Polanski

I didn't just see myself as a film director here [in Life And Nothing More], but also as an observer of people who had been condemned to death. — Abbas Kiarostami

Every time I make an American film I just trust the American director and American writer. Myself, I would never make this kind of film. For me, those kinds of films are ridiculous. They don't make sense. — Jackie Chan

Most directors make films with their eyes; I make films with my testicles. — Alejandro Jodorowsky

I've definitely become more aware and conscious of what directors I'm working with because it's so important. The director is really more than half the battle of the film. You really rely on that. That's become really, really important to me, for sure. — Kate Mara

I really liked doing a number of the projects and directors, and etc., etc., I knew about half-way through that I would never be doing that again. It's just not me. I really am happy as a part-time film composer, not a full-time film composer. — Danny Elfman

Each one of my films is personal; each one of my films is emotionally autobiographical. And I like directors who do that. — Jason Reitman

A lot of film directors are quite scared of actors. They are a bit of a nightmare sometimes, but I like them. It looks like cunning, but you try to get extra things from them all the time, by stealth, by making them feel confident, so they trust you and you can push a bit. — Danny Boyle

It's really rare for film directors to be that interested in things other than themselves. — Alan Cumming

I love films. I love fiction films, too. I do. I love making them, but it has to be the right one. Hopefully, I'll never become a director for hire. It's horrible to make a film that you're not really interested in. — Oliver Stone

Because I've made a film with such an amazing director as Tarantino, I'm much more conscious of working with good directors from now on, so that's what's important to me. I don't really care about making a big movie - I just want to make good ones. — Melanie Laurent

People come up to me and say "Steve, what is film editing?" And I say "How should I know? You're the director. — Steve Martin

You mustn't look at a film with only one point of view. — Jafar Panahi

I'm completely surrounded, not only my father, but also my three brothers, and Sergio, my husband, all four of them work in film. Some are writers, or directors, or cinematographers, all of them. I'm surrounded by men that make films, so much that at some point I felt there was no more room in the family for another filmmaker.For many years I was only working as novelist or writing screenplays for others to direct. — Lucia Puenzo

ADMIRABLY BOLD. There's something grand about the film's sincerity and the intensity of its emotions and something fresh and bold about the way director Gray uses the conventions of romantic melodrama. — A.O. Scott

I've been really lucky in terms of film projects with people, terrific actors and also writers and directors that I really respect. — Ricky Jay

The collective sign of relief heaved on V-J Day ought to have inspired Hollywood to release a flood of "happily ever after" films. But some victors didn't feel too good about their spoils. They'd seen too much by then. Too much warfare, too much poverty, too much greed, all in the service of rapacious progress. A bundle of unfinished business lingered from the Depression - nagging questions about ingrained venality, mean human nature, and the way unchecked urban growth threw society dangerously out of whack. Writers and directors responded by delivering gritty, bitter dramas that slapped our romantic illusions in the face and put the boot to the throat of the smug bourgeoisie. Still, plenty of us took it - and liked it. — Eddie Muller

Screenwriting involves an often un-personal process. Co-writers, directors, producers, everyone has a say in what you put on a page, and stories are constantly changing according to budget, actors, and commercial needs. Films are a collaborative process and are also inherently narrative and structured, so you are always working within very tight parameters. Short fiction unleashes a more intimate voice and a passion for language. I believe short narratives can have the same amount of danger and drama as any action film. — Chiara Barzini

I try to attach myself to people who really inspire me, and directors who are really passionate. That way, I can give myself more fully and trust the impulse behind why the film is being made, and I can be a little more irresponsible in finding out what the character is. — Willem Dafoe

Here's what I like about God: Trees are crooked, mountains are lumpy, a lot of his creatures are funny-looking, and he made it all anyway. He didn't let the aardvark convince him he had no business designing creatures. He didn't make a puffer fish and get discouraged. No, the maker made things - and still does. European film directors often enjoy creative careers, during which their films mature from the manifestos of angry young men to the rueful wisdom of great works by creative masters. Is an afternoon siesta the secret? Is their vita just a little more dolce? We've taken espresso to our American hearts, but we haven't quite taken to the "break" in our coffee breaks. Worried about playing the fool, we forget how to simply play. We try to make our creativity linear and goal oriented. We want our "work" to lead somewhere. We forget that diversions do more than merely divert us. — Julia Cameron

Every time I make American film I just trust American directors and American writers. — Jackie Chan

I want to keep working. I want to step away from young adult fiction. I want to do theater periodically - Farragut North reminded me how great it is. I started out in theater. I trained in theater and then I kind of fell into film and TV. I want to work with interesting artists, talented actors, talented directors, and talented scripts. Not necessarily leading roles. — Max Irons

I'm pretty much a character-driven film director and my movies are smaller. I don't do a lot of coverage. I use lots of master shots. — Stanley Tucci

You have to be strong to be a carpenter, maybe, but the director of a film doesn't need to have muscles. — Agnes Varda

I'm very attracted to directors who want to experiment. The thing that attracts me the most are people who are trying find a language that is correct for their film, for that specific film. — Emmanuel Lubezki

To spend any time with someone who is among the top five film composers of the last 50 years is pure gold dust. I mean, not necessarily stylistically, because everyone is different in what their music sounds like, but the approach and how to look at a film, how to think about a film, how to decide what you want to do, how to think about characters, how to think about art, how to think about narrative, how to liaise with producers, how to liaise with directors. — Henry Jackman

I think film is a world of directors. Theater is a world of actors. — Diego Luna

I think producers are more interested in backing concepts than directors and writers. I don't think that's the right way of making a decision about whether you're going to back a film or not. — Steven Spielberg

I think the other honest attraction was that I just grew up loving watching TV and loving watching film, and there's so many directors and actors that I dreamed of working with, I just really wanted to take a crack at it and see if I could ever work with some of those. — David Schwimmer

I am still very surprised that I managed to make that film [Close Up]. When I actually look back on that film, I really feel that I was not the director but instead just a member of the audience. — Abbas Kiarostami

TV and film are very different media with different requirements. In a TV show, you have actors and fellow writers and directors, who are interpreting your work. With a novel, you only have ink, words and your reader. — Howard Gordon

A film director is not a creator, but a midwife. His business is to deliver the actor of a child that he did not know he had inside him. — Jean Renoir

Films like 'Bond' fund training schemes for film technicians of the future, and working on films themselves provides a great training ground for budding directors and cinematographers. If there's no money there for films to be made, it's like a house of cards, it all comes tumbling down. — Callum McDougall

Many French directors, having now realised there was no more real criticism, that the standards of the past have gone, are very offended about the quality of film criticism. — Wim Wenders

When I do a film, usually I work from my director. That's my boss. The director is interpreting the writer's vision, and we all interpret it, and they create their own vision as well. — Juliette Lewis

'Battleship' is not a film that Francois Truffaut would have made. Nor would any of those other namby-pamby European directors. Nope, this picture eschews that Continental obsession with small stories, set in quaint towns filled with pockmarked folk doing their banal things. — Seth Shostak

Too often, you see film makers from other countries who have made interesting, original films, and then they come here and get homogenized into being hack Hollywood directors. I don't want to fall into that. — Peter Jackson

I think you're peripatetic when you work in this industry. My husband and I are assuming the role of co-artistic directors at the Sydney Theatre Company in 2008. But as long as the film industry will have me, I will have it. — Cate Blanchett

Every decent director has only one subject, and finally only makes the same film over and over again. My subject is the exploitability of feelings, whoever might be the one exploiting them. It never ends. It's a permanent theme. Whether the state exploits patriotism, or whether in a couple relationship, one partner destroys the other. — Rainer Werner Fassbinder

You start out with big dreams and I mean, big dreams artistically. You want to work with the greatest living directors, make a great movie. I wanted to make a great love story, I wanted to make a great epic and then you realize that the truth of it is that it's so hard to make a great film. It's hard to get a great role. Those big expectations change to realism pretty quickly. But what's never changed is my desire to work with great directors and to find projects that push me out of my comfort zone and keep me alive. I still don't think I've done my best work — Nicole Kidman

A lot of directors straight out of film school are very technically minded, but they don't have an understanding of actors or how to talk to them. — Peter Dinklage

I am often asked at what point in my love affair with films I began to want to be a director or a critic. Truthfully, I don't know. All I know is that I wanted to get closer and closer to films. — Francois Truffaut

Any film that you see is never just the director. If it's a film that you love, it's not so easy to say, "Oh it's directed by this person - that means everything that person directs is going be wonderful." — Vin Diesel

Film works when a director and a star have a connection. You know, when there's something telekinetic between them, there's a partnership, it's like alter egos. It's like James Stewart and Alfred Hitchcock, or Fellini and Mastroianni. I'm not comparing, I'm just saying, if you can come into a relationship where the director and star have such a bond, it's so much easier to make a movie. — Nicolas Winding Refn

Sometimes I take the watch, or I take the shoes, but usually the souvenir is to take the life you had with those directors, or the crew - the camera person, the lighting person. When you finish a film it's like a little death. You had a family for a bit, and you finish the movie and you probably will never see each other again. — Jean Reno

When you see the films of certain young directors, you get the impression that film history begins for them around 1980. — Jacques Rivette

Look out for each other. I think the more we support each other as a community, the more successful we will be. I'm a part of Film Fatales, a collective of women directors who meet to share advice and provide support for each other's projects. I think the more we can build an old girls' network to rival the old boys' network, the better off we will be. — Sian Heder

I've been in so many bad movies and worked with so many bad directors that I go into a film expecting nothing. — Cliff Robertson

I am no expert on tax; I'm a film producer. I read books and think about which ones would make good movies, and then I work with directors in order to make them. — Alison Owen

Most of the time I've worked with directors who write their own scripts. The story is more important to me than the part. The project of the film has always been more important to me. — Catherine Deneuve

I'm more prone to anarchy than I am to control - even though I'm a film director. — Terry Gilliam

They offered me that film before I did Frida and I said, no, I'm not capable of directing. Then after seeing Julie direct, I was inspired by it. She motivated me to do it, because we don't have role models as woman for directors. — Salma Hayek

I didn't even know what a film director was. To me, Charlie Chaplin was a goofy clown, and John Ford - what? Never heard of him. — Lloyd Kaufman

As a film director I like to have the actors create their own close-ups. It's an older style of filmmaking. — Stanley Tucci

Scripts are what matter. If you get the foundations right and then you get the right ingredients on top, you stand a shot ... but if you get those foundations wrong, then you absolutely don't stand a shot. It's very rare-almost never-that a good film gets made from a bad screenplay. — Tim Bevan

You have to have a thick enough skin to cope with the criticism. I'm very self-critical and I have a lot of friends that I trust who are film directors and writers and people in my profession. — George Lucas

I love doing film soundtracks and working with directors on how they want the scene to be portrayed on audio as opposed to visual. I like the collaborative effort of working with people. — Al Jourgensen

You can't have a director say, "Just be you"; you have to have an aim. It's like when you throw darts, you have to know where the bullseye is. You can't just say, "No no no no no, drop the darts. Just stand. We're going to film you." You have to get there indirectly. You have to have me doing something, and then you can get "me." — Paul Schneider

I've had a real lucky time working in Hollywood. I've talked to other screenwriters, and they're all kind of beaten down and their spirits are crushed, because they work on these screenplays and these projects, and then directors either take them and change everything, rewrite them and make them worse, or they film them and they're nothing like how they imagined it to be. — Daniel Clowes

One of the common themes you will read in interview after interview is the call to keep fighting for your vision. This is a message to women directors, producers, writers - anyone who wants to work in the business. Your voice counts. Your vision matters. — Melissa Silverstein

I think that too often we, film directors, think that a big epic novel and feature film are the same. It's a lie. A feature film is much closer to a short story actually. — Pirjo Honkasalo

All film directors, whether famous or obscure, regard themselves as misunderstood or underrated. Because of that, they all lie. They're obliged to overstate their own importance. — Francois Truffaut

I have worked with a lot of really great women directors: Ana Kokkinos; Cate Shortland, who just recently directed a film called 'Lore;' another director, Rachel Perkins - she's an Aboriginal director, and I've worked with her three times now, and she gave me my first film role, actually, back in 1997. — Deborah Mailman

Movies always fascinated me. They are an endless source of inspiration. There are countless images by great directors that made a profound impression on me, and I see film as a sublime example of teamwork. — Giorgio Armani

Talent has no gender. People are hiring young male directors right out of film school, off of a student film or off of a film at Sundance for millions of dollars. You can do the same with a female. It's not a risk about the work if you respect the film that they made. — Gina Prince-Bythewood

There was an interesting article in Los Angeles Magazine about women directors. A woman director makes one bad independent film and her career is over. Guys tend to get an opportunity to learn from their mistakes. — Dick Wolf

It's very, very technical, what we do in film. While all of the lights are there and all of the crew members and directors are staring right at you, you have to be honest. It's a very difficult, but technical medium. — Jeffrey Donovan

Whenever I've been asked to be in a film, directors only want me to play myself ... I'm fascinated by the thought of being an actor, but it's too hard. And I think Shakespeare-which has been suggested to me-might be a bit of a stretch. — Tom Jones

You can work really hard on your physicality, on your craft, on the films you do. You can choose the best of directors, the best of productions, get the best technicians, you can put your entire body and soul into the making of a film, but at the end of the day, it all depends on the mood of that one audience member that goes into that theater. — Abhishek Bachchan

On the film where I didn't get along with the director, I just decided to not speak to him. — Elizabeth Taylor

I believe that every director's films reflect their lifestyle. — Takashi Miike

Sexism is real and it persists in film and television. I've seen female directors openly undermined by male cinematographers in front of the entire crew — Liz W. Garcia

No two directors make the same film the same way. — Rob Cohen

Going forward, I would love to work with directors like Rian Johnson and Joss Whedon; people like that who are doing big films but do have really independent voices. That's kind of what I want to focus on, is always working with people with at least an independent point of view, even if it's not an independent film. — Mary Elizabeth Winstead

Every film had its own grammar. And it's your job as a director to basically figure out a language to tell a story. — Darren Aronofsky

I am definitely writing letters to lots of directors in my mind when I'm making a film. I'm chasing Woody Allen and Godard and Milos Forman and all these people. — Mike Mills

I believe, as a producer/director, your duty is to create a beautiful horror film that really resonates. — Guillermo Del Toro

There certainly is no secret in that there are plenty of people who don't like plenty of my movies. Each one of my films is personal; each one of my films is emotionally autobiographical. And I like directors who do that. With each one of my films, I'm exploring one of my own issues and I try to expose myself a little in the film. — Jason Reitman