Dumont Quotes & Sayings

I don't watch my own past films: when I watch them, I find they don't work very well, because I have changed. If I continue to make films, in fact, it is because I always want to repair my films. My inner rhythm has changed; I have changed. I have changed my way to film. — Bruno Dumont

I'm not sure if the shame/guilt distinction resonates for me. I just know that shame is a debilitating emotion that is perpetuated by Church and State. — Marilyn Dumont

My life is existing. Cinema is certainly not my life — Bruno Dumont

I feel I have a political duty to reach out to the general public. I want to make films that the people want to see. So if the people want to see Johnny Depp or Tom Cruise, then it is really my job to incorporate them into my films. — Bruno Dumont

To be a Dumont actor was considered to be a great honor for an actor, yet it also had its disadvantages. — Leon Askin

A Dumont actor was considered to be too stilted - the way we Dumont actors used to speak. — Leon Askin

Your relationship to a film, and to cinema, is very much determined by yourself, so what is relevant is you. — Bruno Dumont

I never thought that my creation, would allow brothers to kill brothers. (after seeing his invention being used in war, The Airplane) Alberto Santos-Dumont — Alberto Santos-Dumont

When a small night-lamp alone illuminated our love-making, it became a very small, circular room which silently passed through nights humming with stars. — Fernand Dumont

I'm a straight lady, the best in Hollywood. There is an art to playing the straight role. You must build up your man, but never top him, never steal the laughs. — Margaret Dumont

To retain his dignity, an artist must live in opposition. He must be critical of his country. If not, then he is worthless. — Bruno Dumont

Cinema is made to film material: the body. By filming the material, the mechanical, the worker, we arrive at the spiritual. — Bruno Dumont

I was on a TV show about dancers for two and a half seasons called 'Bunheads' on ABC Family, and that was really fun for me because I'm a dancer in a real life. — Emma Dumont

Good and evil are polar concepts - one can't exist without the other. — Bruno Dumont

A woman not yet seen, but whose perfume accumulates on the horizon like a storm cloud. — Fernand Dumont

Magnus did not like to go near the Hotel Dumont if he could help it. It was decrepit and unsettling, it held bad memories, and it also occasionally held his evil former lady love. — Cassandra Clare

To propel a dirigible balloon through the air is like pushing a candle through a brick wall. — Alberto Santos-Dumont

One of the fun things about playing live is watching the audience sing the songs back to us. — Tom Dumont

There is no god. I am an atheist. It is up to us to become God. We need to be elevated, to become saints. God alienates people from themselves. — Bruno Dumont

I did an episode of a show called 'Mind Games,' which is no longer on the air, and it was an intellectual comedy-drama. It was just really smart TV. — Emma Dumont

For working with non-professional actors, you have to have this particular desire to work with people who are reluctant to play in a movie. I like this relationship. I'm like a recruiter, an employment agency giving someone employment. — Bruno Dumont

I'm not Catholic. I don't believe in God. But at the same time, I'm obsessed by the sacred, by spirituality. The question of redemption has been present well before Christianity, but as French people are a bit stupid, they see all that in religious terms. — Bruno Dumont

I definitely am the sort of person that likes to be constantly learning things. — Emma Dumont

The people follow what the media say. So if you said that Bruno Dumont is fantastic, it follows that more people would go to see my films. I have no wish to remain on the sidelines. I have no wish to make films that are only seen by bohemians in London and Paris. — Bruno Dumont

I am aware that I am extremely fortunate that I was born to parents who had the personal resources to raise me in a relatively safe environment and that I have some social supports that keep me from the streets. I'm aware that I could easily be in their stead, but there by the grace of luck go I. — Marilyn Dumont

'One More Summer' is one of those songs that I think will go over really well. — Tom Dumont

No movie can claim to be a work of philosophy. They fulfill a totally different need in people. — Bruno Dumont

Cinema is all about going back from shadow to light and back and forth: cinema is a place of transgression. — Bruno Dumont

I don't want actors to know anything. The more they are lost, the better they play. — Bruno Dumont

I think there's not a lot of real filmmakers. There are only a few people who make real cinema. I can count them on my fingers. — Bruno Dumont

Directors and producers were afraid of a Dumont actor while at the same time they admired him. — Leon Askin

I think that the cinema is a physical thing. What I'm looking for is creating a physical shock with the audience. I don't care of the meaning. I don't care of the idea. I don't want to say something. I want to make a 'shock physique.' — Bruno Dumont

The more elaborate your narrative, the more the spectator shuts up and listens obediently. And if the filmmaker keeps quiet, the spectator will himself project his own assumptions and sentiments onto the screen. — Bruno Dumont

I like the idea of challenging Hollywood on its own turf. It's important to do that. — Bruno Dumont

What beauty would we see around us, if for just one second we could acknowledge the beauty that lies within ourselves? — Monica Dumont

How long?" Jayce's scalding breath singed the side of Wes' neck as he spoke against his skin. "Does Scotto know about you and me? Does he know I'm the one who ruined you for him and all men?"
Bastard was so full of himself. Wes remained quiet and ceased his struggles. He could breathe since Jayce's hold wasn't too tight. But his chest heaved and his groin throbbed like a mother. He hated how he responded to the slightest touch from Jayce. — Avril Ashton

Now my playmates never failed to wink and smile mockingly at me when one of them called 'Man flies!' for at the word I would always lift my finger very high, as a sign of absolute conviction; and I refused with energy to pay the forfeit. The more they laughed at me, the happier I was, hoping that some day the laugh would be on my side. — Alberto Santos-Dumont

Villages and woods, meadows and chateaux, pass across the moving scene, out of which the whistling of locomotives throws sharp notes. These faint, piercing sounds, together with the yelping and barking of dogs, are the only noises that reach one through the depths of the upper air. The human voice cannot mount up into these boundless solitudes. Human beings look like ants along the white lines that are highways; and the rows of houses look like children's playthings. — Alberto Santos-Dumont

If exercise was sold in the pill form, it would be the number pill sold throughout the world because the benefits are endless. — Renee Dumont

Sound creates an intimate effect: the sensation to feel the place. It makes the viewer enter. You have the liberty to hear what you want. — Bruno Dumont

Groucho Marx continued to alternately call Margaret Dumont "a great lady" and to denigrate her in interviews. But he seemed, at the end, to realize how important she'd been to his career. When accepting his 1974 Lifetime Achievement Oscar, the ailing Groucho told the audience, "I only wish Harpo and Chico could have been here - and Margaret Dumont. — Eve Golden

Women exist in my imagination. So they are necessarily a type of abstraction. Many women criticise me for this vision, but I explain to them it's to be expected, because I am a man. — Bruno Dumont

My reluctance to enter any relationship with men has been affected by the fact that many Aboriginal men are very wounded and are not able to be in a healthy relationship due to historical damage and with non-Native men because I no longer want to educate them about Indigenous Issues. I'm tired of being the educator or nurse. — Marilyn Dumont

The whole crowd interrupted and told him, 'No, we won't let you go. You have worked hard for our rights and you can't quit now.'
'Then,' said Riel, 'if I must, I will desert.'
'If you desert, we will desert with you. — Gabriel Dumont

You can't create a movie as you think about it. And what's in the scene is not what's being seen. A shot always means something other than what it is. All are vehicles. A landscape is just a vehicle. The viewer might think different things, and I'm not going to intervene. — Bruno Dumont

You can't go further than being naked. — Bruno Dumont

We wonder what true happiness would be like. Not realizing that one simple thought connected to our hearts can make the difference between us wondering and experiencing it. — Monica Dumont

When you make movies, you have to be preoccupied with the social problems, otherwise there is no point in making a movie. To have a story, you need a social problem. Not necessarily a problem, but something to get the idea for a story, otherwise there's no story. — Bruno Dumont

Escape is a good novel, a gripping movie, a holiday - not something I can imagine being forced into. I am used to thinking of travel as an escape from security and predictability and stability, not a journey in search of these things. I am used to thinking of home as something that gets left behind at the start of a journey, not something you might be travelling perilously towards. — Adele Dumont

Sex becomes violent when you eliminate all the sentiments ... voila, it gets crude. — Bruno Dumont

The landscape is a reflection of the inner life. Since I can't shoot the inner life, all I can shoot is the exterior but I know that when I'm filming outside, I'm filming inside. I can only really touch the inside through the mise-en-scene. So through the mise-en-scene of the outside we can explore the inside — Bruno Dumont

Matching character and actor is what a good director does. — Bruno Dumont

I can see that you have made your decision, but I wonder if you will become tired and discouraged. Me - I will never give up. — Gabriel Dumont

There's a longstanding myth about the United States that is still very prevalent in Europe [despite recent developments]. Historically the "America" of this myth is an incredible human adventure and an experiment in political democracy. But at the same time, or so we're told, it's the land of extremes where the worst can happen. — Bruno Dumont

Personally, I don't give a toss about French viewers. I make films for foreigners - it's a bit like Ken Loach, who's not very popular in England but has had a lot of success in France. Cinema is always an experience in a foreign body. — Bruno Dumont

Cinema builds memories; great films continue to exist in the spectator's mind. We are naturally capable of and prone to nostalgia. A spectator will reconstruct a film he or she has seen, years later, and may even change their original opinion. One critic, for example, once gave the finger to one of my films; later he wrote me to apologize. — Bruno Dumont

The actor already comes with emotions to the scene: fear, the fear of being in front of the camera. It is this fear that spurs the emotion of the scene. I too am afraid; I don't know exactly what I am searching for. On the set, we are all participating in this fear together. — Bruno Dumont

The balloon seems to stand still in the air while the earth flies past underneath. — Alberto Santos-Dumont

Moss is selected to be the emblem of maternal love, because, like that love, it glads the heart when the winter of adversity overtakes us, and when summer friends have deserted us. — Henrietta Dumont

Cinema is my religion. It is a way to make people sensitive, through emotions. To make them feel, experience empathy. People are touched and act ethically when they are emotionally touched. — Bruno Dumont

Each role demands the right actor. To play an artist, one must be an artist. — Bruno Dumont

An actor is an instrument. One needs to control them. — Bruno Dumont

The United States is such a potent political, cultural, and economic model in the evocation of the contemporary world, that to come here, select some elements from the prototype and rearrange them, that's really interesting artistically. — Bruno Dumont

Hollywood films are alienating to the spectator because they use too much dialogue, too much explication and leave no space for the viewer. They depress me. — Bruno Dumont

It was one of the great chances in my life to become a Dumont actor. — Leon Askin

The battle between two men over a girl is the same as the fight for two men over a piece of land. It is all about desire. There is no difference between a love triangle and the conflict between Israel and Palestine. — Bruno Dumont

My thinking was that today's spectator is so well-versed in film language that all theories about suspense, as argued by Dreyer and Hitchcock, on what makes you scared in cinema, can be ditched. It's the spectator, finally, who's going to construct the menace and the fear. — Bruno Dumont