Western Film Quotes & Sayings

Ennio Morricone is royalty. He doesn't really do this a lot and Quentin brought him back [in Hateful Eight]. Quentin [Tarantino] basically went back and made his The Good, The Bad and The Ugly-kind of film, the ultimate epic spaghetti western, and then you've got mister spaghetti western himself scoring your movie. It's gonna be hard to not vote for him in a landslide. Probably the easiest win of the night. — Bun B.

In contrast, the 'Old Europe' channels were showing film from reporters who had embedded themselves at the wrong end of the Baghdad blitz and the Basra bombardment. These films depicted the shattered homes, the killed and grieving civilians and the infrastructure chaos our armed forces are creating daily. Since this footage (none of it bearing the al-Jazeera logo) clearly exists, why does the Western media studiously ignore it or, when confronted by it, claim it to be Iraqi propaganda. — David Walker

The most interesting of the classic movie genres to me are the indigenous ones: the Western, which was born on the Frontier, the Gangster Film, which originated in the East Coast cities, and the Musical, which was spawned by Broadway. They remind me of jazz: they allowed for endless, increasingly complex, sometimes perverse variations. When these variations were played by the masters, they reflected the changing times; they gave you fascinating insights into American culture and the American psyche. — Martin Scorsese

Since I was a baby my goal was to be on TV because film was just impossible - you never got any Asian women in Western cinema. I grew up wanting to be in 'East-Enders' because film wasn't even a dream. The community were very much like, 'How can you want to act? It's such a low-class profession.' — Archie Panjabi

The idea of doing a children's film is different, but quite honestly I like doing anything - any genre. I've only made one Western, which was 'Three Amigos,' but I would love to make a serious Western. I'm just wide open. — John Landis

When I was making these damned pictures, I never knew about film noir. If you had asked me about it then, I probably would have pointed to something like Bill Wellman's The Ox Bow Incident, the best Western I ever saw and very much in the style of film noir I don't care if it's a mystery story, a Western, or the story of Julius Caesar. To me it's the emotion, the lies, the double-cross that defines what kind of drama it is. — Samuel Fuller

I think the way the audience takes the Indian film-star is a little different from the way the audience takes the Western star there. We are considered like demi-gods here, and the reason is not because we are better or good, but because there is no other mode of entertainment in India. — Shah Rukh Khan

I still want to do a romantic comedy or a western or a gritty independent film ... there's so much that I still want to do. — Laura Vandervoort

I grew up kind of in the country, in western Georgia. And then I moved a lot closer to Atlanta, and I started doing plays, and when I started doing film, I think I really started to love it. — Morgan Saylor

I would love to direct a western. I love taking photographs and I'm always fascinated with angles. Also, my father was a film editor, and I have a talent for thinking of things that aren't always in a script. — Johnny Crawford

As a Western, 'The Magnificent Seven' was a pretty good film. I don't think it was as interesting or as multi-faceted as 'Seven Samurai.' — George Lucas

I'm just ah, actually developing a tv show for HBO, and I'm directing a film this summer, and actually I'm doing some live shows out in western Canada. — Bruce McCulloch

Wanting to be in a Western film won't get me very far. Unless the opportunity arose, it doesn't matter how much I want to be in one. But if an opportunity did arise, no actor would pass it up. — Zhang Ziyi

I'm drawn to a good story, really, as I hope most people are. For me, it's the story that's going to stay with you eventually, not necessarily the genre. I go to watch a film because of the story, not because it was a Western or a comedy. — Ryan Kwanten

In narrative cinema, a certain terminology has already been established: 'film noir,' 'Western,' even 'Spaghetti Western.' When we say 'film noir' we know what we are talking about. But in non-narrative cinema, we are a little bit lost. So sometimes, the only way to make us understand what we are talking about is to use the term 'avant-garde.' — Jonas Mekas

I've made the film 'The Good, the Bad, the Weird,' which was an Eastern Western film. Obviously, the Western film is American and American only; there's really no Western genre over in Asia. — Kim Jee-woon

Your landscape in a western is one of the most important characters the film has. The best westerns are about man against his own landscape. — Ridley Scott

The hot hall full of painted girls and American soldiers is a saloon in some Western film. This noise drenches us, wakens us to do something else. It shows us a lost path. — Jean Cocteau

'The Duellists' won Cannes, but Paramount didn't know how to release a film about two guys in bizarre breeches, waving swords around. I actually think it's a pretty good Western. — Ridley Scott

Making a martial arts film in English to me is the same as John Wayne speaking Chinese in a western — Ang Lee

Lionsgate and Lorenzo di Bonaventura saw my Korean Western-style film, 'The Good, the Bad, the Weird,' and probably felt that I would be right for 'The Last Stand,' which could be classified as a modern Western. — Kim Jee-woon

The area of teenage life is not necessarily rarefied; we've all gone through that period. It's not as rarefied as a western or a space adventure or a gangster film, but it has its own dynamic. — Gus Van Sant

If you consider film an art form, as some people do, then the Western would be a truly American art form, much as jazz is. — Clint Eastwood

Colonnese praised the film for depicting "the terrible effects of hate and prejudice, and seems to say that life can only go on if one triumphs over these emotions. — Glenn Frankel

Marriage, after all, was the known, not the unknown: the dull dinner party, not the madcap masquerade. It was a set of issues and events that audiences knew all too well offscreen. Unlike the wide-open frontier of the western, offering freedom and adventure, or the lyrical musical, with its fantasy of release through singing and dancing, or the woman's film, with its placing of a marginalized social figure (the woman) at the center of the universe, or the gangster movie, with its violent excitement and obvious sexual freedom, the marriage film had to reflect what moviegoers already had experienced: marriage, in all its boredom and daily responsibilities. — Jeanine Basinger

47 Ronin is a very special movie for me. Not only a Samurai thing. Not only a Hollywood fantasy. It has a very special mixture between Japanese traditional culture and Western culture for the costume, set, story. Everything. I believe it will be a very special film that no one has ever seen. — Hiroyuki Sanada

The only moment football really stops is with a penalty kick - and that is a moment that is really dramatic. A penalty kick becomes a Western duel. It's two guys facing each other. Destiny and potential death, whether metaphorical or literal. That's why in the penalty kick at the end of the film, I shot it like an homage to the Sergio Leone Westerns I saw when I was a kid, especially The Good, The Bad And The Ugly. — Carlos Cuaron

Especially for this film [ 47 ronin] there's a nice mixture between western and eastern. So Ronin wearing the boots, like Western style. It's a nice mixture. — Hiroyuki Sanada

I think that the Western went away for a while because part of its function was that it used to be America's action film. — Paul Dano

Why would everyone - in both the movie business and the audience - want to avoid the label "marriage"? Marriage was presumably everybody's business. People were either born into one, born outside of one, living in one, living outside of one, trying to woo someone into one, divorced from one, trying to get divorced from one, reading about one, dreaming about one, or just observing one from afar. For most people, it would be the central event - the biggest decision - of their lives. Marriage was the poor man's trip to Paris and the shopgirl's final goal. At the very least, it was a common touchstone. Unlike a fantasy film or a sci-fi adventure, a marriage story didn't have to be explained or defined. Unlike a western or a gangster plot, it didn't have to find a connection to bring a jolt of emotional recognition to an audience. Marriage was out there, free to be used and presented to people who knew what the deal was. — Jeanine Basinger

The Lion King? It's just a kid's film.

Just a kid's film?!? Yeah, just a kid's film with an IMDB rating of 8.5, 2 Academy Awards and 2 Golden Globes, that's been adapted into THE most successful West-end musical of all time, generating a gross profit of 8 million pounds and counting. "But maybe it's just a kid's film because it doesn't deal with any mature films" said fucking nobody ever. The Lion King is the greatest anthropomorphic assault upon the theme of mortality that Western culture has ever produced. It is so complex that your tiny, shriveled, and scrotum of a brain wouldn't dare to fathom it. So no, it is not just a kid's film, it is Shakespear with fur! — Jack Whitehall

I go by the role pretty much. And I think the only genre I haven't gotten to do but I'd love to is a western, but no one has ever asked me to do that. Unfortunately they are very few and far between these days, but that is one type of film I'd love to do. — Sam Neill

While Hollywood has had a huge influence on the Indian industry, Bollywood and its actors, too, are garnering a lot of attention in the western film world. — Madhur Bhandarkar

Yes, I'm old," Henry said, and folded his arms. "Old enough to have made cemeteries of men younger than you. Killed in wars. Killed in peace. Knifed and shot my way most of my life. Killed Indians and white men with my hands or the guns I took from them."
Another step, his arms unfolded.
"I get paid to bring in escaped men that have done worse."
One more foot.
"And there is nothing in you that don't stand thin against me, and you know it. And this ain't the forst time I've had guns against me and you know that too."
He looked at them all, weighed them all.
"And I'm done talking. — Robert Lautner

Film noir is not a genre. It is not defined, as are the western and gangster genres, by conventions of setting and conflict, but rather by the more subtle qualities of tone and mood. It is a film 'noir', as opposed to the possible variants of film gray or film off-white. — Paul Schrader

People want to classify and say, 'OK, this is a gangster film.' 'This is a Western.' 'This is a ... ' You know? It's easy to classify and it makes people feel comfortable, but it doesn't matter, it doesn't really matter. — Martin Scorsese

Today the average inhabitant of the western hemisphere knows a little of everything. He has the newspaper on his breakfast table and wireless within reach. For the evening there is the film, cards, or a meeting to complete a day spent in the office or factory where nothing that is essential has been learnt. With slight variation this picture of a low cultural average holds good over the entire range from factory-hand of clerk to manager or director. Only the personal will to culture, in whatever field and however pursued raises modern man above this level. — Johan Huizinga

The Western is as American as a film can get - there's the discovery of a frontier, the element of a showdown, revenge, and determining the best gunman. There's a certain masculinity to the Western that really appealed to me, and I've always wanted to do a Western in Hollywood. — Kim Jee-woon

I really want to do a western film. It's one of my favorite movie genres of all time. — Denis Leary

When I first went to college, I went to Western Michigan. I had been rejected by a bunch of schools for theater. I was like, 'I'm obviously not cut out for this, so I might as well just go into film.' — Alexander Koch