Latest Whit Stillman Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• That's one of the things I find really bad, is when people not only do injuries to others, but then lie about the others to justify it. It's not bad enough just being bad to someone, but then lying about it.

  Whit Stillman

  Lying, People, Just Being

  Source: www.openlettersmonthly.com

• For me, there's a bad year of getting started on something. You write bad stuff and it's awkward to throw it out, and you wait around to get some good ideas that maybe do come or don't come. Until eventually you get the voice and autonomy of the characters, the characters have personality, and they sort of pick up the weight and put it on their shoulders. That's when it becomes a little more fun.

  Whit Stillman

  Fun, Writing, Character

  Source: www.openlettersmonthly.com

• The creation of a film starts with an idea, a notion of a time period or characters, and you get really excited about the idea, and sell it to others if you need their support to write the script. You can't wait to get started, and then you try to start, and you struggle with the blank page, and you get some ideas, and they're bad ideas, and you write bad stuff. It's really bad.

  Whit Stillman

  Struggle, Writing, Character

  Source: www.openlettersmonthly.com

• I can talk about Jane Austen until the cows come home.

  Whit Stillman

  Home, Cows, Austen

  Source: www.openlettersmonthly.com

• [ Lady Susan novel by Jane Austen is] extremely difficult to adapt. I worked on it for years, for, like, ten years, before I started showing it to people. This was my back-burner project.

  Whit Stillman

  Years, People, Projects

  Source: newrepublic.com

• I call the '70s the "golden age of television"; in the early '70s there were sensationally good shows.

  Whit Stillman

  Age, Television, Golden

  Source: newrepublic.com

• I love watching the romantic comedies of the late '50s and early '60s. I used to have a rule that if Tony Randall's in it, it can't be bad.

  Whit Stillman

  Comedy, Used, Late

  Source: newrepublic.com

• I find it really disturbing to be watching a lot of the medium that I'm trying to work in. I prefer to be doing things that are farther away.

  Whit Stillman

  Trying, Mediums, Disturbing

  Source: newrepublic.com

• I originally wanted to be F. Scott Fitzgerald, but failed.

  Whit Stillman

  Scott Fitzgerald, Wanted

  Source: newrepublic.com

• Mary McCarthy and that Mr. Intellectual kind of guy ... Dwight McDonald? And they were really mean about [Jerome David] Salinger, and oh they were going to destroy him, and just look how thoroughly they destroyed him! No one reads Salinger anymore!

  Whit Stillman

  Mean, Mcdonalds, Guy

  Source: newrepublic.com

• [Jerome David] Salinger was really taken to the cleaners by nasty critics in his day. I think Joan Didion was one of the people who attacked him in a very unfair way.

  Whit Stillman

  Taken, Thinking, People

  Source: newrepublic.com

• I think a lot of ["Cosmopolitans"] is marked by [Jerome David] Salinger. Salinger wouldn't allow his works to be adapted for film after his experience with "Uncle Wiggly in Connecticut," and I think that's great for us because then we have to do our own Salinger stories.

  Whit Stillman

  Uncles, Thinking, Stories

  Source: newrepublic.com

• Decline and Fall was a very depressing Evelyn Waugh novel, I think it was his first. I didn't get it at all, and then I got to love Waugh. And I think that maybe "Cosmopolitans" has a bit of an Evelyn Waugh vibe to it at some point.

  Whit Stillman

  Depressing, Fall, Thinking

  Source: newrepublic.com

• In my father's time - he was in college during many transitions in the late 1930s - they had great institutional loyalties... to his college, eventually the navy, the Democratic Party and certain ideals of our country. Those are the things that became broken with my generation.

  Whit Stillman

  Loyalty, Country, Father

  Source: www.hollywoodchicago.com

• We learned some bad things, and the Vietnam War led to some bad conclusions. We're not the greatest generation, that's for sure.

  Whit Stillman

  War, Generations, Vietnam

  Source: www.hollywoodchicago.com

• It becomes a lot better for the actors when we're 'shooting, shooting, shooting,' instead of waiting around in a trailer for something to happen.

  Whit Stillman

  Waiting Around, Actors, Shooting

  Source: www.hollywoodchicago.com

• One of the problems of a director on the set is that we become overwhelmed by all the factors and threads of production, that sometimes we can't focus on our main job, which is steering the performances to create the whole film.

  Whit Stillman

  Jobs, Focus, Directors

  Source: www.hollywoodchicago.com

• I think Austin is read more now than Charles Dickens, and Dickens was much more popular in his day. She endures because of her classicism.

  Whit Stillman

  Thinking, Austin, Endure

  Source: www.hollywoodchicago.com

• Our roots are clinging, we shouldn't knock down so many old 'buildings.'

  Whit Stillman

  Roots, Old Buildings, Building

  Source: www.hollywoodchicago.com

• I'm for people clinging. I'm pro-clinging.

  Whit Stillman

  People, Clinging

  Source: www.hollywoodchicago.com

• I explained to Amazon that I don't like outlining or projecting what something's going to be. I like to allow a story to arise as I'm writing scripts. I find it horrible when I try to think of something for the plot without really being on the ground and seeing where it goes. I was really resistant to do the mini-bible. So I gave them something, but I really didn't want to do it that way.

  Whit Stillman

  Writing, Thinking, Trying

  Source: collider.com

• So something I've felt I've learned with The Cosmopolitans shoot is using some agility and changing things quickly. That's something I found really useful on this shoot too. The gestation of The Cosmopolitans and this are slightly different from my other films. The script would be done and I'd be cutting it, but I wasn't always writing new material.

  Whit Stillman

  Writing, Cutting, Different

  Source: collider.com

• I would say on the other side of the equation that there were really some massive sales and massive enthusiasm for some films that were given big releases. And I'm not really sure that happens in quite the same way, small films getting big releases. Maybe it still does, I don't know.

  Whit Stillman

  Doe, Enthusiasm, Way

  Source: collider.com

• Find someone hypersocial and crazy and try not to follow them to their doom, but to make friends with their nicer friends.

  Whit Stillman

  Crazy, Trying, Doom

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• There's some people who are just very dynamic about social life, and it can be some pretty crazy stuff, but you end up meeting people you like.

  Whit Stillman

  Crazy, People, Stuff

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com