Film Directing Quotes

• Cinema is a matter of what's in the frame and what's out.

  Martin Scorsese

  Movie, Gambling, Cinema

  FaceBook post by Martin Scorsese from Jul 08, 2013

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• A film is - or should be - more like music than like fiction. It should be a progression of moods and feelings. The theme, what's behind the emotion, the meaning, all that comes later.

  Stanley Kubrick

  Movie, Independent Filmmaking, Feelings

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• A film is never really good unless the camera is an eye in the head of a poet.

  Orson Welles

  Movie, Eye, Cameras

  1958 'Un ruban de reves' in L'Express, 5 Jun. Reprinted in English in International Film Annual, no.2.

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• A Director Makes Only One Movie in His Life. Then He Breaks It Into Pieces and Makes It Again.

  Jean Renoir

  Movie, Inspiring, Directors

  Quoted in Leslie Halliwell, Halliwell's Filmgoer's Companion (1993)

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• In feature films the director is God; in documentary films God is the director.

  Alfred Hitchcock

  Directors, Documentary Films, Documentaries

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• If it can be written, or thought, it can be filmed.

  Stanley Kubrick

  Directors, Filmmaking, Filmmaker

  Quoted in Halliwell's Filmgoer's and Video Viewer's Companion (1999).

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• Film as dream, film as music. No art passes our conscience in the way film does, and goes directly to our feelings, deep down into the dark rooms of our souls.

  Ingmar Bergman

  Dream, Art, Dark

  "Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye". "Sight & Sound" Magazine, June 1991.

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• With a good script a good director can produce a masterpiece; with the same script a mediocre director can make a passable film. But with a bad script even a good director can’t possibly make a good film. For truly cinematic expression, the camera and the microphone must be able to cross both fire and water. That is what makes a real movie. The script must be something that has the power to do this.

  Akira Kurosawa

  Real, Fire, Expression

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• No form of art goes beyond ordinary consciousness as film does, straight to our emotions, deep into the twilight room of the soul.

  Ingmar Bergman

  Art, Twilight, Soul

  "The Magic Lantern: An Autobiography". Book by Ingmar Bergman, translated by Joan Tate, 1988.

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• Drumming is like film directing. You build a framework for everyone to create something together.

  James Genn

  Music, Together, Drumming

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• A director must be a policeman, a midwife, a psychoanalyst, a sycophant and a bastard.

  Billy Wilder

  Sycophants, Directors, Filmmaker

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• Movie directors, or should I say people who create things, are very greedy and they can never be satisfied... That's why they can keep on working. I've been able to work for so long because I think next time, I'll make something good.

  Akira Kurosawa

  Movie, Thinking, Long

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• Human beings share the same common problems. A film can only be understood if it depicts these properly.

  Akira Kurosawa

  Common, Problem, Share

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder.

  Alfred Hitchcock

  Funny, Movie, Humor

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• A film is - or should be - more like music than like fiction.

  Stanley Kubrick

  Independent Filmmaking, Directors, Fiction

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• Dialogue should simply be a sound among other sounds, just something that comes out of the mouths of people whose eyes tell the story in visual terms.

  Alfred Hitchcock

  Eye, People, Justice

  Francois Truffaut, Alfred Hitchcock, Helen G. Scott (1985). “Hitchcock”, p.222, Simon and Schuster

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• Drama is life with the dull bits cut out.

  Alfred Hitchcock

  Drama, Writing, Life Is Short

  Francois Truffaut, Alfred Hitchcock, Helen G. Scott (1985). “Hitchcock”, p.103, Simon and Schuster

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• A good film is when the price of the dinner, the theatre admission and the babysitter were worth it.

  Alfred Hitchcock

  Movie, Art, Gambling

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• 

  The more successful the villain, the more successful the picture.

  Alfred Hitchcock

  Successful, Directors, Villain

  Quoted in Francois Truffaut Hitchcock (1968).

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• A team effort is a lot of people doing what I say.

  Michael Winner

  Funny, Movie, Inspiring

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• Acting is one element in a film. Directing is sort of the painter using all of those elements - sound and music and camera and putting it all together. And that can be fun and exciting. If you fail, it's incredibly upsetting - much more upsetting than when you're an actor. But when you succeed it's incredibly, incredibly exciting, so I like the risk of it all.

  George Clooney

  Fun, Sound And Music, Upset

  "The Ides of March - George Clooney interview". Interview with Rob Carnevale, www.indielondon.co.uk.

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• The dynamics of film directing and fashion design - in the ways that I've done it - were not dissimilar.

  Tom Ford

  Fashion, Design, Done

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• People have forgotten how to tell a story.

  Steven Spielberg

  People, Directors, Stories

  "One! the Book about Everything and Nothing!: Stories from One Male to All of You". Book by Chimie (p. 85), November 23, 2011.

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• You have many years ahead of you to create the dreams that we can't even imagine dreaming. You have done more for the collective unconscious of this planet than you will ever know.

  Steven Spielberg

  Dream, Years, Collective Unconscious

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• I directed three films and each time [I act] I hope it's the last time so I have time to do my film [directing].

  Mathieu Amalric

  Three, Lasts, Last Time

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