Latest Wes Craven Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• I love the fact that a lot of my audience is people from the inner city. African-Americans love my films. Whenever I go to have a meeting at Universal, the security guard just leaps to his feet and comes over, bumps my hand, and says, "Thank you! Thank you, I love your films!" And it's people who are kind of at the cutting edge of life and survival, and being near the nitty-gritty, who like my films, and I like that.

  Wes Craven

  Love You, Cutting, People

  Source: film.avclub.com

• I think the important thing about staying creative and staying sharp and original is not to look back too much, and to kind of look to where your vision is going now. But I have felt over the years a definite progression or arc from feeling guilty about what I had done with the first one, because certainly there was all that fundamentalist guilt that came pouring back in. Feeling like I'd done something horrible, "I'm a despicable person and I'm perverse," and all these things, to a sense of the power and the necessity, in a sense, of horror films and dealing with dark material.

  Wes Craven

  Dark, Thinking, Creative

  Source: film.avclub.com

• There's more emphasis on art and culture in Europe than there is in the United States and I think that a lot of American directors and writers are just trying to copy other American horror films, they don't pick up much in the way that European filmmakers do.

  Wes Craven

  Art, Thinking, Europe

• It's quite rare that you make something and think that you did something that no-one else had done.

  Wes Craven

  Thinking, Done

• I don't want to rescind American directors but I think that European directors in general, because of the size of the nations in Europe are exposed to all different cultures, they can easily travel from one distinct culture to another in a matter of hours - you can drive for two weeks across the United States and you're in the same basic culture - so there is a certain breadth of understanding and sophistication that they bring to it and frankly, in some cases they are less expensive than American directors.

  Wes Craven

  Thinking, Europe, Two

• The experience of going to a theater and seeing a movie with a lot of people is still part of the transformational power of the film, and it's equivalent to the old shaman telling a story by the campfire to a bunch of people. That is a remarkable thing, if you scream and everyone else in the audience screams, you realize that your fears are not just within yourself, they're in other people as well, and that's strangely releasing.

  Wes Craven

  People, Stories, Realizing

  "Exclusive Interview: Wes Craven Talks Yeah Tv, Nightmare On Elm Street And His Future". Interview with Eric Walkuski, www.joblo.com. March 15, 2013.

• I'm having a reputation of being somebody who will not be crazy. Not descend to doing drugs and spending an enormous amount of money, and instead delivering a product to people. Something they can sell and recoup their money and make a profit.

  Wes Craven

  Crazy, People, Drug

  Interview with Scott Tobias, www.avclub.com. March 11, 2009.

• I make something I can look at and say, "That's a good piece of work, and there's some terrific directing and acting in it, and you should be proud of it."

  Wes Craven

  Acting, Looks, Pieces

  Interview with Scott Tobias, www.avclub.com. March 11, 2009.

• I think if anybody had a roll of dice with a lot of money at stake, they would not want Wes Craven and a romantic comedy.

  Wes Craven

  Thinking, Want, Dice

  Interview with Scott Tobias, www.avclub.com. March 11, 2009.

• People who are kind of at the cutting edge of life and survival, and being near the nitty-gritty, like my films, and I like that.

  Wes Craven

  Cutting, People, Survival

  Interview with Scott Tobias, www.avclub.com. March 11, 2009.

• I think that there has been a slow recognition that there's a mind at work here, and there's a skill and some bit of artistry, and that I could probably do other things. Otherwise, I don't know that I would've been given the opportunity to do Paris, Je T'Aime.

  Wes Craven

  Opportunity, Thinking, Skills

  Interview with Scott Tobias, www.avclub.com. March 11, 2009.

• I love the fact that a lot of my audience is people from the inner city. African-Americans love my films.

  Wes Craven

  Cities, People, African American

  Interview with Scott Tobias, www.avclub.com. March 11, 2009.

• I came to terms with living mostly in a world of horror pictures or genre pictures.

  Wes Craven

  World, Horror, Genre

  Interview with Scott Tobias, www.avclub.com. March 11, 2009.

• I came to terms with living mostly in a world of horror pictures or genre pictures. I have had a few chances to get outside and do something different, like Paris, Je T'Aime or Music Of The Heart, but mostly it's been my lot. And to have created, with a few shocking films, an awareness or a perception of me as somebody dangerous and scary - that can be sold, but trying to sell me for some other kind of picture, like Music Of The Heart, was very difficult.

  Wes Craven

  Heart, Paris, Scary

  Interview with Scott Tobias, www.avclub.com. March 11, 2009.

• You can look at what's happened to America in the last years and say a lot of people were asleep. A lot of people were not staying awake and watching what was going on and facing the pain of that and dealing with it.I don't care if the rest of the audience doesn't think along those lines at all, because the audience is a huge spectrum of people, from people who are introspective to people who just want to be scared and have fun, and all the points in between.

  Wes Craven

  Fun, Pain, Thinking

  Interview with Scott Tobias, www.avclub.com. March 11, 2009.

• As long as you keep the audience on the edge of their seats, either scare them or keep them guessing, you can put anything in there that you want.

  Wes Craven

  Long, Scare, Guessing

  Interview with Scott Tobias, www.avclub.com. March 11, 2009.

• Something like Nightmare On Elm Street, to me, was kind of an examination of levels of consciousness and the pain of facing the truth, and how easy it is to fall asleep, or want to fall asleep.

  Wes Craven

  Pain, Fall, Examination

  Interview with Scott Tobias, film.avclub.com. March 11, 2009.

• I did have the resource of having taught Greek mythology and the history of Western civilization, and you can go back into the plays of Aeschylus and follow what happens when people seek revenge, and there are people plucking their eyes out. And Greek mythology is filled with all kinds of monsters and whatnot.

  Wes Craven

  Revenge, Eye, Civilization

  Interview with Scott Tobias, film.avclub.com. March 11, 2009.

• I realized that I really, almost by accident, had fallen into a labyrinthine, very powerful paradigm for dealing with these things through genre films. And once I realized that and realized the power of it, and the fact that because horror films aren't, in general, studio products - studios back them sometimes, but they don't try to meddle too much, because they kind of don't want to sully their skirts - you have a lot of freedom.

  Wes Craven

  Powerful, Trying, Want

  Interview with Scott Tobias, www.avclub.com. March 11, 2009.

• I have felt over the years a definite progression or arc from feeling guilty about what I had done with the first one [film], because certainly there was all that fundamentalist guilt that came pouring back in.

  Wes Craven

  Years, Feelings, Guilt

  Interview with Scott Tobias, www.avclub.com. March 11, 2009.

• [I was] feeling like I'd done something horrible, "I'm a despicable person and I'm perverse," and all these things, to a sense of the power and the necessity, in a sense, of horror films and dealing with dark material.

  Wes Craven

  Dark, Feelings, Done

  Interview with Scott Tobias, www.avclub.com. March 11, 2009.

• I think the important thing about staying creative and staying sharp and original is not to look back too much.

  Wes Craven

  Thinking, Creative, Important

  Interview with Scott Tobias, www.avclub.com. March 11, 2009.

• There was a generation of kids who were just kind of emulating distant heroes and wearing peace symbols, and parents who were thinking of themselves as liberal and removed from barbarity, but it also was the era of Vietnam. I very much was influenced - and I think the whole country was kind of in a state of shock - for the first time seeing the horror and cruelty of war.

  Wes Craven

  Country, War, Hero

  Interview with Scott Tobias, www.avclub.com. March 11, 2009.

• I've done a few interviews where I realized that 9/11 was the ultimate home invasion, not to be glib about it. You know, where the place that you think is safe and the people that you think are safe and far from evil are suddenly just slaughtered by it, and you have no control over it.

  Wes Craven

  Home, Thinking, People

  Interview with Scott Tobias, www.avclub.com. March 11, 2009.

• I wrote, I think, half a dozen films that were completely out of genre. Comedies, love stories, even one serious film about Vietnam, and we couldn't get backing for any of it. And we both sort of drifted from making, at that time, serious money on Last House to going through it all in the course of almost three years and only getting offers to do something scary again.

  Wes Craven

  Thinking, Years, Scary

  Interview with Scott Tobias, www.avclub.com. March 11, 2009.