Stanley Donen Quotes

• What we all like in life, I think, is the challenge of making something... that is not easy to do.

  Stanley Donen

  Thinking, Challenges, Easy

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• People always say to me, 'You have such a clearly defined sense of style,' and when I hear it, I get crazed, because what I hear - and I know they mean it as a compliment - is that I have such a narrow vision that I can't get out of it.

  Stanley Donen

  Mean, People, Style

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• Jean-Luc Godard said that cinema is the truth 24 frames a second. I think cinema is lies 24 frames a second.

  Stanley Donen

  Lying, Thinking, Cinema

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• When Fred Astaire danced, everything in this world was perfect.

  Stanley Donen

  Perfect, World, This World

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• There's no more film. Film is gone. We photograph digitally and electronically. We don't really use film the same way anymore - it's disappearing little by little. Things change. We have to change with them. There's no point in liking or not liking it. It is what it is.

  Stanley Donen

  Gone, Use, Littles

  "Legendary Musicals Director Stanley Donen On Audrey Hepburn and 'Dancing With The Stars' (Q&A)". Interview with Rebecca Leffler, www.hollywoodreporter.com. June 22, 2012.

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• You know, sound was still a fairly new thing when I came into movies. And the reason musicals happened is because of sound. They could put music in the picture! That's how it all began.

  Stanley Donen

  Sound, Reason, Stills

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• I can still dance a little, yes, but I like singing better. It's more fun.

  Stanley Donen

  Fun, Singing, Littles

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• What I got, unconsciously, from admiring Fred Astaire was that he didn't want what he was doing to look difficult. What was difficult, in my opinion, was making it look so genuine, so effortless. I equally have tried to remain unseen on the screen.

  Stanley Donen

  Unseen, Looks, Want

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• You see, it took me so long, it was such a struggle, to move myself out of musicals - because I had had a success, nobody wanted to allow me to direct a non-musical picture. It was so hard. And the only way I could get it going was to become a producer myself.

  Stanley Donen

  Struggle, Moving, Long

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• There was never any point in my life when I wasn't called Mr. Donen. I'm told my first words were, 'Call me Mr. Donen.' But I suspect that's apocryphal. My mother, Mrs. Donen, tended to exaggerate.

  Stanley Donen

  Mother, Firsts, Call Me

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• I think of myself as a meat-and-potatoes kind of director.

  Stanley Donen

  Thinking, Meat, Directors

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• What we think about Paris is a part of how we feel about it. Our idea of Paris is our idea and we don't know that that's not necessarily the way it really is. It feels so real.

  Stanley Donen

  Real, Thinking, Ideas

  "Legendary Musicals Director Stanley Donen On Audrey Hepburn and 'Dancing With The Stars' (Q&A)". Interview with Rebecca Leffler, www.hollywoodreporter.com. June 22, 2012.

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• It was very hard to make 'Funny Face' in Paris because making movies is difficult and making a movie in a city that was glorious, that was unique and surprising, to get it, to put it on film you have to make choices and reject a lot of things so you're always wondering: "am I doing it right?"

  Stanley Donen

  Unique, Cities, Paris

  "Legendary Musicals Director Stanley Donen On Audrey Hepburn and 'Dancing With The Stars' (Q&A)". Interview with Rebecca Leffler, www.hollywoodreporter.com. June 22, 2012.

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• I started dancing when I saw Fred Astaire in 'Flying Down to Rio,' at approximately nine years old. Fred Astaire influenced me, more than anything, to be in 'show business.

  Stanley Donen

  Years, Dancing, Flying

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• The funniest thing is not who influenced me positively, but who influenced me negatively. I had such an aversion to what Busby Berkeley did; in my early formative years, I thought it was terrible. Now, I think it's wonderful. But then, I wanted to do anything but what Busby Berkeley did.

  Stanley Donen

  Thinking, Years, Aversion

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• My childhood wasn't very happy. It's a long, grim story about being a Jew in a small southern town.

  Stanley Donen

  Long, Childhood, Southern

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• I don't have too many friends. I have only a few people who I really love.

  Stanley Donen

  People, Many Friends

  "Legendary Musicals Director Stanley Donen On Audrey Hepburn and 'Dancing With The Stars' (Q&A)". Interview with Rebecca Leffler, www.hollywoodreporter.com. June 22, 2012.

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