Abbas Kiarostami Quotes About Film

Quotes about: Film

• It seems that film-makers are being divided between those working in digital and those who are not. I think it's not something predetermined - it all depends on what project we have in mind, and on that basis we choose the medium.

  Abbas Kiarostami

  Thinking, Mind, Digital

  Interview with Geoff Andrew, www.theguardian.com. April 28, 2005.

• I prefer the films that put their audience to sleep in the theater. Some films have made me doze off in the theater, but the same films have made me stay up at night, wake up thinking about them in the morning, and keep on thinking about them for weeks.

  Abbas Kiarostami

  Morning, Sleep, Night

• It was a film that I knew, that I had seen, that I was familiar with, but I wasn't anxious about it at any point during the screening. I snoozed twice, and this is something I couldn't have imagined that I would feel detached, as I did with this film [Certified Copy].

  Abbas Kiarostami

  Film, Anxious, Familiar

  Interview with Sam Adams, www.avclub.com. March 17, 2011.

• Close-Up is a very particular film in my oeuvre. It's a film that was made in a very particular way; mainly because I didn't really have the time to think about how to go about making the film.

  Abbas Kiarostami

  Thinking, Way, Film

  Interview with Geoff Andrew, www.theguardian.com. April 28, 2005.

• My films have been progressing towards a certain kind of minimalism, even though it was never intended. Elements which can be eliminated have been eliminated.

  Abbas Kiarostami

  Progress, Elements, Kind

  Interview with Geoff Andrew, www.theguardian.com. April 28, 2005.

• I think, just as footballers play better at home, maybe film-makers, too, create better at home, even though the rules of football are the same wherever you go.

  Abbas Kiarostami

  Football, Home, Thinking

  Interview with Geoff Andrew, www.theguardian.com. April 28, 2005.

• Maybe more than a teller, I am a story listener. I really enjoy listening to stories. I remember them and keep them in my mind. All of my films are a collection of small stories that have been told to me.

  Abbas Kiarostami

  Listening, Mind, Remember

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I don't generally derive my stories from novels. I try to turn into film things I have felt or experienced.

  Abbas Kiarostami

  Trying, Stories, Film

  Source: aaroncutler.tumblr.com

• The kind of sleep that I had during my own film [Certified Copy] screening in Cannes is different. It's not because of the specificity of the film. It was because of my relationship as an author to this film. Usually when I take my films to festivals, I feel incredibly anxious about them. I wonder how it will be received, how the audience will react. I feel deeply responsible for them. Whereas this time, I didn't have that responsibility on my shoulders.

  Abbas Kiarostami

  Sleep, Responsibility, Different

  Interview with Sam Adams, www.avclub.com. March 17, 2011.

• I had intended to make another film, called Pocket Money, which was to be about children at a school. I was very much intrigued by the story [of Close Up] - it came into my dreams and I was very much influenced by it. So I called my producer and asked that we put aside Pocket Money and start something else, and he agreed.

  Abbas Kiarostami

  Dream, Children, School

  Interview with Geoff Andrew, www.theguardian.com. April 28, 2005.

• I do believe that a film like Ten could never have been made with a 35mm camera. The first part of the film lasts 17 minutes, and by the end of that part, the kid has totally forgotten the camera.

  Abbas Kiarostami

  Believe, Kids, Cameras

  Interview with Geoff Andrew, www.theguardian.com. April 28, 2005.

• I don't have very complete scripts for my films. I have a general outline and a character in my mind, and I make no notes until I find the character who's in my mind in reality.

  Abbas Kiarostami

  Character, Reality, Mind

  Interview with Geoff Andrew, www.theguardian.com. April 28, 2005.

• I don't ask my students to have studied film or any education in general. What I ask them is to come and sit and tell me a story, and the way they choose it and tell it, for me, the best criteria for whether they are right for making films. There's nothing more important than being able to tell your story orally.

  Abbas Kiarostami

  Important, Students, Film

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I prefer the countryside to cities. This is also true of my films: I have made more films in rural societies, and villages, than in towns.

  Abbas Kiarostami

  Cities, Village, Towns

  "Abbas Kiarostami's best shot". Interview with Andrew Pulver, www.theguardian.com. July 29, 2009.

• I think the contrast between these two in the professional world of cinema mattered to me. One who has reached the ultimate point of being a star, who knows how to do everything very well, facing another person who would throughout the making of the film transfer his anxiety to both of us, to me and to Juliette, as to whether or not he would be capable of fulfilling his role. This in itself created a challenge that was actually very good for me, since I hadn't ever counterposed two such performers before, creating that challenge between someone who knows their part and someone who doesn't.

  Abbas Kiarostami

  Stars, Thinking, Two

  Source: aaroncutler.tumblr.com

• I saw this French woman, this English man in Italy. It was a film [Certified Copy] I knew well, but I had already seen it, and I was familiar with it, and I had no feeling of anxiety or responsibility toward it.

  Abbas Kiarostami

  Responsibility, Men, Anxiety

  Interview with Sam Adams, www.avclub.com. March 17, 2011.

• I am still very surprised that I managed to make that film [Close Up]. When I actually look back on that film, I really feel that I was not the director but instead just a member of the audience.

  Abbas Kiarostami

  Directors, Looks, Film

  Interview with Geoff Andrew, www.theguardian.com. April 28, 2005.

• A digital camera does have many advantages and I was a believer that digital video would be a big influence on film-making.

  Abbas Kiarostami

  Cameras, Doe, Would Be

  Interview with Geoff Andrew, www.theguardian.com. April 28, 2005.

• When I met Akira Kurosawa in Japan, one question he asked me was, "How did you actually make the children act the way they do? I do have children in my films but I find that I reduce and reduce their presence until I have to get rid of them because there's no way that I can direct them." My own thought is that one is very grand, like an emperor on a horse, and it's very hard for a child to relate to that. In order to be able to cooperate with a child, you have to come down to below their level in order to communicate with them.

  Abbas Kiarostami

  Children, Japan, Way

  Interview with Geoff Andrew, www.theguardian.com. April 28, 2005.

• I think Woody Allen is Woody Allen, and no matter where he goes he still makes his Woody Allen films.

  Abbas Kiarostami

  Thinking, Matter, Film

• The only thing that I can do is hold a mirror in front of men and women, in front of the viewer in the theater, to reflect. There is nothing but reflection that I could intend to offer the viewer of the film.

  Abbas Kiarostami

  Reflection, Men, Mirrors

  Interview with Sam Adams, www.avclub.com. March 17, 2011.

• I have received the digital camera as a blessing. It has really changed my life as a filmmaker, because I don't use my camera anymore as a camera. I don't feel it as a camera. I feel it as a friend, as something that doesn't make an impression on people, that doesn't make them feel uncomfortable, and that is completely forgotten in my way of approaching life and people and film.

  Abbas Kiarostami

  Blessing, People, Cameras

  Interview with Sam Adams, www.avclub.com. March 17, 2011.

• The film [Close Up] made itself, to a large extent. The characters involved were very real, I wasn't directing the actors so much as being directed by them. So it was a very particular film.

  Abbas Kiarostami

  Real, Character, Actors

  Interview with Geoff Andrew, www.theguardian.com. April 28, 2005.

• I have somewhat lost my enthusiasm in the last years. Mainly because film students using digital video these days have not really produced anything which is more than superficial or simplistic; so I have my doubts.

  Abbas Kiarostami

  Years, Doubt, Video

  Interview with Geoff Andrew, www.theguardian.com. April 28, 2005.

• As film-makers, it is very important for us to find common ground between cultures, and maybe that's less the case for politicians who benefit more from finding the conflicts and differences between us.

  Abbas Kiarostami

  Differences, Important, Culture

  Interview with Geoff Andrew, www.theguardian.com. April 28, 2005.

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