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 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.

• There were years when Hitchcock was like a master to me, but now I think he's so artificial. I can watch films and say how technically beautiful they are, but I'm not impressed by any technicality.

  Abbas Kiarostami

  Beautiful, Thinking, Years

• In my experience as a director, I think there is obviously something of the way men - maybe that's a common point with Shirin - the way men see women in the film, and the way these two characters see each other.

  Abbas Kiarostami

  Character, Men, Thinking

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

• With the RED, I didn't have this impression at all. I felt that it was as heavy as a film camera. Having this great crew, with the DP and his assistants, I found it making as much of an impression as a very big film camera. I didn't relate to it as much. I remember avoiding it during the shooting rather than paying attention to it.

  Abbas Kiarostami

  Cameras, Attention, Shooting

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

• Close-Up has affected later films that I've made.

  Abbas Kiarostami

  Film, Made, Affected

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

• The Iranian government as a whole has no relationship with my films. They're not particularly interested, perhaps this kind of cinema is not very interesting to them.

  Abbas Kiarostami

  Government, Interesting, Cinema

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

• Everybody knows that I am not usually patient enough to actually sit down and watch one of my own films from the beginning to the end - I never do.

  Abbas Kiarostami

  Watches, Down And, Patient

• The fact of having this very new context, this unheard-of way of working, for me was very pleasant. I didn't feel that I was working, that I had any kind of burden to wear, to carry. I really was very happy and very lighthearted during the whole process of making the film [Certified Copy], of shooting it.

  Abbas Kiarostami

  Shooting, Way, Facts

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

• I think life is so difficult to catch, it's so furtive, that a copy, a film, can in no way catch it and represent it.

  Abbas Kiarostami

  Thinking, Way, Life Is

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

• It is a very important film, Life And Nothing More, in that what was filmed was inspired by a journey I had made just three days after an earthquake. And I speak not only of the film itself but also of the experience of being in that place, where only three days before 50,000 people had died.

  Abbas Kiarostami

  Journey, Earthquakes, People

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

• I think I'm no different to my friends who are doctors or businessmen or architects - we all started watching films of the golden age together. But whether I'm making films or writing poetry or doing photography, it's very much rooted in my sense of unease. And that's really where everything goes back to.

  Abbas Kiarostami

  Photography, Writing, Thinking

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

• I'm not sure that my films show the reality of life in Iran; we show different aspects of life. Iran is a very extensive and expansive place, and sometimes, even for us who live there, some of the realities are very hard to comprehend.

  Abbas Kiarostami

  Reality, Iran, Different

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

• Film is very much a universal and common voice, and we can't limit it to one particular culture.

  Abbas Kiarostami

  Voice, Culture, Limits

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

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