Mike Leigh Quotes About Film

Quotes about: Film

• I do not make films which are prescriptive, and I do not make films that are conclusive. You do not walk out of my films with a clear feeling about what is right and wrong. They're ambivalent. You walk away with work to do. My films are a sort of investigation. They ask questions . . .. Sometimes I hear that some [Hollywood] studio is interested in me. Then they discover that this is the guy who works with no script, that there is no casting discussion, no interference, that I have the final cut, and that does it.

  Mike Leigh

  Cutting, Guy, Feelings

• Film-makers should remain true to their principles and never compromise, there is a real revival in the British film industry but there is a danger that we will become colonial servants of Hollywood. We need to maintain our own integrity.

  Mike Leigh

  Integrity, Real, Principles

• I hope I make films where you walk away . . . with work to do, arguments to have, things to worry about, things to care about. In that sense, I would regard what I do as political.

  Mike Leigh

  Worry, Political, Care

• You will find hardly any improvising on camera anywhere in my films. It's very structured, but it's all worked out from elaborate improvisations over a long period, as you know.

  Mike Leigh

  Long, Cameras, Film

  "Lynne: People quote your films at parties. Mike: Those are lousy parties". Interview with Lynne Ramsay, www.theguardian.com. February 3, 2005.

• For me the journey of making a film is a journey of discovery as to what that film is. I mean what I do is what other artists do, painters, novelists, people that make music, poets, sculptors, you name it. It's about starting out and working with the material and discovering through making, working with the material the artifact.

  Mike Leigh

  Mean, Artist, Journey

  "Big Think Interview With Mike Leigh". Interview with Max Miller, bigthink.com. October 7, 2010.

• I hate period films - and there are plenty of them - where they say, "Let's not do contemporary language because the audience won't understand it;" "let's not make the girls wear corsets, because it's not sexy" and all that sort of thing. Gradually it disintegrates into a no man's land: you don't really believe it's a period scene and it doesn't feel like it's now because it's not now. You don't feel it's quite real and you don't believe in it.

  Mike Leigh

  Girl, Sexy, Hate

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I really think people are greatly stimulated and enriched by experiencing in film just as we can from novels and other art, experiencing things that resonate with what our lives are about. I think people really want to know... want to share, want to have the stimulus to think and care about the way they live their lives, the way they relate to other people, their aspirations, their hopes, et cetera.

  Mike Leigh

  Art, Thinking, People

  "What Hitchcock Got Wrong". Big Think Interview, bigthink.com.

• My job apart from anything else is to build an ensemble composed of actors who all come from a secure place so that they can all work together to make the film.

  Mike Leigh

  Jobs, Working Together, Ensemble

  Interview with Chloe Veltman, www.believermag.com. March/April 2009.

• I don't know what the character is going to be. We sit down and we create a character, and all of the characters in all of my films are made like that.

  Mike Leigh

  Character, Film

  Source: www.avclub.com

• But actually I make films that I think are extremely sophisticated and cinematic.

  Mike Leigh

  Thinking, Film, Sophisticated

  Interview with Scott Tobias, www.avclub.com. November 23, 2008.

• Films are made all over the world all the time and only a thin slice of that product is Hollywood.

  Mike Leigh

  Hollywood, World, Film

  "Big Think Interview With Mike Leigh". Interview with Max Miller, bigthink.com. October 7, 2010.

• The reason my films work is because every actor on set is very secure. They're able to fly.

  Mike Leigh

  Actors, Able, Film

  Interview with Chloe Veltman, www.believermag.com. March/April 2009.

• I discover what my film is by embarking on the journey of making it.

  Mike Leigh

  Journey, Film

  Source: www.avclub.com

• But films should be voyeuristic. What else is a film if you’re not snooping into somebody else’s lives?

  Mike Leigh

  Film, Should, Snooping

  "The Auteur, The Voyeur: Mike Leigh Talks". Interview with Durga Chew-Bose, www.interviewmagazine.com. October 8, 2010.

• I know, that trends and all of those things and formulae that calculate what audiences want to see and what audiences don't want to see and various other demographic demarcations are the eccentric and ludicrous prerogative of Hollywood studios. But out there in the real world - by which I mean the rest of the world where we make truthful organic films, independent films unimpeded by interference - it's not about all those sort of calculating what is commercial. It's about wanting to say things and saying them in a way that will get through to people.

  Mike Leigh

  Real, Mean, Independent

  "Big Think Interview With Mike Leigh". Interview with Max Miller, bigthink.com. October 7, 2010.

• One of the reasons the whole Hollywood way of making films wouldn't work for me is because the way I operate would be anathema to anyone who wants to hold a job down in Beverly Hills.

  Mike Leigh

  Jobs, Beverly Hills, Hollywood

  Interview with Chloe Veltman, www.believermag.com. March/April 2009.

• If I'm ever working on a set and anyone talks about a master shot, I say there is no master shot. Before I even went to film school, I learned about movies by being in a British feature film, where everything was shot master shot, mid-shot, close-up. But I reject the idea of a master shot. You don't shoot everything mechanically; you find imaginative ways that serve the action.

  Mike Leigh

  School, Action, Film

  Source: www.avclub.com

• I think Michael Caine is a perfectly good actor but it's obvious he's not going to be in one of my films.

  Mike Leigh

  Thinking, Perfectly Good, Actors

• I grew up looking at... going to the movies a lot, as much as they'd let you. I grew up in Manchester in the north of England in the '40s and '50s. I saw a lot of movies. They were all Hollywood and British movies. I didn't see a film that wasn't in English until I was 17 when I went to London to be a student.

  Mike Leigh

  Hollywood, London, Saws

  "Big Think Interview With Mike Leigh". Interview with Max Miller, bigthink.com. October 7, 2010.

• The main problem is that the Hollywood system has already made the film before the director shoots a single frame.

  Mike Leigh

  Directors, Hollywood, Problem

  Interview with Chloe Veltman, www.believermag.com. March/April 2009.

• I did sit in cinemas as a kid looking at English and American movies thinking, "Wouldn't it be great if the characters were like real people?" And the worst thing is films are constantly advertising themselves, drawing attention to their style of things. But actually I make films that I think are extremely sophisticated and cinematic. But you don't want the audience thinking about the bloody film. You want them to think about what's going on, and believe in it. Be flies on the wall, you know?

  Mike Leigh

  Wall, Real, Believe

  Source: www.avclub.com

• I'm developing the stuff all the time. There's a film in my head. I'm imagining a film.

  Mike Leigh

  Stuff, Film, Developing

• When I was young I used to sit in the cinema thinking wouldn't it be great if you could have a film in which the characters were like real people instead of being like actors.

  Mike Leigh

  Real, Character, Thinking

  Source: bigthink.com

• A lot of the reasons that I'm resistant to making films in the U.S. have nothing to do with not doing a film in Hollywood, but rather to do with what I'm committed to working on in the U.K. I feel very committed to the British film industry and infrastructure.

  Mike Leigh

  Hollywood, Film, Reason

  Interview with Chloe Veltman, www.believermag.com. March/April 2009.

• I've walked out of films. But for every film I've ever walked out of, I've probably walked out of 500 plays.

  Mike Leigh

  Play, Film

  "Mike Leigh: 'Creativity is a life-blood for people'". Interview with Miranda Sawyer, www.theguardian.com. April 09, 2011.

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