The directing of a picture involves coming out of your individual loneliness and taking a controlling part in putting together a small world. — John Huston
When you direct is the only time you get to have the world exactly how you want it. My movies are very close to what I set out to do. And I'm super-opinionated about what I do and don't like. — Sofia Coppola
I'm a storyteller - that's the chief function of a director. And they're moving pictures, let's make 'em move! — Howard Hawks
Anybody can direct a picture once they know the fundamentals. Directing is not a mystery, it's not an art. The main thing about directing is: photograph the people's eyes. — John Ford
Of course, I'd like to produce and direct a blockbuster, but you gotta build up to that. So now I'm learning from a bunch of little movies. And it's more fun with smaller pictures. It's more creative. — Lea Thompson
I couldn't be a cameraman or a designer or an actor - I have to be a director because I learned how to do that from my dad. — Joe Wright
It's not easy to strap yourself down to a desk and bash on a keyboard when you know you can direct lots of films, because directing films is fun and interactive and gregarious. Writing isn't. — Guy Ritchie
The profession of film director can and should be such a high and precious one; that no man aspiring to it can disregard any knowledge that will make him a better film director or human being. — Sergei Eisenstein
When you look at a movie, you look at a director's thought process. — Oliver Stone
The notion of directing a film is the invention of critics - the whole eloquence of cinema is achieved in the editing room. — Orson Welles
Most directors make films with their eyes; I make films with my testicles. — Alejandro Jodorowsky
A director shouldn't get in the way of the movie, the story should. — Frank Darabont
In the future, everybody is going to be a director. Somebody's got to live a real life so we have something to make a movie about. — Cameron Crowe
I did all my directing when I wrote the screenplay. It was probably harder for a regular director. He probably had to read the script the night before shooting started. — Preston Sturges
The thing about film-making is I give it everything, that's why I work so hard. I always tell young actors to take charge. It's not that hard. Sign your own cheques, be responsible. — Tom Cruise
The duty of a film director is to focus more on the soul of the spectator. — Ken Loach
A film is a director's vision... there is, however, much input an actor or actress can have. — Natasha Richardson
There are no good and bad movies, only good and bad directors — Francois Truffaut
In feature films the director is God; in documentary films God is the director. — Alfred Hitchcock
A director must be a policeman, a midwife, a psychoanalyst, a sycophant and a bastard. — Billy Wilder
If you just love movies enough, you can make a good one. — Quentin Tarantino
I think film and television are really a director's medium, whereas theatre is the actor's medium. — Christopher Eccleston
The best education in film is to make one — Stanley Kubrick
The best director is the one you don't see. — Billy Wilder
Top 10 Directing Movies Quotes
No form of art goes beyond ordinary consciousness as film does, straight to our emotions, deep into the twilight room of the soul. — Ingmar Bergman
I don't want to talk to you no more, you empty headed animal food trough wiper. I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries. — Graham Chapman
Before I go off and direct a movie, I always look at four films. They tend to be The Seven Samurai, Lawrence Of Arabia, It's A Wonderful Life and The Searchers. — Steven Spielberg
The truth is that you’re living the movie of your life. So you don’t have to direct it beforehand, you’ve gotta direct it in the moment. —
I think its a very strange question that I have to defend myself. I don’t feel that. You are all my guests, it’s not the other way around, that’s how I feel. — Lars von Trier
I work constantly but I work at a lot of different things. You know, I run a theater company in New York, I direct plays, act in plays, in movies, so I try to keep it eclectic. — Philip Seymour Hoffman
Directing is like guitar playing. That's a unique mind-set and talent, unto itself. I like the idea of putting everything together to make a great movie. — Slash
It's irrelevant who or what directed a movie; the important thing is that you either respond to it or you don't. — Kathryn Bigelow
Whether it's movies or television that I've directed, or characters that I've played, I'm just always fascinated by the moral ambiguity inherent in life. — Tony Goldwyn
As a guiding principle, life shrinks and life expands in direct proportion to your willingness to assume risk. — Casey Neistat
Your heart knows the way. Run in that direction.
If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined... — Henry David Thoreau
When you can’t change the direction of the wind — adjust your sails — H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
The good life is a process, not a state of being. It is a direction not a destination. — Carl Rogers
Self-control is strength. Calmness is mastery. You have to get to a point where your mood doesn't shift based on the insignificant actions of someone else. Don't allow others to control the direction of your life. Don't allow your emotions to overpower your intelligence.
When obstacles arise, you change your direction to reach your goal; you do not change your decision to get there. — Zig Ziglar
If you think down, you will go down. If you think up, you will go up. You’ll always travel in the direction of your thinking. — T. D. Jakes
The child who has felt a strong love for his surroundings and for all living creatures, who has discovered joy and enthusiasm in work, gives us reason to hope that humanity can develop in a new direction. — Maria Montessori
If you walk the footsteps of a stranger, you'll learn things you never knew you never knew. — Pocahontas
Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light. — J. K. Rowling
There are a lot of good books around. People don't read any more. It's a sad state of affairs. Reading's the only thing that allows you to use your imagination. When you watch films it's someone else's vision, isn't it? — Lemmy Kilmister
Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. — John Hughes
You don't make a photograph just with a camera. You bring to the act of photography all the pictures you have seen, the books you have read, the music you have heard, the people you have loved. — Ansel Adams
Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn. — Clark Gable
One of the reasons I love to jump back and forth between mediums is that film does allow me to be more literal. I can go to the real place. I can go to the Coliseum, and I don't have to fake it. — Julie Taymor
Which of my photographs is my favorite? The one I'm going to take tomorrow. — Imogen Cunningham
Drama is life with the dull bits left out. There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it. I believe in putting the horror in the minds of the audience, and not necessarily on the screen. The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder. — Alfred Hitchcock
The cinema is not an art which films life: the cinema is something between art and life. Unlike painting and literature, the cinema both gives to life and takes from it, and I try to render this concept in my films. Literature and painting both exist as art from the very start; the cinema doesn't. — Jean-Luc Godard
Movie Direction Quotes
That was certainly true the first time, when I did Body Heat, the first movie that I directed. I was looking for a vessel to tell a certain kind of story, and I was a huge fan of Film Noir, and what I liked about it was that it was so extreme in style. — Lawrence Kasdan
Directing ain't about drawing a neat little picture and showing it to the cameraman. I didn't want to go to film school. I didn't know what the point was. The fact is, you don't know what directing is until the sun is setting and you've got to get five shots and you're only going to get two. — David Fincher
When I was a kid, I would make kung fu movies with the kids in the neighborhood, and I would be the guy behind the camera directing everybody, but they were all very silly little shorts and comedy bits. — Dan Fogler
One of the things we learn in movies directed by men is what the 'fantasy woman' is. What we learn in movies directed by women is what real women are about. I don't think that men see things wrong and women right, just that we do see things differently. — Jane Campion
It's very eclectic, the way one chooses subjects in the movie business, especially in the commercial movie business. You need to develop material yourself or material is presented to you as an assignment to direct. — John Frankenheimer
It's not movies and it's not "fine art." The beauty of a comic is that it's clear, direct communication. My work is getting simpler and more cartoony because I'm much more interested in communication now than in any illustrative value. — Frank Miller
Almost all the movies I've directed are adaptations. And I think what I found when I went to film school, where they try to push you to find your voice or your thing, is that I got a lot of things out of adaptations. — James Franco
A writer/director is a tough thing to gauge when someone hasn't directed a movie before. You just don't know. Sometimes it will be a great script that's written beautifully, and then the director who has also written it does not have the facility to translate it. — Richard Ayoade
Having a thirteen-year-old in the family is like having a general-admission ticket to the movies, radio and TV. You get to understand that the glittering new arts of our civilization are directed to the teen-agers, and by their suffrage they stand or fall. — Max Lerner
Being a father is like directing Alien or Invasion of the Body Snatchers. It's much more difficult than directing an episode of TV. Also, directing a show or movie lasts a few months at most, parenting lasts for decades. — Misha Collins
Film Directing Quotes
My cameraman and I devised a method, which we started using from my second film, which applies mainly to day scenes shot in the studio, where we used bounced light instead of direct light. We agreed with this thing of four or five shadows following the actors is dreadful. — Satyajit Ray
Film as dream, film as music. No art passes our conscience in the way film does, and goes directly to our feelings, deep down into the dark rooms of our souls. — Ingmar Bergman
I got expelled from high school, and then did my exams from home. I decided, through that experience, that I was going to expediate my plan and didn't go to university. Instead, I went to a community college and studied the theory and history of film with the idea that I wanted to write and direct. — Charlie Hunnam
I like, as a director and a spectator, simple, direct, frank films. Nothing disgusts me more than snobbism, mannerism, technical gratuity... and, most of all, intellectualism. — John Ford
I like films that continue to spin your head in all sorts of different directions after you've seen them. — Christopher Nolan
Two types of films: those that employ the resources of the theater (actors, direction, etc...) and use the camera in order to reproduce; those that employ the resources of cinematography and use the camera to create — Robert Bresson
Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream, it takes over as the number one hormone; it bosses the enzymes; directs the pineal gland; plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to film is more film. — Frank Capra
The film of tomorrow will not be directed by civil servants of the camera, but by artists for whom shooting a film constitutes a wonderful and thrilling adventure. — Francois Truffaut
I attend film school, my background is acting and directing. But the acting does best, I like to work on the stage. — Tommy Wiseau
Movie Director Quotes
Invention, my dear friends, is 93% perspiration, 6% electricity, 4% evaporation, and 2% butterscotch ripple — Gene Wilder
When I was young, I believed in three things: Marxism, the redemptive power of cinema, and dynamite. Now I just believe in dynamite. — Sergio Leone
And Later I Thought, I Can't Think How Anyone Can Become a Director Without Learning the Craft of Cinematography. — Gus Van Sant
I'm a frustrated actor. My ... goal is to beat Alfred Hitchcock in the number of cameos. I'm going to try to break his record. — Stan Lee
There are no rules in filmmaking. Only sins. And the cardinal sin is dullness. — Frank Capra
Editing is not merely a method of the junction of separate scenes or pieces, but is a method that controls the 'psychological guidance' of the spectator. — Vsevolod Pudovkin
Unlike all the other art forms, film is able to seize and render the passage of time, to stop it, almost to possess it in infinity. I'd say that film is the sculpting of time. — Andrei Tarkovsky
I don't watch the movies I make, so I haven't seen 'Footloose' since it came out. You see this young, hungry actor, it's pretty fun. I was the only one they screen tested. It was an attempt by the director and producer to talk the head of the studio into hiring me because they didn't want me. — Kevin Bacon
Who would have thought that [director] Cameron Crowe had a movie as bad as Vanilla Sky in him? It's a punishing picture, a betrayal of everything that Crowe has proved he knows how to do right. — Stephanie Zacharek
Life is like a B-picture script! It is that corny. If I had my life story offered to me to film, I'd turn it down. — Kirk Douglas
Film Director Quotes
A director standing by his film rejected by the audience is like him telling a girl 'I love myself and I don't care if you don't love me'. — Ram Gopal Varma
To make a great film you need three things - the script, the script and the script. — Alfred Hitchcock
Film is a dramatised reality and it is the director's job to make it appear real... an audience should not be conscious of technique. — David Lean
The thing that fascinates me is that the way I came to film and television is extinct. Then there were gatekeepers, it was prohibitively expensive to make a film, to be a director you had to be an entrepreneur to raise money. — Tom Hooper
Most of the top actors and actresses may be working in ten or twelve films at the same time, so they will give one director two hours and maybe shoot in Bombay in the morning and Madras in the evening. It happens. — Satyajit Ray
All film directors, whether famous or obscure, regard themselves as misunderstood or underrated. Because of that, they all lie. They're obliged to overstate their own importance. — Francois Truffaut
My father was a film-maker. He always said he wanted to go like Humphrey Jennings, the legendary director who stepped backwards over a cliff while framing a better shot. — A. A. Gill
For any director with a little lucidity, masterpieces are films that come to you by accident. — Sidney Lumet
When you see the films of certain young directors, you get the impression that film history begins for them around 1980. — Jacques Rivette
Every time I make an American film I just trust the American director and American writer. Myself, I would never make this kind of film. For me, those kinds of films are ridiculous. They don't make sense. — Jackie Chan
Moviemaking Quotes
In films, we are trained by the American way of moviemaking to think we must understand and 'get' everything right away. But this is not possible. When you eat a potato, you don't understand each atom of the potato! — Jean-Luc Godard
The art of moviemaking seems to get thrown away. The cinematography is gone, and the look of everything becomes of little importance. You lose the memorable images; everything looks like it's been shot at night with a security camera. — Rob Zombie
I think American cinema, particularly, has become so disposable. It's not even cinema, It's just moviemaking. — Eriq La Salle
Just because a movie is satisfactory means that the person who makes it is satisfactory. One can make a wonderful movie but still not be a wonderful person. In terms of interviews, it's probably not a good idea, because moviemakers tend not to tell the truth, even when asked a question. — Mamoru Oshii
It's easier for me to get comedies made because of my track record. Everybody needs to find their niche. I love dramas, but I understand that I am still just a young man in moviemaking. I know there will be some time to get back to that. — Ice Cube
Hollywood executives believe that money is both the be-all and end-all to the moviemaking process. — Leonard Maltin
People say I'm cocky, but am I supposed to sit here and be insecure and not know where my future's going or not realize that moviemaking is the greatest thing to happen to me? — Dale Carnegie
We saw what happens with Bolsheviks. It was another catastrophe. I don't have the solution. The moviemaker can ask questions but not give solutions. — Costa-Gavras
It's very, very rare in this business [moviemaking] where a script lands on your lap ready to go. — Leonardo DiCaprio
In moviemaking, you learn to pay attention to detail, because so much is in the detail. And when you're shooting, you try to be very alert to what's going on, even if you're tired. — Frederick Wiseman
Acting In Movies Quotes
Sometimes I feel as if we are all trapped in a movie. We know our lines, where to walk, how to act, only there is no camera. Yet, we can't break out of the movie. And it's a bad one. — Charles Bukowski
Stop being a supporting player in the movie that is your life. Become the movie star. This is a hero's journey you have embarked upon. It's high time you start acting like it. — Rich Roll
I'd like to be a superhero or a supervillain in a huge action movie. I want to play, like, the Joker or something like that. — Jake Paul
After 'Prom Night' I did two movies where I was playing a prostitute. I gravitate towards characters that have some sort of inner turmoil or some sort of character arc. That's the great thing about acting, so many different things and being really diverse in your choices. — Brittany Snow
I had given thought to acting, but I never really had a good enough opportunity or a character who made sense and paralleled my life a little bit. I feel like I'm one of the poster boys for a bad guy in a movie. I feel like I'm a good person to play a bad guy in a movie. I can say that. — Gucci Mane
I think the best roles are in dark movies. It's roles that aren't you. It's fun playing someone that's not me. If I'm playing me all the time, then it's not acting. It's just being yourself. — Chloe Grace Moretz
Life's generally artless ... but it does get these occasional hard-ons for plot. It connects things, nefariously, behind your back, and before you know it you're in the final act of a lousy movie. — Glen Duncan
The only really good thing about acting in movies is that there's no heavy lifting. — Cary Grant
I never really did years of movie-after-movie-after-movie but when you've got three toddlers in the house you're performing all day long, anyway, with puppet shows and stories - I act around the clock. — Julia Roberts
Movies In General Quotes
No saint, no pope, no general, no sultan, has ever had the power that a filmmaker has; the power to talk to hundreds of millions of people for two hours in the dark. — Frank Capra
Movies are always in a state of locomotion. You start with a general idea of how it should feel and then you find you've got a runaway train. You have to race to catch up: the movie is telling you what it wants to become, and when that happens there's no greater feeling. — Steven Spielberg
I loved the movies and I loved cartoon superheroes - superheroes in general. I had all the pajama costumes and I would wear my underwear on the outside of the pajamas because that's what Superman does. — Dane DeHaan
Well, we look for sources of inspiration in pop culture in general. It's very important for us that, when it comes to storytelling, we don't look into other video games. We'd rather look into other mediums - movies, television series and books - for sources of inspiration. — Sam Lake
Kids in general make things fresh and alive and they have this great appreciation for, Holy mackerel, we're making a movie! — James L. Brooks
The first rule of Fight Club is you don't talk about Fight Club. — Chuck Palahniuk
Honestly, I'm not a big movie buff in general. The only movies I own is probably the 'Indiana Jones' trilogy. — Miles Teller
It's funny, because there are so many stereotypes out there about actors and movie stars in general, but I've had a great opportunity to meet a lot of them, and maybe it's just because they don't behave that way around me, but I rarely see that kind of abuse of power. — Ryan Reynolds
I remember when I first started having these interpretations of these images, these clichés of what movie stars are and this and that, and they're egomaniacal pricks and tyrants, but in general, for the most part, they're nice people to tell you the truth. — Leonardo DiCaprio
In the sense that Watchmen references movies, comic books, pop culture in general. It knows it's a movie. I really do like movies that ride that fine line, the razor's edge between parody and supporting the fake movie part of the movie. — Zack Snyder
Good Director Quotes
Good theatre draws the energies out of the place where it is and gives it back as joie de vivre. — Joan Littlewood
It began when I was so ill that there was a good chance of dying. I promised myself that if I survived I would never again pander to a magazine's requests or follow the ideas of art directors. I would only make images which were personal, which arose out of my own life. — Helmut Newton
It wasn't until I started reading and found books they wouldn't let us read in school that I discovered you could be insane and happy and have a good life without being like everybody else. — John Waters
A good director creates an environment, which gives the actor the encouragement to fly. — Kevin Bacon
I never had any classes or went to theatre school like a lot of actors, so all of my training has been on stage with different directors. That was a pretty good school room. — James Denton
There's nothing really original. Alien was a B-movie. Five directors passed on it before me. Because I was into Heavy Metal, I read it, and thought, "Wow, I want to do this." I was on a plane to Hollywood in 22 hours. It was a B-movie and was elevated to an A-plus movie by sheer good taste. — Ridley Scott
Good evening, ladies and gentleman. My name is Orson Welles. I am an actor. I am a writer. I am a producer. I am a director. I am a magician. I appear onstage and on the radio. Why are there so many of me and so few of you? — Orson Welles
Audiences are harder to please if you're just giving them effects, but they're easy to please if it's a good story. — Steven Spielberg
I got a nomination for director, which means the world to me; it's just the most exciting thing for me and my family. You do the good hard work, and the rest of it is something you shouldn't get too caught up in, but when it happens - boy! I respect it. — David O. Russell
As the cinematographer is usually more visual than the director is and full cooperation is really the answer and to make a great film, you need a good director and you need a good cinematographer. — Vilmos Zsigmond
I have 236 movies on my queue and I feel like I should always be watching movies. Like if I wake up in the middle of the night and don't fall directly back to sleep, I'm like, 'I've been up for an hour and a half I could have watched 'Toy Story 3' by now.' In this economy it is a sin not to be watching movies when you have Netflix. — Gary Gulman
To be honest, I don't see myself acting forever. I just can't imagine myself being a 70-year-old man fighting for roles. I would love to do small parts in my friends' movies or things that I'm directing myself. I do envision myself behind the camera as I get a little bit older. — Dave Franco
I left Mexico for artistic survival. If I had stayed, I would have been forced by the government, who control the movie business, to direct TV shows or commercials or infomercials for the government. — Alfonso Cuaron
A film is - or should be - more like music than like fiction. — Stanley Kubrick
You hear it said time and time again by successful directors: You have to make a movie for yourself. Don't make it for anyone else. My style of filmmaking happens to be give the audience what they know they don't want, but they want. Ultimately I have to write and direct in a way that let's just say, you don't want to regret making a choice. — Jordan Peele
I can't change my gender, and I refuse to stop making movies. — Kathryn Bigelow
I met my wife and, for the next ten years, we did no films at all. She did the first movie and then I did several after. My first movie was written by Tennessee Williams and directed by [Elia] Kazan and was called Baby Doll. — Eli Wallach
Being a movie star, and this applies to all of them, means being looked at from every possible direction. You are never left at peace, you're just fair game. — Greta Garbo
For me the writing, when I'm going to direct it myself, is really just the first draft, and I don't change it very much; I only change it on average about two lines per movie. — John Sayles
I hadn't done a comedy for a while. I had directed a very low budget movie called The Ape and it was playing at a festival in Austin. Judd [Apatow] was there and he came and saw it and it's kind of funny. — Seth Rogen
There is no grand strategy. My sensibilities push me in a certain direction. Other actors have different sensibilities. That's all. I think it really is that simple. There's no grand strategy. There are so many variables that I have no control over. I sign on to movies I want to watch, as a fan. — Shia LaBeouf
I suppose they call me a womans director because there were all these movie queens in the old days, and I directed most of them. But I also directed Jack Barrymore and Ronald Colman and James Stewart, to name a few. — George Cukor
"Dirty Love" wasn't written and directed, it was committed. Here is a film so pitiful, it doesn't rise to the level of badness. It is hopelessly incompetent... I am not certain that anyone involved has ever seen a movie, or knows what one is. — Roger Ebert
I did have an offer to direct one of the Alien movies but I wasn't too excited about all the effects work. — Walter Hill
My first feature film was a movie called 'A Gunfight,' with Kirk Douglas, Johnny Cash, Karen Black, Jane Alexander, Raf Vallone... It was shot in Santa Fe, Mexico, in 1970, and it was directed by Lamont Johnson. It was the first gig I did when I got to California from having done 'Hair' in New York on Broadway for a year. It was a Western, though! But that film was not a successful release. — Keith Carradine
I love being a part of storytelling, so whether I'm getting to do that on Survivor, or do it through kids' adventure books, or directing a movie, it's all sort of the same: Once Upon a Time... — Jeff Probst
When you start directing movies at the age of 24, you're just a kid, you don't necessarily even have the experiences to add to the story, you're working off of instinct and raw emotions and raw talent, and hopefully it's the same trajectory as growing as a person. — F. Gary Gray
For some of the large indignities of life, the best remedy is direct action. For the small indignities, the best remedy is a Charlie Chaplin movie. The hard part is knowing the difference. — Carol Tavris
For a woman to direct a movie in Hollywood, she has to go through so many layers of rejection by the powers that be - I suppose including myself - that it is harder to get to that point. So you can't just create something. And I think there is a whole unconscious mountain. — Amy Pascal
The plot of a movie is its motor. It is not an accident that people call pictures 'vehicles' for stars. A vehicle has to move. A plotless story is like an expensive car with a wonderful body design, luxurious seats, upholstery, headlights (production, direction, cast) - and no motor under its hood. That is why it gets nowhere. — Ayn Rand
But, Tarantino has seen all of my movies. He's seen my good stuff, he's seen my bad stuff, he's seen the ones I directed, he's read my autobiography. There's an awful lot of things he knows about me, all of which I think had something to do with his casting. — David Carradine
If I have to produce movies, direct movies, whatever to change the way Hollywood treats older women, I'll do it. If I have to bend the rules, I will. If I have to break them, I will. — Naomi Watts
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