The tragedy of film history is that it is fabricated, falsified, by the very people who make film history. — Louise Brooks
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
Films have a certain place in a certain time period. Technology is forever. — Hedy Lamarr
When you see the films of certain young directors, you get the impression that film history begins for them around 1980. — Jacques Rivette
Cinematography, a military art. Prepare a film like a battle. — Robert Bresson
Film begins with DW Griffith and ends with Abbas Kiarostami. — Jean-Luc Godard
Film provides an opportunity to marry the power of ideas with the power of images. — Steven Bochco
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
Motion pictures are the art form of the 20th century, and one of the reasons is the fact that films are a slightly corrupted artform. They fit this century - they combine Art and business! — Roger Corman
Film is simply the most complex way you can express yourself — Michael Haneke
Film is a very, very powerful medium. It can either confirm the idea that things are wonderful the way they are, or it can reinforce the conception that things can be changed. — Wim Wenders
Filmmaking is a chance to live many lifetimes. — Robert Altman
Cinema is the most beautiful fraud in the world. — Jean-Luc Godard
Cinema is a matter of what's in the frame and what's out. — Martin Scorsese
When you look at a movie, you look at a director's thought process. — Oliver Stone
Every single art form is involved in film, in a way. — Sydney Pollack
Movies are a big part of our Indian culture. — Mahendra Singh Dhoni
I'm not coming from film school, I learned cinema in the cinema watching films. — Wong Kar-wai
A film is a director's vision... there is, however, much input an actor or actress can have. — Natasha Richardson
A film is never really any good unless the camera is an eye in the head of a poet. — Orson Welles
Film History Image Quotes
Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That's why we call it present.
Film In History Quotes
Think of Florence, Paris, London, New York. Nobody visiting them for the first time is a stranger because he's already visited them in paintings, novels, history books and films. But if a city hasn't been used by an artist, not even the inhabitants live there imaginatively. — Alasdair Gray
Movie SF is, by definition, dumbed down - there have only been three or four SF movies in the history of film that aspire to the complexity of literary SF. — Dan Simmons
In the Afghan people, I found the most resilient, welcoming people who, for the first time in my career, never judged me over my right to tell this story - as a woman or a foreigner. A people who cherish their culture and history and the films that have captured that culture. — Pietra Brettkelly
Yesterday is a history; Tomorrow a mystery; Today is a gift; That's why we call it the present
And Twin Peaks, the Film is the craziest film in the history of cinema. I have no idea what happened, I have no idea what I saw, all I know is that I left the theater floating six feet above the ground. — Jacques Rivette
Harrison Ford was pretty content as a carpenter who thought it would be nice to work on TV and ended up being the biggest film star in the history of cinema. — Dirk Benedict
Music makes me alive in a way that nothing quite does. Good art, good film, good books, good dance. Exhibitions, history. Nature makes me feel alive. Georgia in the rain - that makes me feel alive. Compassion makes me feel alive. Hard fought victories for social rights. — Emily Saliers
Don’t let your history interfere with your destiny.
I think that narrative, fiction filmmaking is the culmination of several art forms: theater, art history, architecture. Whereas doc filmmaking is more pure cinema, like cinema verite is film in its purest form. — George Hickenlooper
The greatest films ever made in our history were cut on film, and I'm tenaciously hanging on to the process. I just love going into an editing room and smelling the photochemistry and seeing my editor wearing mini-strands of film around his neck. — Steven Spielberg
The secret to the movie business, or any business, is to get a good education in a subject besides film - whether it's history, psychology, economics, or architecture - so you have something to make a movie about. All the skill in the world isn't going to help you unless you have something to say. — George Lucas
The Lego Movie: Merely a great film, or the greatest film ever in the history of cinema? — Christy Lemire
Historical Movie Quotes
I race historic muscle cars back in Australia, and that's my hobby. And I try to race home as soon as I've finished a movie but don't tell anyone. — Eric Bana
The Japanese couldn't have been all bad during World War II. Look at all the movies Hollywood was able to make on account of them. The Indians weren't the only bad guys. Thanks to the Japanese and Geronimo, John Wayne became a millionaire. — Pat Morita
Some movies run off the rails. This one is like the train crash in The Fugitive. I watched it in mounting gloom, realizing I was witnessing something historic, a film that for decades to come will be the punch line of jokes about bad movies. — Roger Ebert
Those who tell the stories rule society.
I'm absolutely positive it's in our human nature to want to know about the past. The two most popular movies of all time, while not historically accurate, are about core historic events: 'Gone With the Wind' and 'Titanic.' — David McCullough
Why would you create a movie for black people if you don't understand the history and perspective of the people you are doing it for? You need historical perspective to make sound decisions. — Tim Reid
When I was young, watching historical movies made me feel absolutely sublime. But the first few times I visited costume museums, I was really disappointed because it was not at the level I saw in movies. It was not the level of the image I'd imagined. — Olivier Theyskens
Live out of your imagination, not your history.
I think one of the mistakes that people historically have made in Hollywood, and there are countless examples of this, is making the assumption that if the movie worked before, if we just remake it it'll work again. — Hutch Parker
I think religious movies are more of a subset of the broader historical trend, and also the fact that there is more history in Europe, whereas in America, America is about the future. People in Europe think more of the past, and that's why I think filmmakers are drawn to it more. — Dolph Lundgren
I always say 300 is a sci-fi movie as much as anything. It's like that could be another planet. It doesn't have to be earth necessarily. That's like when people get so wrapped up in the politics of 300 I always go, "By the way, that's a sci-fi movie. It's not really a historical film." — Zack Snyder
Historically, I've done movies, but I've got a family already. I've been doing this for many years, and the idea of working consistently on something that I really, really love, and the steadiness of it, was really appealing. — Sam Huntington
History Of The World Movie Quotes
Karate is a form of martial arts in which people who have had years and years of training can, using only their hands and feet, make some of the worst movies in the history of the world. — Dave Barry
In the court of the movie Owner, none criticized, none doubted. And none dared speak of art. In the Owner's mind art was a synonym for bankruptcy. The movie Owners are the only troupe in the history of entertainment that has never been seduced by the adventure of the entertainment world. — Ben Hecht
Later, I made a movie with him, 'That Touch of Mink,' and we became good friends but any woman's initial meeting with Cary is right up there with the big moments of her world history. — Audrey Meadows
Yesterday is history, tomorrow is mystery, today is a gift.
I collect old first and second World War artifacts and things. I'm a little secret history nerd. I've been lucky enough to do quite a few war movies too so I've taken little things off each film. — Jeremy Irvine
I remember seeing Airplane, and even Mel Brooks movies like History of the World Part I, and just really loving that style of movies that make fun of movies. I think it needs to be done. All of these movies are ripe for being poked at. — Ashley Tisdale
It was a distortion, a mercenary decision to create this parallel history in order to drive the movie for an American audience, Both my grandparents were officers in World War Two, and I would be personally offended if somebody distorted their achieve. — David Ayer
Find A Film From A Quotes
The best thing you can do is find a person who loves you for exactly what you are. — Diablo Cody
When I originally entered UCLA, I had planned to go for a film major, but I kept finding myself taking math classes for fun, 'cause I missed them from high school! — Danica McKellar
All of our media is made of language: our films, our music, our images, and of course our words. How different this is from analog production, where, if you were somehow able to peel back the emulsion from, say, a photograph, you wouldn't find a speck of language lurking below the surface. — Kenneth Goldsmith
The theory that religion is a force for peace, does not fits the facts of it's history.
My discussion is one that has gone all the way from Fistful of Dollars through Once Upon a Time in America. But if you look closely at all these films, you find in them the same meanings, the same humor, the same point of view, and, also, the same pains. — Sergio Leone
It's the opposite journey from what I've usually done with films. I find it very easy to go from, say, a lit, pleasurable environment, like what you see outside there, to a very dark place. But the opposite journey, which is what this movie takes, is much more complicated. — Neil Jordan
I find myself more interested in producing. Not because I'm interested in the financial side of it, but just getting together the right elements to make a film, that side of production. I would not be good on the financial side. It would be a disaster from the beginning. — John Hurt
Don't let your history interfere with your destiny.
My inspiration always comes from different places. Sometimes it's a piece of music or being in nature or seeing a film or reading a magazine. I find inspiration everywhere. — Marie Forleo
We're doing all the shows as an eight-piece band. There's so many different kinds of palettes for each film that we've had to find a balance of musicians who can shift from one instrument to another to make all those sounds for us come to life. — Stuart A. Staples
The way a film is made tells you about its message. The processes are the same as the products. We made the film starting from processes that allowed us to find these complex ideas. — Alex Abreu
Music is like color or acting or whatever. It's really something I think about from the beginning. Not that I always know exactly what I'm going to use, but I don't see it as something like, "Let's find some songs now!" after we have a finished film. — Noah Baumbach
I saw that the camera could be a weapon against poverty, against racism, against all sorts of social wrongs. I knew at that point I had to have a camera. — Gordon Parks
Tagore once said - art has to be beautiful, but, before that, it has to be truthful. — Ritwik Ghatak
If you're someone who genuinely believes that women don't deserve or aren't as much as men, you're like the plague. On the big history chart, you're the plague... It's just pointless and deadly.
The guy who takes a chance, who walks the line between the known and unknown, who is unafraid of failure, will succeed. — Gordon Parks
We lay out our lives in a narrative we understand, like a movie, but are you enjoying making it or are you wondering who's watching my movie. — Donald Glover
And Later I Thought, I Can't Think How Anyone Can Become a Director Without Learning the Craft of Cinematography. — Gus Van Sant
We are not makers of history. We are made by history.
Hollywood is still the mecca for good or bad, but it isn't the beginning or end for filmmaking. — Robert Duvall
Living
consciously involves being genuine; it involves listening and
responding to others honestly and openly; it involves being in the
moment. — Sidney Poitier
Love is all a matter of timing. It's no good meeting the right person too soon or too late. — Wong Kar-wai
Cinema’s characteristic forte is its ability to capture and communicate the intimacies of the human mind. — Satyajit Ray
Film Production Quotes
When we film the TV show, it's with a hidden camera so we don't get to see how fans react to what we are doing and when fans watch it at home. — James Murray
The videos take months of prep. A lot of them take four to five days of relentless filming. There's a reason other people don't do what I do. — MrBeast
I think it would be really fun to film a drama in a foreign country. If the opportunity presents itself, I want to film a Chinese production. — Lee Min-ho
I'm not interested in a realistic look - not at all, not ever. Every film should look the way I feel.
Right now my career is totally schizophrenic, because when an American production like Hitchcock Presents asks to see my work I would never dream of showing them my independent films. — Atom Egoyan
I thought that was a pretty stupid argument, really, because it's the final product that matters. The look of the film, however it's done, is still the cinematographer's vision in my mind. People said the same when color film came in, didn't they? The world evolves, and image-making evolves. — Roger Deakins
I am a product of Indian cinema; I've grown up watching Indian films ever since I can remember. And song and dance is part of our lives, it's part of our culture we wake up to songs, we sleep to lullabies, you know, we celebrate every religious and traditional function with music. — Karan Johar
You could get in rehearsals, pre-production, anything that would actually contribute to the understanding of how a film gets made. I actually find those things increase people's interest in a movie and like that better than worrying about showing the tricks behind the curtain. — Jay Roach
My first film goes into production in October. It's called White Boy Shuffle and it's based on a novel about a young black kid and it's sort of reminiscent of Catcher in the Rye. — Ryan Phillippe
Any time you talk about the look of the film, it's not just the director and the director of photography. You have to include the costume designer and the production designer. — Spike Lee
I was lucky enough to occasionally break out of that racist situation that prevails in the Hollywood film production community. But it was racist then and it will always be that way. It will never be otherwise. — J. J. Johnson
Film Industry Quotes
Starting in the mid-1990s, the end-to-end ubiquity of the Internet, combined with its cheapness, spontaneously combusted to give us Napster - a site that revolutionized the music industry overnight. We got P2P file swapping in the film and TV industry as well. — Max Keiser
If I fail, the film industry writes me off as another statistic. If I succeed, they pay me a million bucks to fly out to Hollywood and fart. — George A. Romero
It proved to be pretty impossible to get funds for a feature film in Finland. It's still small, but the film industry was miniscule at that point in the early '80s. — Renny Harlin
Even in India the Hindi film industry might be the best known but there are movies made in other regional languages in India, be it Tamil or Bengali. Those experiences too are different from the ones in Bombay. — Aishwarya Rai
Even in India the Hindi film industry might be the best known but there are movies made in other regional languages in India, be it Tamil or Bengali. Those experiences too are different from the ones in Bombay. — Aishwarya Rai Bachchan
And perhaps, those of us in the industry who are still foolishly clinging to the idea that female films, with women at the center are niche experience, they are not. Audiences want to see them and, in fact, they earn money. The world is round, people. — Sayings
I think all industries are sexist in nature and I don't think the film industry is any different. — Christine Lahti
Everyone out here in Los Angeles is trying to do whatever to break into films. It is a tough industry to get into, kind of like pro wrestling in a lot of respects when you think about it. — Stone Cold Steve Austin
I have always been focused on my job. No profession allows you the luxury of being half-focused. If you're not into it, you're not there. And the film industry is all the more harsh in these cases, perhaps because it's a business of the limelight. — Deepika Padukone
Film Criticism Quotes
Inside me, 'Dragon Ball' became a thing of the past, but later, I got upset at the live-action film, revised the script for the anime film, and complained about the quality of the TV anime. — Akira Toriyama
The notion of directing a film is the invention of critics - the whole eloquence of cinema is achieved in the editing room. — Orson Welles
The best thing I can think of would be to create a union between something as beautiful and powerful and wonderful as Hollywood films and a criticism of the status quo. That's my dream, to make such a German film. — Rainer W. Fassbinder
The best thing I can think of would be to create a union between something as beautiful and powerful and wonderful as Hollywood films and a criticism of the status quo. That's my dream, to make such a German film. — Rainer Werner Fassbinder
My favorite laser disk ever was the laser disk for The Graduate, which had a commentary track that wasn't even the filmmakers, it was a professor, some film criticism guy who just happen to be this amazing commentator who went off into the whole theory of comedy. — Jay Roach
What critics call dirty in our pictures, they call lusty in foreign films. — Billy Wilder
Films are dreams. Many, many critics say to me that my films are not good because they are too unbelievable, but this is my style. I tell stories like they are dreams. This is my imagination. For me, it would be impossible to do a film that is so precise, that resembles real life. — Dario Argento
I am very critical! I hate watching myself but I know I have to because I'm going to be asked so I need to have some sort of semblance of what the films with me are like. But it's not an enjoyable experience watching yourself. I hate it less than I used to but I still don't enjoy it. — Daniel Radcliffe
It's hard to see a film one time and really "get it," and write fully and intelligently about it. That's a review. That's not film criticism. — Richard Linklater
I don't want to be a part of the demographics. I want to be an individual. I wear each of my films as a badge of pride. That's why I cherish all my bad reviews. If the critics start liking my movies, then I'm in deep trouble. — John Carpenter
Films And Movies Quotes
If you walk the footsteps of a stranger, you'll learn things you never knew you never knew. — Pocahontas
Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. — John Hughes
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
A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti. — Anthony Hopkins
We have to choose between what is right, and what is easy. — J. K. Rowling
I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti — Thomas Harris
The silent film has a lot of meanings. The first part of the film is comic. It represents the burlesque feel of those silent films. But I think that the second part of the film is full of tenderness and emotion. — Pedro Almodovar
A government institution called the Finnish Film Foundation funds filmmaking there, and I wrote several screenplays but never got any money. They were sent back to me, and they said that they were too commercial for them. — Renny Harlin
Since Star Wars, that film's success led to bigger budgets, more hardware, that the great movies like the ones I did, which were studio movies, are now independent movies. They range from half a million to several million, and a lot of those have very interesting roles. — Faye Dunaway
Everybody wants blockbusters. I like to see a few pictures now and then that have to do with people and have relationships, and that's what I want to do films about. I don't want to see these sci-fi movies, and I don't want to do one of those. I don't understand it. — James Garner
Photography And Film Quotes
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
Which of my photographs is my favorite? The one I'm going to take tomorrow. — Imogen Cunningham
The best images are the ones that retain their strength and impact over the years, regardless of the number of times they are viewed. — Anne Geddes
For me, the camera is a sketch book, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity. — Henri Cartier-Bresson
A good photograph is one that communicates a fact, touches the heart and leaves the viewer a changed person for having seen it. It is, in a word, effective. — Irving Penn
Ultimately photography is about who you are. It's the truth in relation to yourself. And seeking truth becomes a habit. — Leonard Freed
To me if there's an achievement to lighting and photography in a film it's because nothing stands out, it all works as a piece. And you feel that these actors are in this situation and the audience is not thrown by a pretty picture or by bad lighting. — Roger Deakins
The moment an emotion or fact is transformed into a photograph it is no longer a fact but an opinion. — Richard Avedon
Nothing happens when you sit at home. I always make it a point to carry a camera with me at all times...I just shoot at what interests me at that moment. — Elliott Erwitt
Look, people have been filming fights since the beginning of time. — Dana White
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
Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer. — Mario Puzo
I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth. — Lou Gehrig
History is contemporary. Your understanding of history confirms what you think of the present. It's not neutral. I would be very surprised if people with a different view of the present, don't take issue with my view of the past. I just hope that people deal with the content of the film. — Ken Loach
It's a required part of your film history to know who Woody is. His movies are so wonderful, and not just funny but so insightful about human behavior. — Scarlett Johansson
Listen to them, the children of the night. What music they make! — Bram Stoker
From my films, you can at least learn about Iran, you can get a sense of the history and the society. But no such films have been made about Afghanistan, so you really can't know much about it. — Mohsen Makhmalbaf
I am a Scorpio, and playing the seductress appeals to me. There are a lot of women throughout film history, like Marlene Dietrich or Mae West - those are the women I was always attracted to. The bad girls. — Chloe Sevigny
A boy's best friend is his mother. — Joseph Stefano
Popular films are so powerful and compelling that it's often easier to accept their versions of history than the much more complicated true stories. — Melissa Harris-Perry
Racism and prejudice exist there [at the National Film Board] like anywhere else. My history at the Board has not been easy. It's been a long walk. — Alanis Obomsawin
I'm somebody who is very, very proud to have been a part of the British film industry all my life and to have kind of been involved with a very important piece of British film history. — Daniel Radcliffe
I think that every so-called history book and film biography should be prefaced by the statement that what follows is the author's rendition of events and circumstances. — Barbara Kruger
The process of making natural history films is to try to prevent the animal knowing you are there, so you get glimpses of a non-human world, and that is a transporting thing. — David Attenborough
We [Americans] have a historical trauma when it comes to the past relationships when it comes to Native Americans and the history of how America was created. With this film, it's nice to see that the trauma is presented from a white male that was in the Civil War and that trauma affects him in a way that still exists. — Adam Beach
The dominant problem of pictorial art since the nineteen-fifties is photography, and, by extension, film and video. The basilisk eye of the camera has withered the pride of handworked mediums. Painting survives on a case-by-case basis, its successes amounting to special exemptions from a verdict of history. — Peter Schjeldahl
I am a fan of movies and there is something about watching film that is burned into celluloid for all time that is now a piece of history. You go watch, being a fan of classic films and my children and their children are going to be watching these movies. — Edward Zwick
As I think about anyone or anything -- whether history or literature or my father or political organizations or a poem or a film -- as I seek to evaluate the potentiality, the life-supportive commitment and possibilities of anyone or any thing, the decisive question is always where is the love? — June Jordan
The practical value of history is to throw the film of the past through the material projector of the present on to the screen of the future. — B. H. Liddell Hart
We exaggerate the difference between documentary and fiction. I think that on some level a fiction film is also a documentary on the actors. You can't wash away your life's history, which is written on your face, unless you get a facelift. — Pirjo Honkasalo
All my life I've been aware of the Second World War humming in the background. I was born 10 years after it was finished, and without ever seeing it. It formed my generation and the world we lived in. I played Hurricanes and Spitfires in the playground, and war films still form the basis of all my moral philosophy. All the men I've ever got to my feet for or called sir had been in the war. — A. A. Gill
Film is more than the twentieth-century art. It's another part of the twentieth-century mind. It's the world seen from inside. We've come to a certain point in the history of film. If a thing can be filmed, the film is implied in the thing itself. This is where we are. The twentieth century is on film. You have to ask yourself if there's anything about us more important than the fact that we're constantly on film, constantly watching ourselves. — Don Delillo
I think I'm the only actor in the history of film who got to slap Sam Jackson on the face and butt and lived to tell about it. — Eugene Levy
It's more interesting because you get to research the history of the period, and all the different aesthetic elements that make a film, particularly this film, so stunning. — Stanley Tucci
Then I realized my early work did have something special that audiences adored apart from what I humbly thought about them. They occupy a distinguished niche in Italian film history and probably always will. — Dario Argento
Through the history of my records, from when I started controlling the visual, I always used lower case letters for everything, I can't even explain why that is. The character is actually me, and I think once you see the film for the record, or see the video or really get in to the record, that will all sort of reveal itself to you. — Lalah Hathaway
Like most filmmakers and writers, there are roots in my own life, but they are stories that I invent. There was a period of time in my life when I made directly autobiographical films where I truly told what happened to me. But, now, I don't make directly autobiographical films anymore. I am more for renouncing that and being in front of history. The large part of my work tells about something I know. It's close. — Philippe Garrel
I think cinema is needed throughout Africa, because we are lagging behind in the knowledge of our own history. I think we need to create a culture that is our own. I think that images are very fascinating and very important to that end. But right now, cinema is only in the hands of film-makers because most of our leaders are afraid of cinema. — Ousmane Sembene
One of the advantages of being an older woman in films,is that you don't care as much about so many things. There are women in history throughout the world that need to be portrayed. Women don't stop being interesting at 20, they get more interesting and more fascinating and people are going to have to write about them. We're undeniable. — Allison Janney
I went to film school and studied Alfred Hitchcock. I knew of Alma Reville existence, but had no idea really who she was or how influential she was on him. She stayed in the shadows. Go online, and there are hardly any images or film of her. She really stayed out of the limelight on purpose. She didn't want it, and I think that's one of the reasons that she's really lost in the shadows of Hitchcock's history to a degree. — Sacha Gervasi
Michael Jackson changed the format and history of music. His videos were films. He was the first who floated on the stage and changed the concept of a musical performance. He created something that's still the basis of a lot of what's done today. — Nicky Jam
I got into television criticism because I thought it would be easier than film criticism. Film, you had to know 100 years of history, and TV you only had to know 40 when I started. And I thought, "Well, that's going to be so much easier." But film stayed pretty much the same. And television has changed so many times that my head hurts. So I made the wrong call there. — David Bianculli
In Conclusion
Which quotation resonated with you best? Did you enjoy our collection of film history quotes? Or may be you have a slogan about film history to suggest. Let us know using our contact form.
Citation
Feel free to cite and use any of the quotes in this collection of film history quotations. For popular citation styles(APA, Chicago, MLA), please use this citation page.