Alexander Payne Quotes
Top 49 wise famous quotes and sayings by Alexander Payne
Alexander Payne Famous Quotes & Sayings
Discover top inspirational quotes from Alexander Payne on Wise Famous Quotes.
There is an audience out there for literate films - slower, more observant, more human films, and they deserve to be made.
I don't want all of American cinema to be big cartoons that are just made to be digested by the entire world.
I mean, look, I love movies, not just the ones I make ... In fact, I don't like the movies I make very much.
If you have your movies so that everyone understands everything, I think that's probably not a very good movie.
In a sense, 'Schmidt' is the most Omaha of my films. But have I gotten it right? I'm not sure. Did Fellini get Rome right? Did Ozu get Tokyo right?
Joe E. Lewis said, 'Money doesn't buy happiness but it calms the nerves.' And that is how I feel about a film being well-received.
I like action films, not exclusively, but I like Samurai films. I like Westerns. Not so much war pictures, but a few. I like kinetic cinema.
The actors are the greatest executors of tone in a film. They're the most important cinematic component.
You begin a film more with questions than with direct intentions. It's more of an exploration and discovery.
As the years go by and I make more films, I am increasingly interested in capturing place as a vivid backdrop for my films.
A pitfall of making a comedy with a studio-and it's also an American cultural thing-is that I get tired of being encouraged to go always for laughs.
The best actors are always the ones who've directed as well, as they understand all the problems you face.
The most heinous shift in American films is that they reinforce good things like 'couples' and 'relationships.'
I'm attracted to short screenplays. Nobody really wants a film to be over two hours, or at least I don't.
You look at how many years you have left, and you start to think: 'How many more films do I have in me?'
I definitely in filmmaking more and more find writing and directing a means to harvest material for editing. It's all about editing.
I think a badly crafted, great idea for a new film with a ton of spelling mistakes is just 100 times better than a well-crafted stale script.
If you're not making epic, archetypal films on some level, I think you're wasting a great potential of cinema.
When I'm shooting, I don't care who the star is. I have an actor playing a part, and I'm serving the script, not serving anyone's career.
I like to think of film-making not just as an act of personal self-aggrandisement but rather as an act of public service.