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" I got a degree in math, from not a good school in Texas, and then I went to work as a software engineer. Just not glamorous at all. "
Shane Carruth
Got
School
Software
Related Quotes:
" I'm only interested in science fiction that's used as a literary device, a shortcut into something more exploratory or universal about our experience. That's why I think it was invented and why mythology was invented; it's a tool, not an end to itself. "
Shane Carruth
Think
Experience
End
" I can honestly say, there was a moment when I was writing 'Upstream Color' where I fell so hard for what it was becoming that I couldn't think of anything else. I was absolutely secure in this story in the way I'm rarely secure about anything else in my life. "
Shane Carruth
Think
Life
Moment
" I don't want to be thought of as somebody who's spiritually ambiguous, but the reality is there's unknown things happening. I'm not ready to point at what they are or what the reason is, but I know they exist. "
Shane Carruth
Want
Unknown
Thought
" I never set out to make a movie that was everything to everybody; if that were the case, we could all just take a picture of a tree and agree that the tree is beautiful and move on with our lives. I wouldn't even need to show up. "
Shane Carruth
Need
Tree
Move On
" I find 'Fatal Attraction' really romantic. I really like the seduction. Almost every time I see it, I'm surprised when it goes dark. I know that's the claim to fame, but I key into how genuinely romantic it is. "
Shane Carruth
Key
Time
Romantic
" I think I'll always want to write and direct. I'm interested in producing and helping other people tell stories. But I'm still in love with writing and directing. "
Shane Carruth
Writing
People
Love
" In school, when I got into upper-level math, there would be times when I would wake up from a dream and have - not an answer, exactly, but a direction to pursue. My writing has always been like that. I wake up from dreams knowing which direction to go in. "
Shane Carruth
Writing
Wake Up
School
" I love the concept of the romance that exists when people are broken. Like, the promise of a romance when you're at the bottom. I think that's infinitely compelling and romantic. "
Shane Carruth
Romantic
People
Love
" I hate even the idea of a synopsis. When stories are really working, when you're providing subtextual exploration and things that are deeply layered, you're obligated to not say things out loud. "
Shane Carruth
Exploration
Hate
Say
" All I know is that as an audience member, I am less and less inclined to go to the theater. "
Shane Carruth
I Am
Audience
Theater
" I'm interested in making something that moves quickly, that hopefully is compelling minute-by-minute but really packed densely with exploration. I'm very interested in how re-visitable we can make films. If we can get them closer to a music album, then it's not such an arduous process to revisit, and exploration can be a bit more cryptic. "
Shane Carruth
Exploration
Process
Music
" 'The Master,' it was really important to me to go see that in the theater, but that's a very rare occurrence for me. I typically enjoy things on my laptop. I'm in bed; I can be able to pause them. "
Shane Carruth
I Can
Bed
Enjoy
" It's a risk, but I'm sort of ready to let go of thinking of movies as books that you can watch. The notion of, 'If I put the narrative blocks in the right order, this will solve all of my storytelling problems.' No, it won't, and you end up with little more than books on film. "
Shane Carruth
You
Problems
Movies
" Any film that exists that is thorough, you can't give it to an audience of one and have that be effective communication. Communication involves an audience of many that have a conversation, put it through the ringer, filter it and then a sense of it coalesces. "
Shane Carruth
You
Film
Conversation
" It's interesting because I don't ever want to ask a better question than I can answer, if that makes sense. I find that frustrating as a viewer. Compelling questions, while not easy, are easier than compelling answers. "
Shane Carruth
Questions
Interesting
Easy
" I feel like we want to compartmentalise things and say, 'Well, that's emotional, artistic and subjective, while this is intellectual, objective and measured.' I have difficulty thinking that's the way we experience things. "
Shane Carruth
Thinking
Experience
Feel
" Going to grocery stores is almost my favorite thing to do to calm myself down. There's something about just walking aisle after aisle making mundane choices. 'Do I want that? No, I want the one that has the low sodium.' And that feels like a good exercise to be doing when there isn't anything to be doing. It's like a kick-starter in some way. "
Shane Carruth
Good
Choices
Calm
" I am obsessed with story. I had a late awakening in life. In college was the first time that I understood what you could do with a story and what a good novel is - literary value and subtext and irony and everything. "
Shane Carruth
Good
Time
Life
" Many of my favorite films, if someone were to tell me simply what they're about, I probably wouldn't be that interested. Plot often has so little to do with what's at the heart of a film. "
Shane Carruth
Someone
Tell
Heart
" I don't spend a lot of time in nature. Probably less than most people that live in urban Texas. "
Shane Carruth
Texas
People
Urban
" I love to work. It's the idea of having someone else tell you how to make your film or how to sell it - that's the part I can't really deal with. I would rather do 1,000 things that are work than deal with one thing that's a political problem. "
Shane Carruth
Problem
Work
You
" 'Upstream Color' in particular, it's got to infect culture at some level in order to have a life of its own. Then it'll be judged, and it'll either live or it won't by its own merit, and history will decide whether it's relevant however long into the future. I think that's more than enough to hope for. "
Shane Carruth
Future
Think
Live
" I stole a ton of film language from Steven Soderbergh and 'The Limey.' It's the definition of elliptical. It was the first movie I remember that introduced me to storytelling that isn't just one scene after another, and that things can be mixed up in the way that real experiences can. "
Shane Carruth
Storytelling
Remember
Me
" Probably the TV show I've watched the most is 'How It's Made' on the History Channel. I could watch 24 hours of 'How It's Made' and never get bored. Or 'Dirty Jobs' - that's even better! "
Shane Carruth
Watch
Never
Dirty
" Whether you are liberal or conservative, people seem to know the talking points for whatever the issue of the day is. Very rarely does it seem like these are opinions that people are coming up with themselves; it's like they watched the right cable news channel, and now they know what they are supposed to think, and they repeat that. "
Shane Carruth
Opinions
Think
You
" There is commerciality in storytelling, even in a film or a piece of literature. These things exist. That's why stories came to be: to hold attention and, while you're not looking, you'll get hopefully some nutritional value that the author has been working up. That's narrative; that's passing stuff down. "
Shane Carruth
Looking
Attention
You
" I've always been anxious about 'Primer.' There's good things about it, but all I've seen for a long time is the flaws. "
Shane Carruth
Time
Long Time
Long
" I came to filmmaking because it's my passion. I decided I can't have it distorted or marred by someone else deciding what it should be. "
Shane Carruth
Someone
Filmmaking
Passion
" I have a really, really hard time sitting down and watching a TV show, except I'm apparently willing to watch the same episode of 'It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia,' like, seven times. "
Shane Carruth
Down
Watch
Time
" My job as an author - at least the way I think of it - is to make a story that is coded and puzzling enough to entice conversation and interpretation, but also to do the opposite: to make some things clear so that it is meaningful in some way, not just a random assemblage of ideas. "
Shane Carruth
Enough
Random
Job