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" I love actors that are brave, that are courageous. And courage to me is not the absence of fear, it's the presence of fear, and they go to places that really scare them, because as an audience, that's where you feel danger. "

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" I shot 'Blue Valentine' on 16mm for the past, and for the present on the Red Camera. I feel that both formats are valid. The stories should dictate the format we shoot on. Filmmakers should have a choice. "

Derek Cianfrance

Past

Camera

Blue

" I grew up Catholic, so I feel guilty about everything. "

" As a parent myself, I can appreciate the MPAA and what they're supposed to do, but what happens with NC-17 is that the MPAA is basically taking away the rights of parents. They're basically telling me that I can't show my kids this movie if I decide they can see it. "

Derek Cianfrance

Parents

Appreciate

" After 'Place Beyond the Pines,' honestly, I was sick of myself. Sick of my own ideas. I wanted to do an adaptation, but everything I'd been reading, I just didn't understand it. "

" I feel like the job of an artist is to confront their own darkness and their own demons and fears. And I want to make movies that feel human up on the screen. I don't really relate to dudes wearing spandex and capes. "

" As a writer, I always peel back the layers, go to the most sensitive places uncomfortably close to the heart. "

" One of the bad things about being a filmmaker, about being me, is I can hardly read a book anymore because every time I read something, I have a poaching mentality, like, 'Oh, can this be a movie?' "

" I'm trying to be the coach. My actors are my players. They're doing things that I'm too cowardly to do myself. "

" When I cast great actors, I try to make extraordinary people ordinary, dealing with these extremely small intimate details of interpersonal relationships against an epic backdrop. "

" Every moment is, in some ways, eternal. Once you put something into the world, it stays there. "

" Right now, I think I have time to be three things, in no particular order: a father, a husband, and a filmmaker. That's why I don't go out - I have no space for it. I feel like one of those main things would suffer. "

" I was an audience member before I'm a filmmaker. All I've tried to do as a filmmaker was to make movies I want to see. "

" Making a film is like making a mixtape. You're collecting all this stuff and putting your favorite stuff into it: you have actors that you like, characters that you're interested in, moments you want to explore, themes you want to deal with, music that you want to put in. It's a pastiche of all these things that deal with how you see the world. "

" In terms of Ray Liotta, when I was a teenager growing up in Colorado, I didn't have pictures of girls on my wall. I had pictures of Ray Liotta on my wall. Along with Mike Patton, he was one of my heroes. "

" I don't have a life, really. I take my kids to school, and I go home, and I write. Then I go pick my kids up, make them dinner, put them to bed, and write some more. "

" When I grew up, a director was Cecil B DeMille, a guy sitting down with a megaphone speaking. He was the voice of God, the image of God. When I went to start making docs, I quickly turned the megaphone to my ear not to my mouth. It's more about funneling in the words and listening as doc filmmaker. "

" I think 'GoodFellas' is just a perfect film. From an efficiency of storytelling standpoint, from an entertainment standpoint, from a performance standpoint, from a use of music standpoint, from a cinematography and editing standpoint - to me, it's just a perfect movie. "

Derek Cianfrance

Music

Perfect

" It's like you take these great actors and put them in an aquarium of life and just watch them swim. That's what makes editing tough because you get all these beautiful, unplanned moments. "

" Lars Ulrich, he was my hero growing up. I wanted to be like him. I played the drums. "

Derek Cianfrance

Him

Hero

" I don't really collect anything. I grew up in a family that collected things, and then they'd get sick, and people die, and then they have their basements full of stuff that goes from one box to the next, so I try not to get sentimental with stuff. I just try to collect memories; I guess that would be it. "

" There's something so great when you're watching a movie when you slowly get to know somebody more, because it's like a real relationship. "

" If you make a movie that's close to your heart, it will be close to other people's. "

" There's something so glorious in giving control to the world. I think that's what I'm trying to do in my films - control the world but also let it be chaotic, let there be life. "

" With each character in a movie, I'm looking for a human being. I'm looking for a person. And to me, I'm looking for a person that's full of strengths and weaknesses, a person that's full of successes and failures, a person that's full of joy and sorrow. I'm interested in people that are human beings that are alive. "

Derek Cianfrance

Looking

Character

" When people think of biblical movies, they imagine sweeping epics like 'The Ten Commandments.' But 'The Gospel According to St. Matthew' is essentially a documentary about Jesus. It made me aware of how real life and personal experience can create more breathtaking, sensitive cinema than more sophisticated techniques. "

" The only time I judge an actor on set is if they're not failing; if they get it right all the time, I start to question it. I feel like it's too easy. "

" We had all these smiley family pictures all over the walls of my house, but I always found those pictures to be odd because we weren't smiling all the time. I don't want to paint the picture of a total dysfunctional house, but there were a lot of arguments in that house. A lot of pain. "

" One reason Cassavetes is a hero to me is that his movies grew with him; they reflected the stages of his life. He made movies about where he was at that time. That's what I want to do with my films. "

Derek Cianfrance

Want

Movies

" I don't think we ever know 100 percent of a person, even ourselves, but I think in families, you get closer to people's secrets and people's darkness - and their light, the full contrast of a person. "

" I ask all my actors to do two things: I ask them to fail for me, and I ask them to surprise me. "