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" I'm anti-verite. I think the verite style is a completely false thing. Most things are false to arrive at a truth; verite is falsity without acknowledging its falsity. "
Whit Stillman
Without
Style
Truth
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" The cinema I particularly love is the cinema of the golden age of the studios in the 1930s. One of the really nice things about it was the way teams of actors and directors and crew people worked together again and again. "
Whit Stillman
People
Age
Love
" I'm not sure what my material would have been if I'd have started earlier. I probably would have started with 'Damsels in Distress' kinds of films because that's the kind of comedy I was writing in college. So I didn't really have any life experience to work off of. "
Whit Stillman
College
Writing
Work
" The 'Damsels' crew was low-budget, young people who were doing their first thing almost. A lot of it. It felt like Pied Piper or Rumpelstiltskin or whatever: it was me and people thirty years younger or more. But it was great; it was really fun. "
Whit Stillman
Fun
Young
People
" I'm totally devoted to '30s cinema. "
Whit Stillman
Cinema
Devoted
Totally
" I learned that you have to say that you're a filmmaker. You're not a screenwriter; you're not a director for hire. You've got to take charge. You're a filmmaker, and you're going to make a film. "
Whit Stillman
Going
Got
Say
" I'm the ayatollah of the Jane Austen fan base! I want to lead the fan base, not be attacked and devoured by the fan base. "
Whit Stillman
Lead
Attacked
Base
" I really like the short stories that Melissa Bank writes. I think she's sort of channeling the female version of J.D. Salinger in more recent days. "
Whit Stillman
Think
Bank
Like
" Some critic complained about how many small films are released in New York... it annoyed me. Those small films that are lucky to get two weeks are often my favorite films of the year. "
Whit Stillman
Year
New
Lucky
" I'm very concerned about the countries bordering Russia. But let's stay off that stuff. "
Whit Stillman
Concerned
Stuff
Stay
" When you're trying to force things in a script, it seems like it's getting somewhere, but it isn't real or interesting. All the bad material you've written becomes an albatross around your neck. So I really don't like writing a lot of bad stuff, I prefer to just keep narrowing it down to stuff I think is solid. "
Whit Stillman
Interesting
You
Trying
" When I'm writing fiction, I read nonfiction or biographies. Now I'm watching very old movies or old foreign films. I don't immerse myself in whatever's going on in whatever area I'm working in. "
Whit Stillman
Myself
Watching
Now
" I love making cheap films. I really do. What I've found is that I work better when it's both a fairly low budget and a short schedule. It focuses the mind, and it's a better atmosphere. "
Whit Stillman
Budget
Work
Mind
" I love writing novels, but I'm very fearful about writing something from absolute scratch. I kind of don't have the time to write something from scratch. I think when my knees completely give out, and I can't make films anymore, I would try to write novels from scratch. "
Whit Stillman
Think
Love
Try
" It's really important to have subjects that people all over the world are familiar with, and the Disney films are really great that way. "
Whit Stillman
People
Way
World
" I think sometimes it's the things you don't like that give you inspiration. "
Whit Stillman
Think
You
Like
" Coming out of university, one of my obsessions was that in the novels I was reading, they seemed to be portraying a world that had a social fabric. People knew each other in 'War and Peace.' They went to all the same balls. These were societies with tightly wound, woven, social textures. "
Whit Stillman
World
Reading
People
" I had, in college, a professor called Walter Jackson Bate, and he taught a course called The Age of Johnson. It's about Samuel Johnson and his period, 18th-century British writing. So we all got to endure Samuel Johnson, and Boswell's 'Life of Johnson' is now my favorite book. I read it all the time I can; it's great for going to sleep. "
Whit Stillman
Book
Age
Time
" It's intimidating for guys to hear women complain about their boyfriends. Guys imagine that girls are thrilled to have them around, and this is what they really talk about. "
Whit Stillman
Hear
Imagine
Talk
" There's the right person, or right people, for each other. There is that order that's searching to be found but, I think, it's not as if everything is going to be automatic. So, people could really be meant for each other and its goes awry; or they could have to learn or develop and grow up together. Grow to be right together. "
Whit Stillman
Together
Think
Right Person
" If you're mostly a writer - if your point of departure is writing something - which for a writer/director is sort of where you start, you're really influenced by the writers you love one way or another. "
Whit Stillman
Start
Point
Love
" I fell for a Spanish woman and followed her to Spain. We got married there, and then I got involved in the Spanish film industry and got the material for 'Barcelona.' It was my way of breaking into the film industry. "
Whit Stillman
Film
Got
Her
" I identify entirely with Jane Austen's point of view, on everything. "
Whit Stillman
View
Point Of View
Everything
" My theory in the '90s was that I didn't want to take a Jane Austen book I loved and reduce it to a 90-minute movie. The Emma Thompson-Ang Lee 'Sense and Sensibility' was beautiful, but other ones, I didn't think justice was being done. It's not a slam dunk to adapt these books. "
Whit Stillman
Think
Loved
Justice
" I always wanted to direct and write a movie, but I thought that I didn't really have it in me. I tried to write fiction and humorous short stories, and some were considered successful, but it was always a huge effort for a small reward. I was always intimidated by the process. "
Whit Stillman
Short
Small
Thought
" The great thing for me is how Hitchcock uses guilt so well. He implicates the spectator in the character's field, and you really feel it, and there's incredible relief when it comes out right - if it does come out right. "
Whit Stillman
Great
Feel
Guilt
" The only way to end up in the perfect future is to invent it yourself. "
Whit Stillman
Yourself
Way
Up
" I find it preferable not to have public opinions about anything. It's good for me to shut up. "
Whit Stillman
Up
Me
Shut Up
" Oddly, in a sense, I still have more confidence as a director than my ability as a writer. Somehow, directing is just really easy. It's just about being really honest about how you feel about what you're seeing. "
Whit Stillman
Easy
You
Seeing
" My biggest false steps have actually been when I tried to do very different projects. I found I was getting people saying, 'Why does Whit Stillman think he can do a film about blacks in early '60s Jamaica? Or the Chinese and the cultural revolution?' Those were the two biggest failures I had getting off the ground. "
Whit Stillman
People
Saying
Think
" Whether for company or isolation or just to make it a pleasurable experience, I have music in my ears all the time. I tend to listen to the same things, so I don't really pay too much attention to it. But it's there, and it's nice, and I do pay more attention to it than I probably should. I think, 'How can I use this music in something?' "
Whit Stillman
Experience
Music
Nice