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" I'm totally devoted to '30s cinema. "
Whit Stillman
Cinema
Devoted
Totally
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" A very sad moment for me was when my parents separated - a lot of crying, 'It's tragic, we're now a broken family, blah blah blah blah blah' - although my psychological problems stopped. I actually felt healthier. "
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Moment
Sad
Parents
" Sometimes, people who are very fastidious about what they're going to do in their work are not very fastidious in their private life. I'm like that. I love it when people do really nice things around me, but I don't have time to do it for myself. It's very hard for me to even buy a new pair of trousers. "
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Time
Work
" The usual key to getting films made seems to be a producer's terrier-like determination not to let it go. Unfortunately, such producers often seem prone to sinking their claws into mediocre projects. "
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Seem
" I'm very concerned about the countries bordering Russia. But let's stay off that stuff. "
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Stuff
Stay
" Coming out of college, back to New York, where I didn't really know that many people, I thought our world was very atomized. "
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College
New York
Know
" 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. "
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Interesting
You
Trying
" I find it preferable not to have public opinions about anything. It's good for me to shut up. "
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Up
Me
Shut Up
" 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. "
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People
Way
World
" 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 friends in Paris are writers, or something like that, whereas my friends in New York are doing cool stuff in finance and living very different lives. In writing, it's pretty solitary, so it doesn't really matter who's around. "
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Cool
Doing
" A lot of people in the film industry are fatalists who think a worthwhile film will always achieve its destiny, and the films that aren't worthwhile won't. It's all sort of pre-determined, etc. And I don't think that's true at all. "
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True
Achieve
Think
" I kind of put people from the past up on a pedestal; I don't think, in a lot of ways, that we're at their level. "
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Level
Past
People
" A brief experience with a Radcliffe girl got very bad very quickly. I was so destroyed by it that I left and went to Mexico for a semester, where I have cousins. I learned how to speak Spanish, which was really important for my life. It was wonderful going to Mexico, learning another culture and a language. "
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Culture
Girl
My Life
" I don't like the word 'perfectionist,' because it's self-flattering. It's tooting your own horn and implies that you actually can achieve perfection. I prefer 'particularist.' "
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Perfection
Like
Own
" Paris is a Roach Motel for top American journalists: They check in, having won the plum foreign posting, but never leave. "
Whit Stillman
Leave
Paris
Plum
" One of the downsides of money is if there's no money, there are very few real jerks who are attached to your project. And if there is money, you do attract some very difficult, unhelpful people. "
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You
Real
Difficult
" The dull externals of the screenwriter's working life are well known: We are the people taking up too much table space at cafes. "
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Too Much
People
Life
" I think my favorite two words are 'true blue.' I think those words are really important, and the spirit of them has been lost. "
Whit Stillman
Think
Lost
Important
" My guilty pleasure is watching the Investigation Discovery channel. "
Whit Stillman
Watching
Discovery
Pleasure
" 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
" 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
" If you're sort of interested in politics but sort of upset about contemporary politics, it's kind of wonderful to read about periods who were very eloquent and admirable - generally. People are articulating ideas you can sympathize with or understand both sides of. Or at least feel like one side is saying the right things. "
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You
People
Ideas
" In Mexico, wealth and poverty live next to each other and are cordial with each other - in my experience. "
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Experience
Next
Live
" 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. "
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Budget
Work
Mind
" I think sometimes it's the things you don't like that give you inspiration. "
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Think
You
Like
" Oscar Wilde was sort of my first love as a young reader. And then I went on to love Jane Austen's wonderful - this sort of comedy coming from her. I mean, all of her books are comic. "
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Mean
Young
Comedy
" You have to constantly work on your script if it needs it. You don't accept, 'Oh, I did a draft and...' No, it's your responsibility to work on the script as much as possible and make it better and better. "
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Better
Work
You
" What frustrates me a lot about some aspects of filmmaking is people thinking everyone is really dumb and that we have to make everything really obvious. "
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Me
Thinking
People
" The thing that was most harmful was that there was always something that was about to happen. So I found myself indulging in the writer's luxury of doing another draft, another idea. If this project isn't happening, then I'll shelve one script and start writing another. And in that way, the years go by, and there's very little money coming in. "
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Start
Luxury
Writing
" 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