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" I've always believed that the stories and the performances are more important than I am. I think that the more invisible that my hand is, the more attention people can pay to the story and to those performances. "

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" If you take away scale, the nature of the story changes. I made a joke the other day: if I were to try to make 'Glory' now, rather than be about a regiment, it would be about a platoon. It would be seven men in the woods rather than all the men on the beach. "

Edward Zwick

Beach

Woods

Day

" I like to reveal people with some of the niceties of social behavior stripped away and the moral, ethical, and political issues are revealed. "

Edward Zwick

Behavior

Moral

" You have to make choices always. It's about the omission of something for the sake of another. "

" I tend not to go look at movies before I make a movie. I'd rather not be specifically influenced. "

Edward Zwick

Rather

Movie

" It's hard not to want to become Ken Burns at times. I'm interested in being a Ken Burns who reaches that 17-year-old who goes to the multiplex just to see a good story well-told. And if there's history in it, all the better. "

" I think every culture - you can call it an American Ronin, a medieval knight errant, you could talk about 'Shane.' There is an archetype that I think is actually common to a lot of cultures, and even the Clint Eastwood stuff was probably as influenced by the Japanese stuff, and yet done by an Italian. "

" I think there is a very powerful wish that we all have of being self-contained and having sort of opted out or choosing to remove ourselves from society and to have no ties and no obligations, and even no possessions. To be free in a particular way. "

" I think one of the privileges of being a filmmaker is the opportunity to remain a kind of perpetual student. "

" I think most Americans probably believe that our relationship with Japan began in 1941. In fact, obviously, it began in 1854 when Commodore Perry sailed into Yokohama harbor and threatened to burn it down unless they would open up to trade with us. The imperial impulse was first ours historically. "

" The funny thing is, when you look at photos of Tuvia Bielski, he was fair, blue-eyed, and could pass for a Gentile. "

Edward Zwick

Fair

Funny

" I think it's easier to be cynical. I think the temptation, often, among writers is to write about anything other than real, true, deep feelings. "

" I think it's too easy often to find a villain out of the headlines and to then repeat that villainy again and again and again. You know, traditionally, America has always looked to scapegoat someone as the boogie man... there is a tradition in the most simplistic of action movies for there to be some horrible villain. "

" There is something universal in the theme of a man trying to save his family in the midst of the most terrible circumstances. It is not limited to Sierra Leone. This story could apply to any number of places where ordinary people have been caught up in political events beyond their control. "

" The most interesting thing to me in chess are not the gambits. Or the moves. It's the mental toughness. "

Edward Zwick

Toughness

Most

" When you're in a fight, and you get hit, it hurts. And as you get older, you begin to take on the aches and the bruises of doing that. "

" You can spend an extraordinary amount of time raising independent money to do a movie for very little means. I've done it with 'Pawn Sacrifice.' "

" In my experience of the men of action I have met - whether from the Second World War or Iraq or Vietnam - they often had to do things that they would rather not reflect upon afterwards. This is perhaps one reason why the story of the Bielskis remained untold for so long. "

" There's a great tradition of actors taking on parts of much less obvious sympathy. "

" The promise of an action movie to a certain audience is not a bad thing. "

" As we began to read more and more journals of men who had been in the Civil War and then been in the Indian Wars, we realized there was a whole universe of men whose souls had been shattered, whose lives had been utterly destroyed by what they had to do. "

Edward Zwick

War

Men

" Movies, as I grew up loving them, were always about something. "

Edward Zwick

Movies

Something

" One of the great tragedies is that there is so much less open land available in Japan today. Many Japanese come to New Zealand because of its beauty. "

" A sex scene is gratuitous when it only exists for its own sake. "

" In my office, we were talking about the fact that they'd announced a remake of 'A Star is Born,' and I was bemoaning the idea of a fourth remake. And the young guys who work in my office were giving me blank looks, like, 'What's 'A Star is Born?' "

" People, especially press, want to pigeonhole you. "

" The issue of diamonds in Africa is inseparable from the issue of child soldiers. "

" Anorexia is pernicious and not something which goes away overnight. "

" The military has been actually remarkable at dealing with race, but gender is an issue. "

" Sometimes when an actor and director work together for the first time, it's not as if there's a suspicion, but there is tentativeness, a certain amount of a right of passage you have to go through in order to get there. When it's already there from the beginning, it's such a plus. "

" There is no reason why challenging themes and engaging stories have to be mutually exclusive - in fact, each can fuel the other. As a filmmaker, I want to entertain people first and foremost. If out of that comes a greater awareness and understanding of a time or a circumstance, then the hope is that change can happen. "