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" Oh yes, I've been approached to do all sorts of nonsense. How about a remake of 'West Side Story?' "
Terry Zwigoff
Story
Nonsense
West
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" I collect old Coon Chicken Inn memorabilia. I collect black memorabilia, like old minstrel posters. It was a real place. There was one in Seattle, one in Portland, and one in Salt Lake City. They started in 1925, and then they went out of business around 1958. "
Terry Zwigoff
Black
Business
Place
" So I told Robert from the start that if we couldn't get Charles and Max to take part, but especially Charles, that I didn't want to make the film. So would he call his mother and talk to Charles and see if Charles would at all be interested. "
Terry Zwigoff
See
Talk
Start
" I'm not trying to be self-serving, but you know, you get to Hollywood, and if you want to make something big and loud and dumb, it's pretty easy. It's very hard to go down there and make a film like 'Sideways,' which I thought was a great film. They don't want to make films like that anymore, even though that film was very successful. "
Terry Zwigoff
Thought
Know
Successful
" I never saw a department store Santa as a kid. My mother was afraid to take me. "
Terry Zwigoff
Mother
Afraid
Me
" People like light and silly, and they like stuff that's really energetic, and you get a character in a film bouncing around and screaming, people laugh. That's all it takes. I don't find that funny. To me, what's funny is dialogue and nuance of character and performance. "
Terry Zwigoff
Laugh
Character
People
" It makes it difficult to decide which to go see, since no film about say, some tragic genocide in Africa is going to get a bad review even if it's poorly made. "
Terry Zwigoff
Film
Bad
Africa
" The films I want to make, I really want to be passionate about. "
Terry Zwigoff
Make
Passionate
Really
" The things I want to make into a film, they're personal, esoteric things, and I don't expect anyone else to like them as much as I do. I generally like my films more than anybody else will. "
Terry Zwigoff
Want
Will
Personal
" For a long time, there was this rumor that I turned down doing 'Austin Powers,' which is not true. While they did send me the script, I don't think I was ever a serious consideration to direct it. I'm sure they probably sent it to 20 others as well. "
Terry Zwigoff
Long
Serious
Doing
" Well, that was certainly - to me, until we could film in Charles' room, I didn't even want to bother filming anything else. And in fact, I did hold off and that was the first thing we filmed. "
Terry Zwigoff
Well
Film
Want
" Saying that all documentaries are the same is like saying all foreign films are the same. "
Terry Zwigoff
Same
Films
Foreign
" People think I have an interest in comics, but I'm only interested in comics from the '40s, like 'Donald Duck' comics. "
Terry Zwigoff
Comics
Think
Only
" A good script and perfect casting, that's 90 percent of the work. "
Terry Zwigoff
Perfect
Good
Percent
" Just to get the actors to relax, listen to each other, and actually affect each other, there are a number of techniques you have to learn, and they don't all work on every actor. "
Terry Zwigoff
Learn
Relax
Work
" My hat's off to documentary filmmakers. I don't know if I'm ever going back to it. You're treated like a second-class citizen at most film festivals. You take the bus while everybody else is flown first-class. If you're a feature film director, you're put in a five-star hotel, and if you're a documentary director, you stay in a Motel 6. "
Terry Zwigoff
Festivals
Back
Know
" The main trouble with Hollywood is that the guys you have to pitch to, the guys who run the studios, are all business school grads. "
Terry Zwigoff
Business
You
Who
" When I went around promoting 'Crumb,' there would be days I'd wake up in, like, Houston or Cleveland, and I'd step outside the hotel and get no idea where I was. It all looks the same: one big corporate, consumer theme park. It's all, 'Here's the Starbucks, and here's the Gap, and we'll go over to Banana Republic and the Cineplex.' "
Terry Zwigoff
Starbucks
Hotel
Looks
" Luckily, he was in the process of moving to France at the time, anyway. But if he had stayed in the States, I don't know how he would have handled that, because it was getting pretty crazy. I mean, a celebrity which he really did not welcome. And I can't blame him. "
Terry Zwigoff
Moving
Welcome
Time
" A lot of things I have turned down ended up being a big embarrassment. Like that script, 'The Beaver.' I thought that was one of the worst scripts I had ever read. But everyone said, 'Ooh it's on the Black List.' Yeah, well, good for it. They're a bunch of idiots. I saw the final film, and there were no surprises. "
Terry Zwigoff
Down
Black
Good
" The Weinsteins believe in test screenings. I don't. I don't think good films are made that way. Call me crazy, but I'd like to think you need a singular vision to make good art. "
Terry Zwigoff
Crazy
Think
Art
" Whereas my producer literally worked on this thing for 10 years and because I gave that presenter credit to David Lynch, she to this day never gets credit. It really kills me. "
Terry Zwigoff
Years
Me
Credit
" I've stopped going to see art films because every critic gives them four stars and say things like 'masterpiece,' 'spellbinding' and 'mesmerizing.' I mean, they're doing that with my film, but I don't want to use those blurbs. Critical reviews aren't worth too much anymore because just about every film can get one or two of them. "
Terry Zwigoff
Doing
Art
Worth
" The last Christmas movie I really liked was 'It's a Wonderful Life,' probably. It's sort of a schmaltzy movie, but it's not without its dark moments. It still gets to me every year. "
Terry Zwigoff
Year
Me
Life
" I hope they get something of interest out of it, but I'd rather they all hate it and I like it, instead of vice versa... I make films to please myself first, and if the audience likes them, all the better. "
Terry Zwigoff
Hope
Better
Audience
" You have to go back to the '30s and '40s to see a film that's any good. "
Terry Zwigoff
Back
You
See
" I did turn down 'The Virgin Suicides.' I talked to the producers about it, and I just honestly told them that I didn't get it. Is it supposed to be funny, is it a thriller, what is it? "
Terry Zwigoff
Turn
Thriller
Just
" If I see my films described as 'quirky' or, even worse, 'snarky' one more time, I'm going to probably seriously consider an early retirement. All these years, I've labored under the conceit that they were "darkly humorous.' "
Terry Zwigoff
Retirement
Early
Time
" Certain types of films will never test well. My films never seem to test well. "
Terry Zwigoff
Seem
Will
Well
" I think the other misconceptions when the film came out, he was very upset that it was so widely released and so widely seen. And neither one of us - well, I think I had hopes it would be, 'cause I really did think it was something special. "
Terry Zwigoff
Upset
Well
Film
" And I sense it was a rather constructed, almost half narrative fiction film in some ways. A lot of it was staged and manipulated to get those things in there that I knew to be strong. "
Terry Zwigoff
Strong
Be Strong
Film