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" Really, having a show freely available online is like having your book in the library. It's wonderful; it's ideal. "
Whit Stillman
Book
Library
Like
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" 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
" You can be an American or an Englishman or Canadian and be a Parisian. It's a very admirable culture, and people want to identify with it. "
Whit Stillman
You
People
Culture
" 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
" What I like and find liberating in dialogue comedy is that the characters, and what they say, are not me. These are fleeting thoughts and observations and not presented as truths but as something that illuminates the character and the dynamic between the characters. This kind of dialogue is thesis and antithesis - and we never get to a synthesis. "
Whit Stillman
Me
Thoughts
Character
" I think sometimes it's the things you don't like that give you inspiration. "
Whit Stillman
Think
You
Like
" I think one thing that makes me delay projects more than other people is, I see this silver lining in a turn-down. Maybe if I just wrote a script and then pounded my head against all the doors, I would be shooting more films. "
Whit Stillman
Me
Think
People
" Before, I was writing a script to make a movie. At a certain point, I became A Writer in Film and Television. So I got TV deals to write stuff, film deals to write stuff. But it's dangerous. I got into the WGA, and I became kind of, you know, a slave! They just pay you to write a script, and it's hard to make the movies. "
Whit Stillman
You
Writing
Know
" There's something really admirable about French culture and an attraction in how independent it is from our own. So, it's odd that in other countries that are very American-influenced - who seem to care more about the Oscars than anyone here does - there's both anti-Americanism and also too much America. "
Whit Stillman
Care
Culture
Too Much
" I don't think you change from the time you're 16 until you die. Maybe your body changes, and you have different experiences, but I think you become a fully conscious soul with full abilities. Souls are eternal, and if you keep your marbles until you croak in your 90s or your 100s, you're the same. "
Whit Stillman
Changes
Time
Change
" I'm very troubled when editors oblige their film critics to read the novel before they see the film. Reading the book right before you see the film will almost certainly ruin the film for you. "
Whit Stillman
Right
See
Film
" 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 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
" So much of selling a film in the industry is about creating a fulcrum where all the pressure comes to bear, and something seems suddenly valuable and approved by an audience. It's amazing how people could pick up tons of films on the cheap, but they don't because they wait until everything is laid out for them. "
Whit Stillman
Amazing
People
Wait
" I really like working with people again and again, and I don't know why everyone doesn't do it. Because you already know them, and you know how good they are. "
Whit Stillman
Good
You
Working
" 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
" Coming out of college, back to New York, where I didn't really know that many people, I thought our world was very atomized. "
Whit Stillman
College
New York
Know
" At the New York Harvard Club, they've moved the memorial for those who died in World Wars I and II up to an obscure little hallway; they used to be in the main hall, in the most prominent location. The sacrifice of those young people I always found so stunning and so admirable. "
Whit Stillman
People
New
World
" I think one of the saving illusions of the film business is everything seems like it's about to happen. It's always about to happen. It's only looking back that you see the wasteland. "
Whit Stillman
Business
Looking
Think
" 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
" 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. "
Whit Stillman
Moment
Sad
Parents
" I think when my parents were together, my family was too prosperous for our psychological health. Not that they were that rich, but I feel that usually inherited wealth causes psychological problems. "
Whit Stillman
Think
Health
Parents
" With all my films, the pace is not very fast, and so people get bored with them and comment that they're just people talking in rooms and all that. "
Whit Stillman
Just
Fast
Talking
" Producers have a tendency to put you in a pigeonhole: 'What does this white, middle-aged preppy know about 1960s Kingston?' "
Whit Stillman
Middle-Aged
You
White
" 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. "
Whit Stillman
You
People
Ideas
" I'm a late bloomer. Even in high school, everyone else was charging ahead, and I didn't come into my own until very late. I feel that's true in cinema, too. I didn't even start 'Metropolitan' until I was 37. "
Whit Stillman
High School
Late
School
" I've gotten to really, really like being back in the States. It's so easy being in your own country, and I really like Americans - typical American towns and provincial college towns are my ideal place to be. "
Whit Stillman
American
Place
Easy
" 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
" 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. "
Whit Stillman
Start
Luxury
Writing
" 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
" 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