Home
Authors
Tags
App
Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App
" The only time I judge an actor on set is if they're not failing; if they get it right all the time, I start to question it. I feel like it's too easy. "
Derek Cianfrance
Start
Easy
Time
Related Quotes:
" I don't think we ever know 100 percent of a person, even ourselves, but I think in families, you get closer to people's secrets and people's darkness - and their light, the full contrast of a person. "
Derek Cianfrance
Know
Darkness
People
" One reason Cassavetes is a hero to me is that his movies grew with him; they reflected the stages of his life. He made movies about where he was at that time. That's what I want to do with my films. "
Derek Cianfrance
Want
Movies
Me
" I never learned to be a writer. I never took screenwriting courses. I never read anyone's scripts. As a writer, my only guiding principle has been to write about things that scare me, write about things that make me feel vulnerable, write about things that will expose my deepest fears, so that's how I write. "
Derek Cianfrance
Feel
Never
Me
" In terms of Ray Liotta, when I was a teenager growing up in Colorado, I didn't have pictures of girls on my wall. I had pictures of Ray Liotta on my wall. Along with Mike Patton, he was one of my heroes. "
Derek Cianfrance
Growing Up
Pictures
Heroes
" To me, discomfort is a gift in the films that I'm making. "
Derek Cianfrance
Gift
Discomfort
Me
" I was a member of the VHS generation. I used to study movies as a kid because I had a VCR and could record a movie on HBO and just watch it repeatedly. "
Derek Cianfrance
Movies
Kid
Generation
" When I was a kid, I had two nightmares: one was nuclear war, and the other was that my parents would get a divorce; and when I was twenty, they split up, and I just felt like I needed to confront all those things that scared me as a kid - entering young adulthood and trying to have relationships. "
Derek Cianfrance
Parents
War
Trying
" I feel similar to a lot of people. I don't feel unique. So what I'm trying to do in my films is provide something for people like me, but also a collection of scenes that instigate. "
Derek Cianfrance
Me
People
Feel
" Every moment is, in some ways, eternal. Once you put something into the world, it stays there. "
Derek Cianfrance
Some
Moment
You
" You turn on the news, there're no facts anymore. 'Here's what's happening today,' and then you cut to thirty minutes of people in little boxes, little windows, telling you their opinions on it. It seems like all the news is going on in the ticker-tape on the bottom of the news. It's all opinion, it's all editorial. "
Derek Cianfrance
Opinions
Today
People
" I think 'GoodFellas' is just a perfect film. From an efficiency of storytelling standpoint, from an entertainment standpoint, from a performance standpoint, from a use of music standpoint, from a cinematography and editing standpoint - to me, it's just a perfect movie. "
Derek Cianfrance
Me
Music
Perfect
" I have kids. I can't hardly watch an afternoon football game with them without having to turn off the TV during the commercials. It's too much. I don't know when violence was deemed such a cinematic thing. "
Derek Cianfrance
Know
Game
Football
" One of the bad things about being a filmmaker, about being me, is I can hardly read a book anymore because every time I read something, I have a poaching mentality, like, 'Oh, can this be a movie?' "
Derek Cianfrance
Book
I Can
Bad
" I think people need fantasy, but I think they also need to know that they're not being lied to. I think sometimes the fantasy can betray people and become more difficult for people's lives than just truth. I can't stand delusion. Delusion makes me sick. "
Derek Cianfrance
Me
Truth
People
" When people think of biblical movies, they imagine sweeping epics like 'The Ten Commandments.' But 'The Gospel According to St. Matthew' is essentially a documentary about Jesus. It made me aware of how real life and personal experience can create more breathtaking, sensitive cinema than more sophisticated techniques. "
Derek Cianfrance
Experience
Think
People
" As a parent myself, I can appreciate the MPAA and what they're supposed to do, but what happens with NC-17 is that the MPAA is basically taking away the rights of parents. They're basically telling me that I can't show my kids this movie if I decide they can see it. "
Derek Cianfrance
Parents
Appreciate
Me
" Now, I love movies so much, but I find a lot of movies to be arrogant in the way they're kind of know-it-alls - they have perfect characters on the screen that know everything about themselves. "
Derek Cianfrance
Know
Kind
Find
" With each character in a movie, I'm looking for a human being. I'm looking for a person. And to me, I'm looking for a person that's full of strengths and weaknesses, a person that's full of successes and failures, a person that's full of joy and sorrow. I'm interested in people that are human beings that are alive. "
Derek Cianfrance
Looking
Me
Character
" Seeing 'The Gospel According to St. Matthew' was an extraordinary experience because it made me realise that all the biblical stories and images I'd ignored as a child had sunk in by osmosis. I saw that my childhood was deeply rooted inside me. "
Derek Cianfrance
Child
Seeing
Me
" I shot 'Blue Valentine' on 16mm for the past, and for the present on the Red Camera. I feel that both formats are valid. The stories should dictate the format we shoot on. Filmmakers should have a choice. "
Derek Cianfrance
Past
Camera
Blue
" If you make a movie that's close to your heart, it will be close to other people's. "
Derek Cianfrance
People
Will
Your
" When I grew up, a director was Cecil B DeMille, a guy sitting down with a megaphone speaking. He was the voice of God, the image of God. When I went to start making docs, I quickly turned the megaphone to my ear not to my mouth. It's more about funneling in the words and listening as doc filmmaker. "
Derek Cianfrance
Voice
Words
God
" Lars Ulrich, he was my hero growing up. I wanted to be like him. I played the drums. "
Derek Cianfrance
Him
Up
Hero
" Right now, I think I have time to be three things, in no particular order: a father, a husband, and a filmmaker. That's why I don't go out - I have no space for it. I feel like one of those main things would suffer. "
Derek Cianfrance
Time
Father
Husband
" When I cast someone in a movie, I have to absolutely trust who they are as a human being. Trust is the intangible of moviemaking. "
Derek Cianfrance
Trust
Someone
Human Being
" As a writer, I always peel back the layers, go to the most sensitive places uncomfortably close to the heart. "
Derek Cianfrance
Always
Places
Layers
" I love people that work with passion and love. When you make choices that way, there's reverberations, consequences. That's what I'm interested in, that echo, that ripple of choice. "
Derek Cianfrance
People
Passion
Love
" It's like you take these great actors and put them in an aquarium of life and just watch them swim. That's what makes editing tough because you get all these beautiful, unplanned moments. "
Derek Cianfrance
Life
Great
Beautiful
" We had all these smiley family pictures all over the walls of my house, but I always found those pictures to be odd because we weren't smiling all the time. I don't want to paint the picture of a total dysfunctional house, but there were a lot of arguments in that house. A lot of pain. "
Derek Cianfrance
Pain
Family
Smiling
" I'm not asking actors to act. I'm asking them to behave. I want to see their being, not how they can fake it. "
Derek Cianfrance
Want
Act
Asking