Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" When I cast great actors, I try to make extraordinary people ordinary, dealing with these extremely small intimate details of interpersonal relationships against an epic backdrop. "

Derek Cianfrance

Great

Epic

Details

Related Quotes:

" 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. "

" 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?' "

" 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

" 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. "

" 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

Character

" Making a film is like making a mixtape. You're collecting all this stuff and putting your favorite stuff into it: you have actors that you like, characters that you're interested in, moments you want to explore, themes you want to deal with, music that you want to put in. It's a pastiche of all these things that deal with how you see the world. "

" I grew up Catholic, so I feel guilty about everything. "

" There's something so glorious in giving control to the world. I think that's what I'm trying to do in my films - control the world but also let it be chaotic, let there be life. "

" 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. "

" There's something so great when you're watching a movie when you slowly get to know somebody more, because it's like a real relationship. "

" 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. "

" When we make these movies, you sign up for an experience. It's not just, 'Action! Cut!' There's not that safety in it. It's kind of a dangerous place to be. I mean, it is safe, but it gets personal. It's no longer about saying the lines. It's about really having an experience. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" If you make a movie that's close to your heart, it will be close to other people's. "

" 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. "

" 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

People

Feel

" I ask all my actors to do two things: I ask them to fail for me, and I ask them to surprise me. "

" To me, discomfort is a gift in the films that I'm making. "

Derek Cianfrance

Gift

Discomfort

" 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. "

" As a writer, I always peel back the layers, go to the most sensitive places uncomfortably close to the heart. "

" There's one rule that I have on my movies, which is that anything that you want to do, you can do. But! There's a flip side to that, which is that anything I want you to do, give it a try also. "

" 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

Music

Perfect

" I feel like the job of an artist is to confront their own darkness and their own demons and fears. And I want to make movies that feel human up on the screen. I don't really relate to dudes wearing spandex and capes. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I was an audience member before I'm a filmmaker. All I've tried to do as a filmmaker was to make movies I want to see. "

" 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. "

" After 'Place Beyond the Pines,' honestly, I was sick of myself. Sick of my own ideas. I wanted to do an adaptation, but everything I'd been reading, I just didn't understand it. "

" I think book adaptations, the best one to me is like 'Brokeback Mountain.' Which is a short story, 21 pages, that expands so beautifully into a movie. "