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" You have to go back to the '30s and '40s to see a film that's any good. "
Terry Zwigoff
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You
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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
" 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
" The first scene I ever shot for 'Louie Bluie,' on that first day, I had never seen the camera before. I didn't know where to put it. I just knew what was strong about these guys and what I wanted to capture, so I tried to work backward from there and figure it out. Trial and error. Hopefully I got a little bit better at it. "
Terry Zwigoff
Know
Strong
Better
" 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
" 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
" Chicago always hit me as such a gloomy place - I just remember all the snow getting dirty as soon as it would fall, all the decaying brown brick buildings around where we lived, all this soot all over the place. "
Terry Zwigoff
Me
Snow
Remember
" The films I want to make, I really want to be passionate about. "
Terry Zwigoff
Make
Passionate
Really
" If I start paying attention to the mechanics of a film while watching it, then it's generally a bad film. "
Terry Zwigoff
Attention
Film
Bad
" A good script and perfect casting, that's 90 percent of the work. "
Terry Zwigoff
Perfect
Good
Percent
" 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
" 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
" Maybe if I found something I was really passionate about, which is entirely possible, I would make another documentary, but it's not a good career choice for anybody. I don't recommend it. "
Terry Zwigoff
Passionate
Good
Choice
" 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
" 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
" I try to make a film that's very entertaining, very funny, but also gives you something to think about. And the strongest thing I have to offer is my point of view, to get across how I see the world in hopes that it can change the way other people see the world, hopefully for the better. "
Terry Zwigoff
World
You
Change
" 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
" 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
" Certain types of films will never test well. My films never seem to test well. "
Terry Zwigoff
Seem
Will
Well
" I gotta tell you, I don't have many close friends, and if I do wind up making friends with somebody, it takes me a long time, usually. "
Terry Zwigoff
You
Friends
Long
" 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
" I never saw a department store Santa as a kid. My mother was afraid to take me. "
Terry Zwigoff
Mother
Afraid
Me
" 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
" Because I found myself telling the story of his family to people without the visual aids that I was able to employ by filming them eventually. But I very much knew exactly what I was going to do. "
Terry Zwigoff
Myself
Family
Story
" 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
" Crumb was such an influence on me. He's such a visionary, such a great artist, that he so shaped my artistic sensibilities on a certain level that I do owe everything to him. The way I see the world is largely changed by him. "
Terry Zwigoff
See
Artist
Great
" Saying that all documentaries are the same is like saying all foreign films are the same. "
Terry Zwigoff
Same
Films
Foreign
" 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
" I think my father kept struggling to get us into better neighborhoods, better schools. One of the worst jobs he had was folding shirts under these fluorescent lights all day at the equivalent of a Kmart. I remember visiting him at work, thinking, 'When I grow up, I've got to do anything else.' "
Terry Zwigoff
Work
Day
Grow
" I was inspired to do anything I could to get out of what I was doing... today, I'm motivated to pay the bills. "
Terry Zwigoff
Anything
Doing
Inspired