I think cinema, movies, and magic have always been closely associated. The very earliest people who made film were magicians.
There’s nothing creative about living within your means.
An essential element of any art is risk. If you don’t take a risk then how are you going to make something really beautiful, that hasn’t been seen before?
Anything you build on a large scale or with intense passion invites chaos.
Some critics are stimulating in that they make you realise how you could do better, and those are valued.
You don’t have to specialize – do everything that you love and then, at some time, the future will come together for you in some form.
When you make a film it is like asking yourself a question. When it is finished, you know the answer. Ultimately with all of cinema, we are just trying to learn about ourselves. I have always used the opportunity to make a film to learn more about myself, which I am still doing.
It was the man’s dream, and his inspiring attempt to make them come true that remain important.
In a sense, I think a movie is really a little like a question and when you make it, that’s when you get the answer.
Movies are the art form most like man’s imagination.
One thing that I’m sure of is the real pleasure of life – it’s not being known, it’s not having your own jet plane, it’s not having a mansion the pleasure is to learn something.
Usually, the stuff that’s your best idea or work is going to be attacked the most.
Anyone who’s made film and knows about the cinema has a lifelong love affair with the experience. You never stop learning about film.
The photographer and the director are where reality and fantasy meet.
I wanted to be a film student again, as a man in my 60s. To go someplace alone and see what you can cook up, with non-existent budgets. I didn’t want to be surrounded by comforts and colleagues, which you have when when you’re a big time director. I wanted to write personal works.
You have to really be courageous about your instincts and your ideas. Otherwise you’ll just knuckle under, and things that might have been memorable will be lost.
You ought to love what you’re doing because, especially in a movie, over time you really will start to hate it.