There have been some wonderful movie relay races over the past several months. Now there’s a new one and it may be the most creative relay yet. It originated from the wonderful Taste of Cinema site and here is the motivation behind it:
“People love wisdom words from great minds. As a cinephile, I prefer director quotes than words from any other group of people in the world.Their thoughts on cinema not only provide insights into deep understanding of cinema,but also open the window to their own films, their genres, their filmmaking methods, thus they need to receive more exposure as their films did.”
I have the pleasure of participating in this relay thanks to my moviegoing pal Ruth over at FlixChatter. If you haven’t visited FlixChatter you’re missing out. Ruth offers a wonderful variety of features and reviews. You can stop by and check out her fabulous day-by-day coverage of the recent Twin Cities Film Festival. You don’t want to miss it! Along with Ruth, these are the other great blogs that have participated so far : Movie and Songs 365 , And So it Begins… , The Cinematic Spectacle , and On Page and Screen .
Now if you’re unfamiliar with blog relay races the rules are simple. Examine the 10 director’s quotes passed to you then replace one with a quote you think is better. Then pick a new blogger and pass the baton. It’s that easy but it also makes for some great reading. So here are the directors and their quotes that came my way:
Quentin Tarantino
“I steal from every single movie ever made. I love it – if my work has anything it’s that I’m taking this from this and that from that and mixing them together. If people don’t like that, then tough titty, don’t go and see it, all right? I steal from everything. Great artists steal; they don’t do homages.” – Quentin Tarantino
Andrei Tarkovsky
“Unlike all the other art forms, film is able to seize and render the passage of time, to stop it, almost to possess it in infinity. I’d say that film is the sculpting of time.” – Andrei Tarkovsky
Seijun Suzuki
“Why make a movie about something one understands completely? I make movies about things I do not understand, but wish to.” – Seijun Suzuki
Federico Fellini
“I don’t like the idea of ‘understanding’ a film. I don’t believe that rational understanding is an essential element in the reception of any work of art. Either a film has something to say to you or it hasn’t. If you are moved by it, you don’t need it explained to you. If not, no explanation can make you moved by it.” – Federico Fellini
Pedro Almodovar
“When I make a film, I never stop uncovering mysteries, making discoveries. When I’m writing, filming, editing, even doing promotional work, I discover new things about the film, about myself, and about others. That is what I’m subconsciously looking for when shooting a film: to glimpse the enigmas of life, even if I don’t resolve them, but at least to uncover them. Cinema is curiosity in the most intense meaning of the word.” – Pedro Almodovar
Krzysztof Kieslowski
“You make films to give people something, to transport them somewhere else, and it doesn’t matter if you transport them to a world of intuition or a world of intellect…The realm of superstitions, fortune-telling, presentiments, intuition, dreams, all this is the inner life of a human being, and all this is the hardest thing to film… I’ve been trying to get there from the beginning. I’m somebody who doesn’t know, somebody who’s searching.” – Krzysztof Kieslowski
Andrea Arnold
“I wonder whether my bleak-o-meter is set differently from other people’s. I have such passion for what I do that I can’t see it as bleak. When people use that word, or “grim” or “gritty,” I just think, “Oh, come on, look a bit deeper.” My films don’t give you an easy ride. I can see that. The sense I get is that people have quite a physical experience with them. They feel afterwards that they’ve really been through something.” — Andrea Arnold
Lee Daniels
“Truth is hard to tell! And you have to be willing to be criticized for it.” – Lee Daniels
Jean-Luc Godard
“A story should have a beginning, a middle and an end… but not necessarily in that order.”
—Jean-Luc Godard
Christopher Nolan
“Every film should have its own world, a logic and feel to it that expands beyond the exact image that the audience is seeing.” – Christopher Nolan
These are great quotes and it’s a difficult task to pick one to remove. But in accordance to the rules…
WHO GETS CUT….
“All my movies are about strange worlds that you can’t go into unless you build them and film them. That’s what’s so important about film to me. I just like going into strange worlds.” – David Lynch
When it came to cutting one of the great director’s quotes, I quickly narrowed it down to three. But through a process of elimination I decided to say goodbye to David Lynch. It’s not that there is anything wrong or uninspired with his statement. But when compared to the other quotes his seemed rather bland. He pretty much said what anyone who has watched some of his films already know.
MY ADDITION…
Katheryn Bigelow
“If there is resistance to women making movies, I choose to ignore it. That is because I cannot change my gender and I refuse to stop making movies.” – Katheryn Bigelow
In approaching my choice of a director’s quote, I didn’t really consider whether the director was one of my very favorites. I strictly went with the quote and how it related to cinema. That being said, I am a fan of Katheryn Bigelow. I still love “Point Break” and I was a big fan of her Oscar-winning “The Hurt Locker”. And this year’s “Zero Dark Thirty” is one of my most anticipated pictures of the year. She’s a tough and bold filmmaker which is evident by her quote I chose. I love her statement because you can sense the passion behind it. She doesn’t discount a possible resistance to women making films. But she hints at its foolishness before expressing her passion for filmmaking, a passion that she will not allow to be extinguished. That’s the heart of someone who LOVES cinema.
NEXT IN LINE…
I want to now pass the baton to my buddy Mark at the wonderful site Marked Movies. Mark puts together some of the most well constructed reviews of a wide variety of films. He also has one of my favorite features – his Tuesday Trivia Tidbits. It’s a site you must check out and I can’t wait to see his contribution to this list. Mark, the floor is yours…..
Keith & the Movies