10 Favourite Director Quotes Relay Race

Another one of these relay races is going around, and this time we're focusing on quotes from directors. Basically, we need ten in the race at all times, and I have to take one out and replace them with another quote. I was passed the baton by Ruth at Let's Be Splendid About This a couple of weeks back - sorry for the delay. Before I get to my choice, here's who has gone before me, right from the originator:

David - Taste of Cinema

Chris - Movies and Songs

Alex - And So It Begins

Josh - The Cinema Spectacle

Stephanie - On Page and Screen

Brittani - Rambling Film

John - John Likes Movies

Ruth - Flix Chatter

Keith - Keith & the Movies

Mark - Marked Movies

Tyson - Head in a Vice

Eric - The IPC

S1ngal - S1ngal

Steven - Surrender to the Void

Margaret - Cinematic Corner

Diana - Aziza's Picks

Ruth - Let's Be Splendid About This

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, right? I steal from everything. Great artists steal; they don't do homages."

Seijun Suzuki

"Why make a movie about something one understands completely? I make movies about things I do not understand, but wish to."

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."

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 form the beginning. I'm somebody who doesn't know, somebody who's searching."

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."

Paul Thomas Anderson

"I really subscribe to that old adage that you should never let the audience get ahead of you for a second. So if the film's abrasive and wrong-foots people then, y'know, that's great. But I hope it involves an audience. If not, that's my fuck-up."

Jim Jarmusch

"Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable: originality is nonexistent. And don't both concealing your thievery - celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: It's not where you take things, it's where you take them to."

Darren Aronofsky

"If you want to be a filmmaker, the best thing you can bring to the world is your own story. And if there is something that is very personal to you and something that you have your own singular connection to that if it really is important to you, there are people all over the planet that will relate to it So, the mistakes happen when you try to figure out what everyone likes because the only thing you can be sure of is what you like. And the reality is what you like ends up being what a lot of people like because we are all going through a similar story."

Federico Fellini

"I'm just a storyteller, and the cinema happens to be my medium. I like it because it re-creates life in movement, enlarges it, enhances it, distills it. For me, it's far closer to the miraculous creation of life than, say, a painting or music or even literature. It's not just an art form; it's actually a new form of life, with its own rhythms, cadences, perspectives and transparencies. It's my way of telling a story."

Peter Jackson

"I don't quite know what an auteur is. I've never quite understood that term, because filmmaking is such a huge team effort, you - I mean, I regard myself as being sort of the final filter, so everything that ends up in the movie is there, because it's something that I'd think was cool if I saw the film that somebody else had made. I'm very much trying to make the film that I've enjoyed, but I'm open to ideas, I need a huge team of people to help me, everybody contributes and I try to encourage people to contribute as much as possible. I think that' the job of a director really, is to sort of funnel all the creative into one centralised point of view. And the marketing is sort of something that really happens with other people, it's not something that I'm at all an expert in, and I regard my job at the end of the day as to make the best possible film I can, and that's really where my job stops and marketing people take over after that."

Who I'm taking out:

"I don't quite know what an auteur is. I've never quite understood that term, because filmmaking is such a huge team effort, you - I mean, I regard myself as being sort of the final filter, so everything that ends up in the movie is there, because it's something that I'd think was cool if I saw the film that somebody else had made. I'm very much trying to make the film that I've enjoyed, but I'm open to ideas, I need a huge team of people to help me, everybody contributes and I try to encourage people to contribute as much as possible. I think that' the job of a director really, is to sort of funnel all the creative into one centralised point of view. And the marketing is sort of something that really happens with other people, it's not something that I'm at all an expert in, and I regard my job at the end of the day as to make the best possible film I can, and that's really where my job stops and marketing people take over after that."

It is kind of sad to be taking out a guy who just got in, and a guy from NZ no less, but his quote just isn't as great as the other ones (even though some of the ideas are repeated among the others). It is a good quote, nonetheless.

Who I'm putting in:

"If there's specific resistance to women making movies, I just choose to ignore that as an obstacle for two reasons: I can't change my gender, and I refuse to stop making movies. It's irrelevant who or what directed a movie, the important thing is that you either respond to it or you don't. There should be more women directing; I think there's just not the awareness that it's really possible. It is." - Kathryn Bigelow

As you may have read in my Zero Dark Thirty review last night, Kathryn Bigelow is one of the hugest influences in my life as both a person and a director. While her quote isn't about directing per se, it highlights an important point of cinema: it doesn't matter who the director is, and directing really is possible. This quote is something I pretty much thrive on, so there we have it.

Anyway, I'll pass the baton on to Tyler at Southern Vision, who may not blog much any more but I know he'll have an interesting take on this race. Have fun!