Jane Campion Quotes

We're used to a story in modern terms as an information delivery device. Certainly on television and even with the studio films, there's really only one note that you get, and that's clarity. And people will sacrifice everything for clarity. They'll sacrifice the joke. They'll sacrifice the moment, or the romance.

'Fahrenheit' was a very difficult product to sell to publishers initially because no-one believed in storytelling or emotion.

Nonfiction is both easier and harder to write than fiction. It's easier because the facts are already laid out before you, and there is already a narrative arc. What makes it harder is that you are not free to use your imagination and creativity to fill in any missing gaps within the story.

When that happens - when risk is taken and the filmmakers dive into the subject matter without a parachute - very often what you get it something with those qualities that make it age well with the public.

To make independent films, you can't think about them too much, ponder on them too much, get overwhelmed by the enormity of it.

I just love entertaining. I will do anything - stand-up comedy, video games, fencing, internet shorts - I just want to keep being lucky enough to entertain people anyway I can. I try never to limit my art to a medium.

I love that there's a beginning, middle and end to a film and you can craft what the whole journey is going to look like.

Short stories are fiction's R & D department, and failed or less-than-conclusive experiments are not just to be expected but to be hoped for.

I love telling stories. I like the challenges presented to me on a daily basis. There's nothing resting about acting.

I love the intimacy and the passion and the danger that go into independent filmmaking. Because it comes out of a creative necessity. It comes from people who really want to make a movie and want to make a difference and want to grab an audience by the gullet and show them something different.

I love essays, but they're not always the best way to communicate to a larger audience.

I love good film, whether it's an independent or studio film. The independent films, I think the good ones aren't necessarily eccentric ones but they're the more specific ones.

I don't think people are ever going to a place where they're like, 'I'm over stories about character and love.'

'Rocket Science' is really where I fell in love with filmmaking, I think 'Camp' was incredible, but it was so bizarre, and I was trying to find my footing in this world where you don't have an audience for immediate validation.

Look, I'm just a storyteller. When I make a film, I never want the film to become a vehicle of social propaganda.

When I brought 'Sex and the City' to HBO, I wanted to do something independent, where I could be like, 'I don't care if anybody watches this thing. Just let me do something that I would love to see.' Honestly, the success of 'Sex and the City' was what was most surprising to me. It was sort of like the anti-TV-show in my mind.

I feel like the great filmmakers who have a true voice, yeah they take the notes, they understand the notes, but it's really about the notes underneath the notes. When you do a test screening and somebody says, 'Well, I didn't like the love story,' but it was probably just too long.

I think feature film can be quite conservative, because you have to now get audiences to come out, and it's quite a hard thing to do. Of course, television can be conservative too.

When I started to be a writer, I was not going to run the risk of boring you.

Even if it happened in real life - and oftentimes, especially if it happened in real life - it might not work in fiction.

If you have something to say, a movie is a really great medium to say it. It doesn't matter what the message is.

It's a very weird thing, making a true story, because you need your freedom, as filmmakers, to do what you need to do.

I just feel like TV takes more risks than film. Film has gotten very safe: it's very compartmentalized about what type of things will be successful. And whereas in TV, since all these new platforms opened, they're saying to writers, go out there, write the most different show that you can write. Write something that's really original and different.

I was swept by the narrative structure of film... you can create a world, you can destroy it, you can do what you want with it and serve it to people just the way you like.

The excitement of wading into 'reality' and just finding out what happens - and then the challenge of selecting those things that happened and shaping them in the editing into a narrative that will have appeal and be engaging - is a great, great thrill.