Debra Granik Quotes

I love comedy, but it's dramas that stick with me.

What I always do is go with the stories that put up the hair on the back of my neck or make me cry or make me laugh.

I choose roles according to my sensibilities.

You can be moved by an animated film and not by a live action film. There could be great inspiration in and humanity in that animated story.

I like drama. My first movie that I did, 'Soul Survivors', was a drama, and I'm just drawn to that; that's sort of my forte.

I enjoyed 'The Avengers.' I couldn't do that kind of movie though. Superheroes aren't my deal.

I can't speak for readers in general, but personally I like to read stories behind which there is some truth, something real and above all, something emotional. I don't like to read essays on literature; I don't like to read critical or rational or impersonal or cold disquisitions on subjects.

I'm a family man, I have kids, and I go to the movies. And I'm just going to make the kind of movie I want to see.

I don't watch television. I'm not a TV guy.

I used to love ninja movies. That was my thing.

I used to say to my bubbe, 'Bubbe, is this story true?' And she'd say, 'Of course it's true! But it may not have happened.' What my bubbe was saying is profound: All stories are true. The truth is the journey you take through it - did it make you laugh, cry, seek and want justice? Then it's true.

I'm drawn to dramas that make people think. I want to make an impact.

I don't watch television and I rarely go to the cinema, but I recently watched 'The King's Speech' on a flight. It was so beautiful and so simple.

I would like my novels to be read the way I read the novels I love.

I don't enjoy watching action films, but I loved films like 'Rust and Bone' and 'The Beat That My Heart Skipped.'

I'll put 'Stranger Things' up there with the best of it. I think it's such a profound show - it's very subtle in the way that it tells its story, but it's very effective. Every time I watch it, I feel something, which is very rare for me.

Some I want to see just for curiosity. But no, I don't really rush out to see a bunch of musicals.

We could make the most beautiful film in the world, but if it doesn't have a heart beating underneath it, then no one's going to be interested.

Different kind of cinema is being created, people are coming up with different kind of scripts, they are able to come up with scripts that work with the audiences and also scripts which will have something to say to the audience, which is a heart-warming thing.

I don't enjoy doing over-the-top action entertainers.

I have a very strong belief in what I like, or a very strong opinion in genre films that I like to watch.

It's far easier to write why something is terrible than why it's good. If you're reviewing a film and you decide "This is a movie I don't like," basically you can take every element of the film and find the obvious flaw, or argue that it seems ridiculous, or like a parody of itself, or that it's not as good as something similar that was done in a previous film. What's hard to do is describe why you like something. Because ultimately, the reason things move people is very amorphous. You can be cerebral about things you hate, but most of the things you like tend to be very emotive.

I can't sit through the superhero films. But I watched Draft Day, and it was kind of sweet in an old-fashioned way.

I see a correlation between short stories and songs, because of their length and for what they're meant to evoke. Combine certain words with melodies and it all becomes very moving.

In order for stories to work - for kids and for adults - they should scare. And you should triumph. There's no point in triumphing over evil if the evil isn't scary.