Damien Chazelle Quotes

I loved old black and white movies, especially the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musicals. I loved everything about them - the songs, the music, the romance and the spectacle. They were real class and I knew that I wanted to be in that world.

The musicals that I loved, growing up - many, many. 'Singing in the Rain,' of course, is a classic, I love 'Meet Me in St. Louis.' I love 'Funny Face,' Stanley Donen's beautiful movie. It's really countless for me.

I've always loved musical films; I find them really thrilling and exciting; it was part of what made me want to be an actress, that feeling of being really transported.

When Ginger Rogers danced with Astaire, it was the only time in the movies when you looked at the man, not the woman.

I see wonderful films by Bertolucci, Visconti, and Fellini.

I was obsessed with 'Jesus Christ Superstar,' and I used to reenact it in my room when no one was home.

Inside my heart, there's a 12-year-old girl who has always wanted to be Ginger Rogers.

I've always wanted to play Maria in West Side Story. My idol is Natalie Wood, and I love the movie, so I think a modern-day twist on it would be really neat.

I remember one day during my freshman year of high school, when as usual I was obsessively listening to a cast recording: it may have been 'Jesus Christ Superstar.' And I remember sitting there, totally absorbed, saying to myself, 'I can do this.'

I do like musical films more than big Hollywood films, especially those by Jacques Demi and Vincent Minelli.

When I was doing 'Beau Travail,' I listened a lot to Benjamin Britten.

If you look at 'West Side Story,' a lot of those numbers are actually pretty cutty, but the cuts are always musically motivated.

Fred Astaire was my dream dancer.

I was really into old musicals. When I was seven or eight, my mum and dad would be like, 'How does she know who Ginger Rogers is?' Then, one weekend, Josephine Baker popped up in a French film called 'Zouzou,' and I was so stunned because she looked like me.

My mom always had me and my brother watching old Fred Astaire movies.

'Cabaret' was launched with fanfare, and the songs organically created quite a buzz.

I'm a big Broadway fan and a big MGM fan.

Lynne Ramsay's 'Ratcatcher' blew me away when it came out. When I started making short films, I would watch that film over and over again, marvelling at how that story visually unfolded.

We have a great musical sequence in episode five of 'Smash' called 'Let's Be Bad,' and it probably is the closest to 'Chicago' that I think any of us have ever experienced.

To me I grew up watching 'All That Jazz' and 'Cabaret,' and when I was younger 'Mary Poppins',' The Sound Of Music,' and 'Singin' In The Rain.'

I love watching old movies anyway - I grew up with my mom watching old movies and being immersed in the history of old Hollywood.

I love silent films. The future is unwritten.

The Pink Panther is legendary, but a lot of people my age haven't ever seen the original. So, I think it's great to bring it back for my generation, and to expose them to where that theme song which still sounds so modern and that legendary image of a pink cat came from. It's great to be a part of that, because it's history.

I'm often asked by younger filmmakers, 'Why do I need to look at old movies?' I've made a number of pictures in the last 20 years and the response I have to give them is that I still consider myself a student. The more pictures I've made in 20 years, the more I realize I really don't know. And I'm always looking for something or someone that I could learn from. I tell the younger filmmakers, and the young students, that do it like painters used to do—that painters do—study the old masters, enrich your palette, expand the canvas. There's always so much more to learn.

I looked at a lot of photos from Hollywood in the '20s, photographs of silent movies being filmed all over the world which are very specific and very evocative. Berenice, the lead actress, is my wife. She really followed the same path with me.