John Logan Quotes

Movies are too literal.

Americans think cinema is about storytelling; I don't believe that. I think it's a language and everyone has to find their own way of speaking. It's not so much what you say as the way you say it.

Watching a movie from beginning to end is like reading, because even though what you see are images, they are telling you a story.

It is also difficult to articulate the subtleties in cinema, because there aren't words or metaphors which describe many of the emotions you are attempting to evoke.

For each movie that I do, I like to find a specific language to tell the specific story.

Whether you're Godard or Almodovar or Scorsese, it's text, text, text. Everything begins with the text, and this is a source of great anguish to me. So please let cinema get on with doing what it does best, which is expressing ideas in visual terms.

Cinema is a visual medium one has to communicate through visuals, and therefore, dialogues should be less.

One of the things I love about cinema is the range.

Cinema is a medium that can translate ideas.

There's a certain visual grammar you've got to stick in. For example, if a character has just woken up, draw him in his pajamas with the bed a bit rumpled. Or if he's ill, draw little bottles with red crosses on that immediately communicate medicine, and a box of tissues.

It's a risk, but I'm sort of ready to let go of thinking of movies as books that you can watch. The notion of, 'If I put the narrative blocks in the right order, this will solve all of my storytelling problems.' No, it won't, and you end up with little more than books on film.

There are very few films that work like a novel.

Because even very young people are expert readers of pictures, you can convey very complex and subtle messages through pictures that you'd need loads of words to explain. Making a picture book is also a bit like making your own film - and you can make anything you want happen, however impossible!

I think from an early age I was aware of how a camera can tell a story, how a movie camera can affect how the narrative is told.

Turn off the sound in a movie, and if you can tell what's going on, the movie should work.

I draw on a lot of cinematic influences like Ingmar Bergman and Wim Wenders, artists who let a story take its time. Comics are a visual medium, and visuals should be allowed to tell some of that story.

There's something very dreamlike about film, and I will always be very fascinated by that, and I'm always tempted to go in that direction.

I think there's a connection with 'Nightcrawler' and 'Blowup' and other films where visual imagery is integral to the story. It allows you to play with images.

The beauty of cinema is that it can do some things that novels just can't.

Used properly, cinema is the coolest thing in the world.

Cinema is visually powerful, it is a complete experience, reaches a different audience. It's something I really like. I like movies.

I fell in love with film and its potential. The idea of putting one image next to another image and creating meaning blew my mind.

I hope for quick, fluent copy and memorable pictures. The words would not 'describe' the pictures; the pictures would not 'illustrate' the words. Together, they would carry a stamp and tell a story.

Cinema is not a series of abstract ideas, but rather the phrasing of moments.

For 8,000 years, we've had lyric poetry; for 400 years we've had the novel: theatre hands its meaning down in text. Let's find a medium whose total, sole responsibility is the world as seen as a form of visual intelligence. Surely, surely, surely the cinema should be that phenomenon.