Asif Kapadia Quotes

I'm a huge Spike Lee fan. I saw 'Do The Right Thing' twice in the same night when it first came out and had long conversations with all my friends about the issues in it.

It is mind-blowing to pause and think that a film as forward-facing and potent as 'Do the Right Thing' was released the same year as 'Driving Ms. Daisy.'

2001: A Space Odyssey was a wonderful conundrum when I was a boy, with its giant concepts thrown across the giant screen at Indian Hills Theater. That movie woke me up in ways that I hadn't imagined, and I went searching for book versions of the same drug.

Being a kid growing up with Kurosawa films and watching Sergio Leone movies just made me love what it could do to you, and how it could influence you - make you dream.

I had seen 'Do the Right Thing' when I was at college, and it was incredibly inspiring as a piece of cinema. Just brilliant, I thought. But saw 'Malcolm X' with a crowded audience. It was my first time in an American cinema, hearing an audience respond. You know, in England, everyone is so restrained.

Basquiat will continue to show us new things about who we are and why he was so important.

An often-repeated assertion in the body of film criticism I have written is the assertion that movies do not just mirror the culture of any given time; they also create it.

The only reason I've been so critical of hip-hop is because I've always been aware of the effect that it has, and the reflection that it gives of the African-American community.

What's interesting when you see 'Black Panther' is you realize it couldn't have been directed by anybody else but Ryan Coogler. It's a great adventure movie, and it works on all those different levels as entertainment, but it has this kind of cultural through-line that is so specific that it makes it universal.

I think 'In The Heat Of The Night' was one of the most influential films on me. Looking back now, I can see how influential it was on my screenwriting because here you have what looks to be a crime procedural, and it's actually a study in race and loneliness, and a perception of an era.

I believe that art can make relevant and progressive contributions to culture and society.

Good movies beget other good movies. So when a movie captures the imagination and hearts of people around the world, it's going to have a positive influence on similar genres getting made.

'Five Easy Pieces' got to me pretty good. I remember seeing it and thinking, 'That is so cool. I would love to be able to do that.'

'The Joy Luck Club' is not a perfect film. But, I distinctly remember watching it with my mom - and bursting into tears after the screening!

At the end of the day, you don't remember 'Mother India' or 'Pyaasa' for the business it did, you remember them because they had a good story to tell.

Aretha Franklin was as important to the civil-rights movement as Malcolm X and Medgar Evers. Artists can choose to take on the tremendous amount of responsibility we have, or choose to ignore it.

If fashion has a political significance, it is probably culturally, as a camouflage.

The only serious function films can serve is to act as a record of their times.

I've been influenced by a lot of films. And a lot of them are the typical interesting, artsy films. But I haven't talked enough about how there are those few big blockbusters that really rock your world.

'Narcos' was a very strong experience, not only artistically and politically, but as a human being.

I've watched Spike Lee's career with interest, and he seemed to be striving for an original and moral point of view.

We're very clear on 'black-ish' about how many opinions are voiced by Dre Johnson.

The films that have influenced me most are: 'The Hustler', 'Badlands', 'Hud', 'Tender Mercies', 'Cool Hand Luke', 'A Perfect World', and 'Laurence of Arabia'. I also really like 'Fletch'. I feel like all of these films reached an honest place in regard to the human condition while also stringing together really entertaining stories.

Fanny and Alexander' blew me away. I was visiting my sister in her first year at university. It was my first foray into something dark.

Characters work really well when they're reflective of the times that they're operating in.