Chadwick Boseman Quotes

On the sets of the movie 'Manto,' I found that one of the challenges of embodying real-life stories is the mixed medium of facts and imagination, and how one's collage of experiences colour ones representation on celluloid.

In a film, you have to externalize things that are internal and of course it becomes a debate about to what extent you do that.

I believe realism is nothing but an analysis of reality. Film scripts have a synthetical constitution.

But having a really good understanding of history, literature, psychology, sciences - is very, very important to actually being able to make movies.

The thing is, as a film director, you're essentially alone: You have to tell a story primarily through pictures, and only you know the film you see in your head.

When I'm painting and drawing I only do people. Acting is obviously portraiture - and writing is as well.

The research period of a film is the most exciting part of the process, and filming is sometimes a letdown because when you're dealing with biopic material, the real thing is always much more intricate than the story told in the film.

I really think the biopic thing so rarely works, because people's lives don't have a dramatic shape that can be satisfying.

I think the struggle, whenever you make a film or television movie based on a real person's life, is finding a dramatic arc that will hold an audience's attention.

A lot of books, if you take them at face value, they're just not gonna work as films.

I know the movies that I've liked, and I know the experience that they've given me, so the goal is always to try to create a movie that I would like myself and that would knock me out, challenge me or intrigue me in some way. That's been my criteria for figuring out what I want to do, or also when I'm writing something or creating a scene.

My movie is born first in my head, dies on paper; is resuscitated by the living persons and real objects I use, which are killed on film but, placed in a certain order and projected on to a screen, come to life again like flowers in water.

As a filmmaker, you have to understand the essence of the book and tell the story you want to see on the screen, and hopefully please yourself - because you can't possibly please everyone.

A filmmaker doesn't have to suffer to show suffering. You just have to understand it. You don't have to die to shoot a death scene.

I write scripts to serve as skeletons awaiting the flesh and sinew of images.

I believe that the director is really the soul. It is a collaborative effort, but the director is the one who needs to have that vision. It could be a great script, but it starts from there. You need to have good material, at least, but if you don't have someone with vision, it's just words.

Writing has certain advantages; film is another way to tell a story. An experienced filmmaker will take what she needs from the book and leave out other things. With adaptations, you never get the texture of the writing: it's a different mode.

I make films about stories that I get interested in.

I never try and send messages through my feature films; it's always naturally woven in and comes through on its own, as that's the way I think about society.

I paint American people, and I tell American stories through the paintings I create.

I think I approached 'Captain Phillips' as I would any project. I always try to understand the story, characters, and themes as deeply as possible and then work as hard as I can to make those things come to life.

To do a movie about someone who actually lived gives you two responsibilities. You have to try to be accurate to the facts of what he did and what he was like as a character. Then, at the same time, you have a responsibility to make a movie that entertains and can get an audience.

I so love the animation process. Interesting, everything that I do in animation, the kind of crafting and skills of storytelling, totally work within the structure of the Disney nature films. In a weird way, I like to think that animation is like painting, and Disney nature is like sculpting. Animation you start with a blank canvas and you paint. With Disney nature, you start with a big block of imagery and you hone it down into your final story. Somewhere you end up with something kind of pretty to watch.

How do you capture the drama of a Rembrandt painting in a movie? How do you feel that moment that they captured in two hours? I kind of fell into it and at one point, I decided I wanted to live an art life; I wanted to tell stories. I came to New York, and did what most people do - you become a PA and run and get coffee and pay your dues and learn until your opportunity comes.

Directing is all about storytelling. It's not about equipment, or anything else.