Yorgos Lanthimos Quotes

Filmmaking, like any other art, is a very profound means of human communication; beyond the professional pleasure of succeeding or the pain of failing, you do want your film to be seen, to communicate itself to other people.

I don't think it's the job of filmmakers to give anybody answers. I do think, though, that a good film makes you ask questions of yourself as you leave the theatre.

Although for some people cinema means something superficial and glamorous, it is something else. I think it is the mirror of the world.

I think that's always the goal of art, is to make people ask themselves questions.

For me, film is an extremely powerful way of conveying a message to a mainstream audience.

Like all art, nonfiction film should invite, seduce, or force us to confront the most difficult, frightening or mysterious aspects of what it means to be human.

In a strange way, we go to a play to be entertained, but if there is any kind of identification, we either reaffirm our beliefs, or we change.

I think my films are always quite self-reflexive and always question 'why am I doing this, is this the right way to do it, what is cinema for, does it have a purpose?'

I was very inspired by Les Blank's film 'Burden of Dreams.' I think what's unique about his film and the two I've made is that they're close examinations of filmmakers and how their own emotional experiences reflect in the material they're rendering, and vice versa - how that material sometimes colors their own lives.

For so many filmmakers, cinema is a means to an end.

Cinema will always have an important role to play in society.

You can be a smarty-pants director, but that won't matter if the movie doesn't work emotionally as well as intellectually.

I think film is a very powerful advocate and message carrier.

Art brings a message into a room. It should make us perceive in a new way - either through color, form or narrative content - something we had not perceived before... and perhaps reveal something to you about yourself.

I have some pretty forceful ideas about the world - obviously I do. But I suppose I can only really speak about them from within the protection of a literary form.

My duty is to try to reach beauty. Cinema is emotion. When you laugh you cry.

Motion pictures are the art form of the 20th century, and one of the reasons is the fact that films are a slightly corrupted artform. They fit this century - they combine Art and business!

The best cinema is about ethics.

As a media artist and filmmaker, I'm constantly considering the role of situational context when creating my work.

I think cinema has this beautiful component. It's a universal language.

The fact is that Hollywood, from as early as the sixties to the present time, has ghettoized cinema into the big industry, a marketing industry. In doing this, the audiences have lost touch with the aspects of film which were to be informative and educational and even spiritual.

I want art to make me think. In order to do that, it may piss me off, or make me uncomfortable. That promotes awareness and change, or at least some discussion.

A movie is really provocation. It's not a message, it's not a statement.

I'm interested in making films that make people think.

It's one of the functions of the theater to shock and titillate and appall, apart from entertain and delight.