Louis Leterrier Quotes

I was a young film student around the time of the new wave in film in the 1970s; old Hollywood was naff and over. For me, as a film student, I was going to see French and Italian cinema; American cinema was 'Easy Rider' and 'Taxi Driver.' Everything was gritty.

After 'The Gamekeeper' I made one other film called 'Looks and Smiles,' but making British films was very difficult. There wasn't a tradition of British cinema.

When Americans shoot movies they aim at the entire planet. When the French make movies, they aim at Paris.

I don't want all of American cinema to be big cartoons that are just made to be digested by the entire world.

I was making a lot of independent movies before the independent movement.

Jacques Audiard has always been an outlier in a French film industry that is starkly bifurcated between high and low.

I think cinema is taken a bit more seriously in France.

Movies will end up being this esoteric art form, where only singular people will put films out in a small group of theaters.

I gladly, I voluntarily gave up the kind of commercial film career I had going as soon as I had enough money to finance my own films.

I love shooting French films because I don't have to stick with being sophisticated or stuck-up.

In the early '90s when the American independent movie started, it held personal vision as a premium. That was brilliant timing.

Usually in France we prefer to say bad things about the Nouvelle Vague, but I'm always impressed with its freedom and the fact of not making a film to give your opinion but just as a piece of art, which to me means the Nouvelle Vague.

Ultimately, making movies, if you don't have a big star, it's hard to do. Or if it's not a star director.

I think I'm a very American director, but I probably should have been making movies somewhere around 1976. I never left the mainstream of American movies; the American mainstream left me.

However, that old mode of Polish filmmaking virtually disappeared.

More personal films, you could make them, but your budgets would be cut down.

Independent film is not only an oxymoron; it doesn't exist anymore.

I grew up thinking there was something called 'independent film,' which I wouldn't necessarily have had access to if there wasn't Sundance.

I love to watch low-budget indie artsy films, but I do also love the big blockbuster things. I would love to do that one day, do a Marvel film. That would be really great.

I don't need to prove that I'm some great international filmmaker. It's not really on my list of goals.

All of a sudden, there are great Japanese films, or great Italian films, or great Australian films. It's usually because there are a number of people that cross-pollinated each other.

I believe that independent film making is the last frontier of creative expression available. So I'm always willing to lend a helping hand to a young film maker who's just getting into the business.

I think as long as there are folks on the fringe who want to make movies, the indie scene will still be around. I do think it's getting harder to get them seen though.

People know that I have a great love for cinema. Not just for commercial cinema, but for the 'cinema d'auteur.' But to me, two of the great 'auteurs' are actually actors and they both happen to be French. One is Alain Delon and the other is Jean-Paul Belmondo.

I grew up watching a lot of French cinema.