Eleanor Catton Quotes

The great directors managed to dissolve and disappear into the work. They make other people look good.

When the director has a vision for a piece that I've never heard before, and they can back that up with visuals, and they talk a good game, I get really interested in the world that they're trying to create.

Everything I've ever written, I had a very distinct vision of what I wanted it to look like. But, other directors never do it that way.

'Frances Ha' is the closest final product to what I had in my head of any movie I've made. I'm not entirely even sure why that is.

I like to come to the set with very strong ideas and strong opinions about how to do things. And I like also dealing with somebody who's like that.

I need a big picture. I can't just do a collection of songs; that doesn't work for me.

I would say that all my films have more content than a 'content-driven film.' It is not easy to make such films.

Art lies in conceiving and designing, not in the actual execution' - this was left for lesser minds.

It sounds kind of flighty, filmmaker-y, but I believe films are a piece of art. They are meant to be what they're meant to be, and sometimes the artist is informed by the film of what it needs to be.

If you have a vision or if you believe the director has a vision, then at least you've got something to talk about, something to try and head to and I think that's mandatory for every director to have to do a good job.

Creators start at the end. First they have an idea of what they want to create. Sometimes this is idea is general, and sometimes it is specific. Before you can create what you want you want to create, you must know what you are after, what you want to bring into being.

In the best of all possible worlds, directors would obsess about the quality of their storytelling, and not the details of their technical methods.

I make movies for my needs. My goal has never, never, never been to make shocking movie.

The pictures I contemplate painting would constitute a halfway state and attempt to point out the direction of the future - without arriving there completely

When you make a movie with Alejandro Amenábar, he very quickly... it was very clear you're kind of operating in his dream universe.

I'm always in awe of directors because they're just holding so much stuff in the air. They've got so many decisions that they need to be making and they have to have the complete overall look of what the piece of artwork is.

There were the usual types of things that happen, in a production, like logistical bullshit, and this and that and the other. That's the sort of stuff that happened. But I never felt, in a creative sense, that we were ever veering into a place that I hadn't signed on for.

To make a face from marble means to remove from the slab everything that is not the face

To make what you have in your head, I think that's what directing is.

I think, you know, for me, whatever I need to slot into to make that music the best it can be or help the artists, or whoever I'm working with, achieve whatever vision they have in their head for a song.

It's great working with directors and with somebody else's vision.

I sort of dreamed about directing before my career as an actor took off. I've directed stage before in so many capacities on tours. I put that together. You have to. Otherwise, it's your statement. It's your voice, and that has to come through.

I begin by imagining an artwork verbally. I try to describe in writing what the project is, what it is trying to do. I need to understand the artwork without giving it a specific materiality or solid form.

Collaboration is necessary for making great art. Everybody has a perspective on what they think or feel the material should ultimately look like when it hits the screen.

In every work of art, the artist himself is present.