Lenny Abrahamson Quotes

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

I don't want to do a history lesson. I don't think cinema should be about that. Cinema should be about emotions.

I found it very difficult to explain to someone why you did a film. It's not like having a conversation.

In film, you can't go into analytical explorations because the audience will reject that.

I tend not to be so attracted to films that force me into an intellectual place over an emotional one.

We all do that thing which is the best in movies - we relate.

I like movies that are specific. Movies that home in on a very specific subculture, a specific discipline, a specific world.

For me, with me, making a film is always about humanity.

'Rocket Science' is really where I fell in love with filmmaking, I think 'Camp' was incredible, but it was so bizarre, and I was trying to find my footing in this world where you don't have an audience for immediate validation.

I wanted to make a film that was sophisticated and emotional, but for a wider audience.

The interesting thing about movies, it's not always - y'know, you have to have structure etc and all those things, but an audience responds, in many ways, we walk away and certain things stay in our heads that are memorable.

What I like about film is it explores imperfections.

There's something special about 'Looking.'

My films express me, my sense of rhythm, my sense of impact, my sense of kinetic energy. I like films to move, but I like also clear storytelling and characters, and most of all, I like authentic emotion.

We're used to a story in modern terms as an information delivery device. Certainly on television and even with the studio films, there's really only one note that you get, and that's clarity. And people will sacrifice everything for clarity. They'll sacrifice the joke. They'll sacrifice the moment, or the romance.

Film as a medium, like a novel as a medium, possesses a unique ability to communicate. Film is capable of communicating in a way that no other medium can, and I would say the same for the novel.

'Piku' was driven by subtleties. Most films come with the padding of the sound, the visual, the drama.

I get people saying, 'Opera is too large a canvas for me. I don't love it. I love movies that feel almost like documentaries,' in terms of artistic vocabularies of storytelling. I totally get that discussion; that makes sense to me.

Filmmaking is a language where you empathise with human situations. Unless you have empathy for characters, you shouldn't be a filmmaker.

I am trying to do films that stay with me for some time. 'Banaras' stays with me.

I don't think 'Lootera' is slow paced; it's finely paced for its setting and story.

Sometimes it feels as if the artist hasn't done the real work of engaging with the material. Film noir can't just play off looks and attitudes. A thriller needs a dose of genuine suspense. It does not have to be literal, but it does have to feel genuine. Otherwise the artist is just leeching off the form.

A film should always at least be about something.

Film as a medium has a power that sports like wrestling lack.

When I make a film, the yardstick is my mind. If I laugh at the jokes and feel sad at the serious undersides, then the subject works.