Joshua Oppenheimer Quotes

I'll definitely say that, before film school, I didn't have much of a film-history background. I didn't know much about classic cinema.

I'm not educated about cinema or genres.

I was never interested in film. Never. I never even thought of it. I wasn't even a film buff, I didn't see many films ever.

I grew up with Forrest J. Ackerman's 'Famous Monsters of Filmland' along with a plethora of movie tomes and wanted to write about film with a sense of personality, passion, and humor.

I went to the University of Toronto to study the history and theory of film, in the back of my mind thinking I'd go to NYU film school and see if I could make a career of it.

I went to college thinking of maybe pursuing a career in film criticism.

My film knowledge is pretty shocking. I'm trying to correct that.

I realized what interested me as a student of film was one thing and the movies that I liked were another.

I was not raised with films. And when Alain Resnais did the editing on my first film, he said, 'You should go to the Cinematheque.' I didn't even know we had one in Paris.

I went from silent films to watching French new wave cinema. I became entrapped by it all. That's when I knew I wanted to do film. The moment you start looking at film from a critique point of view - there's a difference between watching a film as an audience and with a critical point of view.

Basically, I am a huge film buff and love watching all kinds of films.

I wasn't a film buff.

I do think there's not enough film history being taught and appreciated. Maybe it's being taught, but I've heard from professors that young kids don't want to look at black-and-white movies. And that's 85 years of film history, with masterpiece after masterpiece.

Films are my first love.

I think each film should be regarded as its own specific text.

I discovered Orson Welles in college; my freshman English professor screened 'Citizen Kane' for us, and I wound up writing a 20-page term paper on it.

Let's face it: professing a deep interest in movies, the absolutely dominant global art form of the last century, is at this point like professing an interest in air. Passion is nice. Erudition is admirable. But it's like that moment when good manners cross over into meaningless etiquette.

I loved American filmmakers when I was growing up. I didn't get to film school or anything. I was a very bad student. I just devoured film, but there was a point in my teens when I started to run a little film society.

How would you compare Polanski or Kubrick? I try not to do any comparisons.

There's a difference between watching a film and watching a bit of cinema and enjoying a film as a piece of cinema.

We didn't really have television when I was a kid. Around 30, I discovered films and started systematically catching up. I collect interesting documentaries and films, and watch a few nights a week.

I grew up watching films. Film has been part of my life since I was a child.

My roommate at Yale University introduced me to the auteur theory of filmmaking. I soon became a big fan of the works of John Ford, Kenji Mizoguchi, Ernst Lubitsch, and Stan Brakhage. I then decided to make my own films!

I used to hold Stanley Kubrick film festivals at my house in high school. These are not cool things.

I grew up with a deep regard for cinema.