Barry Levinson Quotes

I don't think film is the writer's medium, and so I was interested to see what a director would do with it.

I am relatively familiar with getting a good old rumping from the critics. In some cases, the critics just didn't like the film - fair cop. Others, I think, didn't understand it.

I think people have come to expect that in artistic representation; that every work of art should be a work of extravagant hope.

People gravitate occasionally to the brilliantly made art low budget films, which is maybe one out of every five hundred low budget films made.

When you're on a film and you're doubting something, it's usually because you don't think the audience is going to like it.

I think if the extremists were happy with my films, I'd start to worry.

The fact that audiences have come away moved, excited, entertained and stimulated by the film is extraordinarily flattering.

I can't think of any one film that improved on a good novel, but I can think of many good films that came from very bad novels.

Every artist wants some sort of feedback, because you make this music and you hope people love it and you want to hear if they love it and what they love about it, what their favorite song is, what they think the next single should be. I like to hear those things.

The only problem was I needed to use my own group, and things didn't happen until I did. It wasn't a real country sound, what I did. I've listened to it, and I think it was more a west coast rock thing, you know? But it fit. It was country, but it was my own interpretation of country.

The difference between a good picture and a mediocre picture is a question of millimeters - small, small differences - but it’s essential. I didn’t think there is such a big difference between photographers. Very little difference. But it is that little difference that counts, maybe

I wanted to make abstract films that are emotional, and I still do.

Find the most puzzling kind of art you can think of, and then go out and try to approximate it with your camera. Take a photograph that corresponds to it. (Assignment to students.)

If you don't think a film looks good then that is just a reflection of how bad the artist was that was using the paint that is really good.

You watch him playing Jack Sparrow, and he's loving it, and he's loving being in that world. He's still excited by it. Sometimes, he'll even say, 'Was that OK?' And I'm thinking, 'You're Johnny Depp man, you know that's OK!' But he doesn't. He's still going to [director] Gore [Verbinski] and asking for help. It's a privilege to see the human side of Johnny. It's really exciting.

I think with romantic comedies it's a lot about tone, because different romantic comedies have different tones.

I've never been one that thinks that the function of an instrument is to approach the purity of voice or the structure of a beautifully sung line.

As much as the needs of fact, the needs of the spirit and the senses, must be satisfied. Architecture is as much a part of the realm of art as it is of technology; the fusion of thinking and feeling.

The filmmaker Amos Poe was a huge inspiration for me by making guerrilla-style punk films on the streets of New York and - well, it's just a lot of painters and artists and filmmakers all within that scene, and it's very, very important to me.

My teaching forces me to articulate what I think works in a piece of fiction and how I think it works. All of that gives me energy as a writer.

When you finish a film, before the first paying audience sees it, you don't have any idea. You don't know if you made a success or a flop, when it comes to the box office.

I think [parents] became very proud, even though they were mortified by the early films because no one liked them.

I think there's a curiosity that can make you feel anxious as to what the world's going to make of what you're doing. It's not necessarily what you're going to get back in terms of record reviews or how people talk about your record, it's getting on the road and playing the new songs live.

It was like in the film, when I was actually doing a take and wasn't quite sure of the context, and then in the completed film it works beautifully.In the end I didn't know why I felt so shitty doing it, and why it turns out great in the final product. I guess you have to live in that unknown.

As an actor, I think sort of relish the chance to take a leap and sort of put yourself out there. You know, it's, like on any film, you just have to be willing to embarrass yourself, because otherwise you are not going to really reveal anything that you have. So I think it's exciting.