Michael Cimino Quotes

There's a difference between 'political films' and 'films about Iraq.'

All films are political, whether they mean to be or not. Star Wars is political. As soon as you have conflict, which is the key to most films, you have politics. It's just that some are more artful with the handling of politics than others.

Any story you write about war, or film you make about war, is bound to be political whether you like it or not.

The war against terrorism is terrorism. The whole thing is just bullshit.

My film is intentionally political. And I think that's really the issue.

I have always had a deep belief that every movie, every artistic expression, is political. Don't be fooled. Even ones that we wouldn't consider overtly political are political. When we spend time doing anything, whether it's distraction or whether it's something that we have to face, it is always political. That's my belief.

War and democracy have never been happy bedfellows…. War has always threatened democracy.

… a visceral fear of appeasement has led to entirely avoidable disasters

Vietnam should have taught us that mindless anti-Communism is not a cause worth killing or dying for in a world in which Communism is hardly a monolithic force.

When I was defense minister, I was very popular, and now that I'm president, I'm unpopular because I'm trying to make peace. It's much easier to make war and get trophies.

Art is inherently political. Even trying to make a film that has nothing to do with politics is, in and of itself, a political act.

Advocating war is easier when you and your family are not endangered by it.

'Misguided Little Unforgivable Hierarchies' is a piece that I did around the time that I was very frustrated and angry with the fact that the U.S., where I live, had decided to pull itself into another war. I was really angry.

The politics of hope is harder to spread than the politics of hate.

I don't look to save the world with any of the movies that I make. I'm not trying to make any political statement with the movies I make. I'm trying to have a good time. I'm trying to entertain people.

What I am going to tell you is this: Although it is commonly believed that the War on Terrorism is a noble effort to defend freedom, in reality, it has little to do with terrorism and even less to do with the defense of freedom.

War is an absolute failure of imagination, scientific and political.

The only real diplomacy ever performed by a diplomat is in deceiving their own people after their dumbness has got them into a war.

When people want to inspire you to turn against some group of people, they'll often use empathy. When Obama wanted to bomb Syria, he drew our attention to the victims of chemical warfare. And in both of the Iraq wars, politicians said, "Look at the horrific things that are happening." I'm not a pacifist. I think the suffering of innocent people can be a catalyst for moral action. But empathy puts too much weight on the scale in favor of war. Empathy can really lead to violence.

I was against the war in Iraq.

By 1973, John Kerry had already accused American soldiers of committing war crimes in Vietnam, thrown someone else's medals to the ground in an anti-war demonstration, and married his first heiress.

If music's a political place, I'm out.

I actually looked up in my journal trying to figure out some dates and, in January 1991, America is about to go back into its first sort of actual war since Vietnam, with the Gulf War. It just seemed unbelievable at the time that this country would do that - which is funny to think about now.

Old men declare war because they have failed to solve complex political and economic problems.

All political movements are basically anti-creative - since a political movement is a form of war.