Christopher Nolan Quotes

I think Van Sant is the most important American director we have. He takes the most risks. He's just pure to me.

In America, I don't think you have the creative freedom that I'm used to. Traditionally, it's a producer's cinema here.

I can't say that I wouldn't prefer to make small films, basically because I think they are probably more interesting in terms of the material. But every now and again, it's quite good to do a big one.

Independent film is film that has thought in it. There's no independent thought in studio films. It's collective thought.

I mean, there'll always be room for big productions and everything but it's good to see the other side.

Show me a Scorsese film, and I'll show you a movie where he's taken risks. It's just his nature. He's an artist, and artists take risks. He always does what he believes in.

When we do a movie with the studios, they wouldn't be asking us to do it, I don't think, if it was a movie they wanted to get into themselves. What you see is what you get with us, so they let us do what we want to do.

Going forward, I would love to work with directors like Rian Johnson and Joss Whedon; people like that who are doing big films but do have really independent voices. That's kind of what I want to focus on, is always working with people with at least an independent point of view, even if it's not an independent film.

I think you do independent movies because you're looking to cut away from commercial movies.

When I did 'Memento,' independent film was where all the really good stuff was.

I definitely think independent film is very exciting, and you get to sometimes take bigger risks. So that's always a challenge and something that I look forward to.

I love indie movies - I feel they can really allow you to develop a character.

I don't want to pigeonhole myself in one character or genre. I want to challenge myself as much as I can.

It's a harder time to make original, less conventional movies. But God, we need them!

I don't make films to reproduce reality.

Almost anything can be justified as a style of filmmaking if it works.

The cool thing about those small-budget movies is that there's a tremendous amount of freedom the filmmakers have since there's less money at stake.

Independent filmmaking burns off a lot of storytelling fat.

I don't want to only make the movies that studios will greenlight.

'Birdman' is a very risky movie. I knew I wanted to do it just from watching Alejandro's other work. I told a friend, 'I would have done it based on 'Amores Perros' alone.'

I've been sort of spoiled on the TV end because HBO feels like a small institution making independent movies. There's respect for the director's contribution in a way that mainstream television doesn't really reflect, I don't think.

I just want to go on making movies, and some of them will be completely meaningless, except, of course, to me.

Soderbergh is a very respectable director that manages to have an incredible amount of freedom in a system that doesn't allow anybody to be free as he is on a set. And he will jump from 'Solaris' to 'Ocean's Twelve' and 'Thirteen.'

I sort of straddle the line... between personal movies and mainstream Hollywood.

If you want to be in Hollywood, and if you want to make big international movies, you have to be able to make movies that don't have anything to do with social status or politics. To limit yourself to just do these little small movies and call it black cinema itself is a mistake to me.