Sam Peckinpah Quotes

Well, I'm really interested in the idea of making genre films, but movies have a much more personal undercurrent to them and that look beautiful, and that's sort of the films I'm kind of interested in making.

Steven Spielberg had a tremendous influence on me through his early stuff. 'E.T.', 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' - 'Jaws,' I think, is one of the most beautifully directed films ever.

I have only recently got interested in film, and it is a strange way of working in many ways. But actually, when it is at its best, it's quite an extraordinary way of working between a director and an actor, to really explore an inner life.

A lot of movies are about life, mine are like a slice of cake.

Yes, actually ever since I saw his films and tried to write about them, Sirk's been in everything I've done. Not Sirk himself, but what I've learned from his work.

You do a film and you know where you're going, you have this material to stretch and play with as much as possible because you know how it ends.

I look at American movies, the big muscles, and try to apply that to Chinese film-making.

I feel for Veronica Mars so much when I'm watching at home. It is a wonderful story. The writing is consistently funny, biting, charming, heart-wrenching, etc. I also like the look of it. The cinematography - different from any other show.

I don't approach films purely in context of genre.

The problem with trying to make a film good and have it work for an audience is the problem of trying to tell a story well. The shape or the color of it doesn't matter.

A lot of the films now are more focused on the visuals than on the actors. I think all directors should go to drama school.

All my movies, as I get the ability to do it, they tend to go a little darker, a little darker.

I guess why the Ocean's films are hard for me is because on the one hand you have to make sure the performances are there, but on the other hand it's a film that demands, to my mind, a very layered and complex visual scheme. That takes a lot of time to figure out.

I approach 'Fast & Furious 6' the same way I would approach a Sidney Lumet film. Getting into character's getting into character.

Billy Wilder is really is a heavy influence on Bound. We felt that film noir was a genre where you could create a really contained story. We wanted to be on a set as much as we could to get the kind of style level we were looking for.

As far as writing and directing, I'm very focused on the thriller genre.

Scorsese would talk to me about this movie 'The Heiress' with Olivia de Havilland. We were talking about this scene in it, and suddenly we were rolling. It was very intentional, and I didn't realize - because we talk old movies all the time.

I like movies where you feel like it was actually thought through.

You just find the best actors that you can. There's an inherent drama within the framework of scares and killings and all that. In 'Scream,' there is very real drama that would be in almost any drama.

Filmmaking, whatever the window dressing or the scale of a film may be, is eventually about telling a story.

I'm inspired by film-makers such as Ridley Scott, David Fincher, Orson Welles.

When I have been told that my films remind people of Ozu, I have never been too convinced.

I want to do films that are genre-based and character-based.

I found in making and directing films that the less you have voiceover, the better it is.

I am not interested in doing a film on the basis of a good story. I want a proper screenplay.