Nicholas Ray Quotes

The directing of a picture involves coming out of your individual loneliness and taking a controlling part in putting together a small world. A picture is made. You put a frame around it and move on. And one day you die. That is all there is to it.

In my first film, we always tried to have a script and work in a normal way, but I was constantly changing things during shooting. Because I worked as a scriptwriter for 10 years, I understood that directors always wanted to change what was originally written, to improve on it.

A film has its own life and takes its own time.

I don't make films to reproduce reality.

I make films about stories that I get interested in.

I learned that the best way to work is to allow the scene to live on its own before making major adjustments, whether in rehearsal or on film.

When you make a movie, you can only make the movie that you would want to see.

I know the movies that I've liked, and I know the experience that they've given me, so the goal is always to try to create a movie that I would like myself and that would knock me out, challenge me or intrigue me in some way. That's been my criteria for figuring out what I want to do, or also when I'm writing something or creating a scene.

All these directors, and I would include the Coen brothers and Quentin, have a very unique vision of what they want. They listen to ideas and make people feel like everyone is making the film.

As a filmmaker, you have to understand the essence of the book and tell the story you want to see on the screen, and hopefully please yourself - because you can't possibly please everyone.

I feel like I'm a filmmaker; I don't feel I need to yell action and cut.

I have always believed that when a film is being made, it has to be the director's vision.

I started making films purely based on what I would like to see.

I've worked with Terrence Malick, Werner Herzog, Olive Stone and David Gordon Green, and Damien Chazelle on 'First Man.' When you have someone at the helm like that, they're gonna make something great.

I've always tried to create music the way Kubrick makes film, just kind of mimicking consciousness. He has a way of mimicking this greater power.

You can't make a film for your personal satisfaction. That is why I detest the cinema of people like Mani Kaul.

Every movie I've ever made has just kind of come together.

There is no such thing as a good script, onlya good film, and I'm conscious that my scripts often read better than they play.

The thing is, as a film director, you're essentially alone: You have to tell a story primarily through pictures, and only you know the film you see in your head.

Many people who have watched 'Pieta' have said my filmmaking has become more objective.

Making a film that's supposed to be fun to watch is really hard - that's the weird irony of it.

You become the movie you are making.

I just see myself as a guy who's trying to make a film or, make art.

The whole process of making movies and writing screenplays is visceral and intuitive.

It's funny, I'm very analytical in my real life, but in terms of my films, I try to not analyze them at all and let things just go into them and let them be what they are. I mean, people ask me to this day what 'The Squid and the Whale' stood for, and I have no idea except that it's an exhibit in the Natural History Museum.