Sydney Pollack Quotes

Most people don't really understand what it takes to get a film made, and the struggles .I think anyone who makes a film goes through their own set of struggles.

It's so funny when people who are not used to making movies get into it. You just can't believe how insufferably boring it is. Waiting around and doing these lines over and over and finally having to go in and loop the lines and dub them.

I honesty feel that each film has its own particular challenges.

I love directing because you get to see your film come to life. You get to work with the actors. There's something magical about each piece of it.

One of the great advantages of my time spent in movies and in basically every role possible, both in front of the camera and behind the camera, that I've gotten to see all these different ways that people work and the way movies are constructed from the inside out, from beginning to end.

In chatting to directors over the years, including James Wan, they always tell you the war stories. No one ever says, 'Oh, I had a great time on that film.' It's always this went wrong, that went wrong.

The key relationship for writers in film is producers, because those are the first two people involved and the ones who work on it intensely in a private way without the big machinery of film.

No film ever ends up exactly as you would like it to, but with minor exceptions, THX came out pretty much as I had visualized it, thanks to some excellent assistance -- and a whole lot of luck.

Making a film is like learning the ropes all over again.

Actors become actors because they loved entertaining their family by putting on the lampshade and dancing around as a kid, ... That's not my personality. For me, the fun part of making movies is seeing it as a director sees it. I like the architecture of movies. I like knowing what's coming and working to set that up.

Even when a film is finished, when I direct a film, sometimes it's a dark profession, but it requires a peculiar form of courage that I admire.

[Martin] Scorsese says one of the great things he loves about it is how Mark can't get the right shot and he's killing people because he can't get the right shot. It's an example of what film-makers are like.

When you start on a new film, no matter how many you've done before that, I think I've done close to 80 films, but it's always kind of a fun adventure.

There's so much work in making movies, it's so easy to tear one down. When I watch a movie, even one that I don't particularly enjoy, I'm constantly impressed at the work that's in it. I respect the craftsmen and women. I tolerate a lot of movies that maybe other people don't, just because I know what goes into them.

When I was on set I tried not to bug Steven Soderbergh too much. "Why did you put the camera there?" But he was very open to my questions and definitely being on his set was really thrilling because he's such a master.

A film just doesn't involve actors, a director and a producer, there is also the cameraman, the sound engineer, the music composer, the lyric writer. So many people come together to make a film. When we all feel satisfied with the film that we have created it's a win for all of us.

We use all the takes that no one would ever use and often the moments before we say action, or before we say cut. No one's ever called and complained or anything like that. Everyone's just so grateful to get the work and to be on TV and all that.

No film is made without the people behind the lens. Of course, most people, even I, tend to look at films in the most simplistic way, and say, "Wow, so-and-so is in this film." We talk about who's in it, as opposed to who got it made. But there are financial and technical aspects which go along with it, that should be addressed and acknowledged, including those minorities who are doing excellent work as well.

The good thing about a film, or at least the films I've been a part of, is, no matter what happens in the end, you do the premiere and everyone's excited. You don't remember the rough times.

I'd be fine if there weren't film festivals, and you just made your films and didn't have to do anything from that point on. That would be really great, wouldn't it? I don't know. I'm in kind of an aloof time, where I'm not taking anything too seriously.

People may be surprised at how hard and difficult filmmaking can be, having the creativity and the technical aspects together is very hard to do.

Trying to film a movie on a diet is hard enough, I can't imagine how it would be on drugs.

When you make a movie it's always interesting, because you end up in places you never would as a normal visitor or tourist.

You never know as a director what other directors do. Because you don't get to see what they do.

Not write, maybe develop. Direct, sure. As an actor, you work on so many films, you sort of start to see who directs well and who doesn't.