Alain Resnais Quotes

I haven't read a review of one of my films for the best part of 10 years.

Sometimes the critics will like a film, and the public doesn't come. Sometimes the critics won't like the film, and the public will come. It's completely spontaneous. It's a hazard.

When a film is reviled, you open a film and people say "Oh, it's the stupidest thing, it's the worst movie." You think: oh, nobody's going to ever speak to you again. But, it doesn't happen. Nobody cares. You know, they read it and they say "Oh, they hated your film." You care, at the time. But they don't. Nobody else cares.

I am relatively familiar with getting a good old rumping from the critics. In some cases, the critics just didn't like the film - fair cop. Others, I think, didn't understand it.

For me an unfavorable initial reaction happens fairly often. For some reason the more time that elapses after the film opens, the more favorable the reviews become.

If a film doesn't play, people aren't going to be that nice.

One can never anticipate how audiences will respond. One of the lessons that I've learned over the years is to that no matter what my feeling or opinion might be about a given film, once you give it to the audience, they own it.

I used to obsess on critical reactions to my films, and it's really not a healthy way to live your life, so my new take on it is simply, 'I hope people like it!' I'm not going to be looking at the tomato meter for at least a year! I was very lucky on '50/50' that most critics really liked it.

I like test screenings. I like to see a movie with an audience of strangers. I think it tells you a lot.

There's two kinds of press that you get when you put out a TV show: The reviews, and the people that just decide what the reviews say.

When you're acting in a movie, you never consider the reception of it. It's impossible to predict how something will be received. Even if you think it's the greatest thing in the world, other people might not like it. Or agree with it.

Television enjoys a de facto monopoly on what goes into the heads of a significant part of the population and what they think.

Still, as much as I wish Ballistic Kiss could be a better film, the recognition it gained from critics and at festivals speaks for itself.

Anytime you put a movie out it's subject to such scrutiny and such criticism.

One thing I don't do anymore is read or pay attention to the critical response, which is a bummer because when I started, and when I was in school, I loved to read old film criticism.

Now a lot of people tell me that 'Daud' was ahead of its times. But when it came out, it was panned more than any of my films.

My films always play better outside of New York, especially to critics.

I think 'Befikre' has got a polarised response. Some people absolutely loved it and some didn't feel connected with the film. I feel the film is a little bit ahead of its time.

Lola Montes is, in my unhumble opinion, the greatest film of all time, and I am willing to stake my critical reputation, such as it is, on this one proposition above all others.

If my films do well or not, I am glad that the audiences appreciate my performance.

I mean, the old film critics just excoriated me.

Roger Ebert was a very valiant soldier of cinema who passed away, and we miss him. It's over with serious discourse about cinema in the print media and on television. It has been replaced by celebrity news. So we are speaking in his spirit always.

It's nice to be in a movie that hasn't been absolutely slaughtered by the press.

It's hard to see a film one time and really "get it," and write fully and intelligently about it. That's a review. That's not film criticism.

When you're on a film and you're doubting something, it's usually because you don't think the audience is going to like it.