James Cameron Quotes

There's got to be something you want to tell and that's the engine which spurs all of the work you have to do in order to create the story, but you have to love some sort of nugget of what you're telling to be a filmmaker.

I always try to make films in such a way that it's hard to imagine how they came to be, or where they came from.

I've learned one general thing in filmmaking: to work with one strong idea. One strong concept that pushes you to work in a certain way artistically.

I just make films that attract me.

You're always just trying to make your film, tell the story you're trying to tell - best you can, you know.

Every film is a human encounter. It's people trying to collaborate and create something together.

Mohan Raja is an interesting filmmaker. He is constantly, if I may use the word, contradicting himself. He explains a scene, and then he will try to break that and rebuild it. That, to me, is filmmaking. Every scene is constructed after a lot of discussions.

With 'The Missing Picture,' we'd shot for a year and a half already when this idea of the clay figurine, the life that comes from the earth, came to me, and I changed everything.

I really enjoy talking to actors or filmmakers that enjoy that process of creating and how they go about doing it.

With my two brothers, Jean-Marie and Joel, I wrote a two-page story and wanted to make some kind of movie. We met a French production company, called Why Not?, and the first name we put on the list was Ken Loach. It was a dream for all of us. So, we tried and we met Ken and Paul Laverty, his writer, and they read the two pages and were inspired by that to do something. Paul had the freedom to do his own story - and he wrote his own story, which is better than the one we'd written.

When I went to Sundance for 'Afternoon Delight,' I came back feeling like I wanted to take my experience that I learned from directing and bring that into a series.

I don't intentionally make my films with the express goal of surprising the viewer.

The director is the only person who knows what the film is about.

The way I work with my cinematographer is not based on general principles, but the ideas are triggered by the locations where we shoot.

I think I'm drawn to films more as a director with a directorial mind even as an actor. I make movies to make the films, not to act.

When I sign on for a project, I'm there to give the director all the material he or she might need to tell their story, and that's the number one priority.

Film is the only language I speak, and I have been lucky to be involved in some great stories. You don't want to preach to people, but you want them to think about why things are the way they are, the history that is there as well as the possibilities.

When you look at a movie, you look at a director's thought process.

It slightly depends on your perspective, sort of how you look at these things, but when I sit down to write a script, I'm not planning to write a script; I'm planning to make a film, and so I only see the script as being just a step there.

I'm a filmmaker. I'm always searching for the truth in everything I do. I demand it from my writing partner and my crew, actors, and so hopefully, we're making people think.

Stories come to me in mysterious ways, more like dreams than reasoned creations.

I think journalists and filmmakers are keen observers. And actors must also be sharp observers as they draw their characters and their stories from what they experience around them. After all, that is what actors, filmmakers, journalists are trained to be: observers. And then they do something with their observations.

I love directing. It's where my heart is, and it's the way my mind works.

When I make a movie, I have both a specific and vague, amorphous dream idea of what the movie is going to be. Of course, I don't actually know what it's going to be, but I'm still striving to get to some place with it.

I mean, '8½' to me is such a great dissertation on the whole, you know, act of filmmaking and creativity.