James Gray Quotes

My heroes are guys like Frank Capra and Elia Kazan and Coen brothers and Terry Gilliam, more so than a lot of bass players at this point in my life. So I've always been an old-film nut and have very much enjoyed doing videos over the years.

I think Woody Allen calls it 'anxiety of influence.' When you're in your formative years and you watch a movie that makes you want to make movies... For Wes Anderson, it's Truffaut. I'm sure for P.T. Anderson it was Scorsese and Jonathan Demme.

In terms of directing, there's a number of directors who definitely had a great impact on me, Woody Allen certainly being one of them.

I like how you can go back and watch David Lean and John Ford and see the influence that had on Steven Spielberg, especially David Lean, in the camerawork, and yet, you don't watch any Spielberg movie and think of David Lean. Once you're looking for it, you see it all, but it's not in your face.

I hadn't watched any Hitchcock movies when I made 'Tom at the Farm,' except for 'Vertigo' when I was 8 years old. I don't have a sophisticated film knowledge, but I have seen the legacy of classic movies in broader entertainment.

Redford always has been a cool presence both before and behind the camera. His best movie as a filmmaker, 1994's 'Quiz Show,' exhibits a classicism verging on self-repression, and the social indignation in many of his films engages more than moves you.

I am definitely writing letters to lots of directors in my mind when I'm making a film. I'm chasing Woody Allen and Godard and Milos Forman and all these people.

If I've seen the movie, it means it's an influence on my own filmmaking. Every movie has a reflection in 'Night Watch.'

I was in college in the sixties when movies really got good. I'm a fan of Bergman and Hitchcock and Polanski and Antonioni. Those are my gods.

I really love Hitchcock; I think he was a complete genius, to me one of the best directors. Such a sense of how to put things together.

Friends who are directors like Jim Mangold or the Wachowskis or Zack Snyder - who, whether they know or not - have really left a mark on who I am as a director.

If you're a director and you pay homage to Japan, you're definitely going to remember what you've learned from watching the Japanese masters' films.

Akira Kurosawa, David Lean and Alfred Hitchcock were the main inspirations for 'Samurai Jack,' along with a lot of '70s cinema.

Steven's Spielberg is one of the most visually talented and character-oriented directors I've ever worked with. And I learn from him every time I watch one of his movies. Good or bad - and he has made some awful movies - they're never uninteresting. He's made four or five of the greatest movies of all time. Perfect movies, like E.T. or Schindler's List or Saving Private Ryan.

I will watch everything that Cary Grant did, or Kubrick made or Bergman.

The guy that made me wanna make movies... and this is off the wall-is a guy named Michael Pal, the British director.

How would you compare Polanski or Kubrick? I try not to do any comparisons.

I really wanted to write the way Kubrick makes films - 'Strangelove,' '2001', 'Clockwork Orange', 'Barry Lyndon' - they're all so different.

I thought 'The Artist' was a perfect way to find a good balance. The artistic challenge is obvious because the film is black-and-white and its silent, but I did my best to make the movie accessible and easy to watch. I really don't want to make elitist movies. I really try hard to work for the audience. Audiences are smart. They get everything.

I really appreciate anyone trying to inject art into mainstream film.

My work is better, maybe all filmmakers are better, for Polanski's imprint on cinema. He created language for all of us to use, there is no question about that.

I worked for John Ford, Howard Hawks, Henry Hathaway, Raoul Walsh - I worked for some real good directors.

I've always felt that, although Truffaut was greatly revered and admired, at the same time, in terms of film and how much he loved film, he was underestimated.

I think Ingmar Bergman, Francoise Truffaut - all these people created images in my mind, beautiful pictures, I loved what was known at that time as the foreign film.

I love so many directors. I love David O. Russell. I love David Fincher, I love Alexander Payne and Jane Campion and my aunt. Spike Jonze. There are just so many amazing directors.