Joe Hisaishi Quotes

A film engages you emotionally and intellectually.

Film as a medium, like a novel as a medium, possesses a unique ability to communicate. Film is capable of communicating in a way that no other medium can, and I would say the same for the novel.

I know that I put a lot into 'Hereditary', and I'm proud of what it is. Beyond the fact that the film takes its time and asks for a certain amount of patience from the audience - and I hope it rewards that patience by the end - I know that I'm something of an aesthete. I care about aesthetics, and I love filmmaking.

I like directing. It takes a lot out of you, but I'd like to do it again - I just have to find a story I want to tell.

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

I would say that Pixar is doing for animation what Chaplin did for film, infusing it with heart and characters that you care about and stories that you lose yourself in. They are similar revolutionaries and changing a medium.

Movies are all about plot. Theater, even if it's story heavy, it's about ideas. Theater has to resonate in your heart in a way that movies don't.

The written word can be powerful and beautiful - but films transport us to another place in a way that even the most evocative words never can.

A film is - or should be - more like music than like fiction. It should be a progression of moods and feelings. The theme, what's behind the emotion, the meaning, all that comes later.

What I've realized is that a film operates both on the intellectual and emotional levels, and if you can find a way to tell a riveting story and draw ideas out of that, it's very powerful.

I was very inspired by Les Blank's film 'Burden of Dreams.' I think what's unique about his film and the two I've made is that they're close examinations of filmmakers and how their own emotional experiences reflect in the material they're rendering, and vice versa - how that material sometimes colors their own lives.

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

I wanted to tell a story that interested me as much in the telling as in the watching.

The whole thing with animated movies is that it's very hard to get out of your head because it's very moving through each line systematically.

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.

I don't study films particularly. I plan to direct, but I'm not watching film - I watch the entire film to see how the story goes, but I don't say, 'Oh, so he does a slow pan here, or he pulls here, watch the crane shot, or look at the composition,' because it's got to be my eye.

I think there's a connection with 'Nightcrawler' and 'Blowup' and other films where visual imagery is integral to the story. It allows you to play with images.

Each play I write has its own unique origin story.

Filmmaking is such a collaborative medium.

Going through this musical experience really helped us to understand the core of the film.

I find the constraints of drama actually freeing: It brings everything down to character and action.

I like dramas because there's a big overlap between film and fiction, so I feel relatively qualified to talk about plot and characterisation and that sort of thing.

I leave the story room to grow into what the movie is driving me to do.

I don't really make movies with an intention other than asking myself, 'Do I love the character, and do I love the story?'

I was swept by the narrative structure of film... you can create a world, you can destroy it, you can do what you want with it and serve it to people just the way you like.