Orson Welles Quotes

The director is simply the audience. His job is to preside over accidents.

When I'm making a film, I'm the audience.

Acting is one element in a film. Directing is sort of the painter using all of those elements - sound and music and camera and putting it all together. And that can be fun and exciting. If you fail, it's incredibly upsetting - much more upsetting than when you're an actor. But when you succeed it's incredibly, incredibly exciting, so I like the risk of it all.

I don't think I'd ever want to direct. I don't think I have as much discipline to direct as I would like to have, and I don't want my hair color to not go grey during that process.

I guess, as a director, you sort of take the script, and you find ways to interpret it.

A director should be in a position where he is only directing. On the sets, he is only looking at the performances, thinking 'How I am going to shoot this?'

I never control a film. The film controls me.

I think the success of any movie is dependent upon it being a singular vision.

I have my own ideas when it comes to making cinema. My films should be of my liking and suit my convictions.

The concept of making a movie in which the director dictates is kind of exotic - and absolutely not truthful. Directing means allowing a great deal of collaboration and listening and having the ability to change your mind.

The nature of filmmaking is that there are so many people involved in it, so many fingers in the pie, that part of the talent of a director is to try and get your personality through in the movie.

I want to make my kind of films but make them work commercially, too. When my presentation meets the director's imagination, the result will be great.

The truth is, writing and directing are two very different jobs. They're not even remotely the same job. It took me a while, as a director, to understand that.

I think that I'm a pretty great producer, but the vision behind Batman is Chris Nolan. I'm there to do my best to help execute that vision, and I think I do a really good job, but the vision is Chris Nolan.

The directing of a picture involves coming out of your individual loneliness and taking a controlling part in putting together a small world.

Anybody that makes films knows the film is never finished. It's abandoned or it's ripped out of your hands, and it's thrown into the marketplace, never finished. It's a very rare experience where you find a filmmaker who says, "That's exactly what I wanted. I got everything I needed. I made it just perfect. I'm going to put it out there."

When you do a movie, it's like going on a journey. It's really like the director is the captain of the ship, and that energy, everybody feels.

As an artist, you have the job of working out whatever is given you to work out.

Directing is monumentally complicated and it's a function of all the time you pay to it. I think it would be great to do a movie I'm not in, I could just eat Fritos and just say, 'yeah, it's good!' Some day.

I think when you pay attention to the shots, you're aware of the fact that there's a director. Really, it's the director's job to disappear and allow the movie to just feel.

Sharing the same vision for what's on the page is always a good idea. The director's job is to establish what that is and make sure that everyone sticks to it when it comes down to actually executing it.

If you didn't get it right and then you have to release a director's cut to undo what the studio made you release, I don't know, either it's some marketing thing for them to get more money or the director didn't do his job.

There's no point in it unless it's a story that you really want to tell. It's a nebulous job. Unless you're doing it well, you're not doing anything. And there are a few of those. It's perfectly possible to be a passenger on a film set because if somebody else has written it, you can make nothing of that role and that's exactly what bad directors do.

It's not that much of a difference. Basically, your job is the same as a film director. It's a triangle between creativity, money, and time. But they don't really change. You're ultimately trying to get the most creativity and time with the money that you have.

My goal has been to learn how to get movies made without losing sight of the reasons I began. I have had to learn to recognize the insidious nature of the beast without becoming one.