Terry Teachout Quotes

'Lincoln' is impressive enough to almost make you forget how much Daniel Day-Lewis dominates the endeavor.

If you make a movie about Elizabeth I, how much of the dialogue is her real words? Audiences know when they go see a movie that it is fiction.

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

And I took a long time to appreciate Lynch.

'Lincoln' is a powerful film. It's one of those epic films that talk about this very specific issue in history of the United States.

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.

Critics can say what they like about the films, but very often, there's a certain expectation of documentaries that they're supposed to be like PowerPoint presentations. I see documentaries as movies. So when I see some critics writing that we could have done without the recreations altogether - well, perhaps.

I liked the fact that 'My Week With Marilyn' wasn't a biopic.

Why movie and dance critics are taking 'The Company' seriously, I can't imagine. Are they impressed by Altman's reputation and naive sincerity? By the fluid semi-documentary approach?

The novel succeeds on terms exclusive to literature. A good film succeeds on terms exclusive to the cinema. That's why so many bad novels can become good movies, like 'Jaws' or 'The Godfather.'

Any adaptation - and I've done three in my career. I did 'Sweeney Todd' and 'Hugo' and 'Coriolanus.' It's important to find what makes it a movie as opposed to just a film presentation of a stage play.

I walked out of Spielberg's 'Lincoln' having such a thirst for more. It used such a microscopic albeit enormous event in American history. It used such a small piece of his presidency to illustrate him as a president through the lens of that event.

One of the things I really like about Ford's films is how there is always a focus on the way characters live, and not just the male heroes.

I feel like if you see five films not knowing who made them, you know which one is the Coen Brothers.

I like David Lynch; I like Stanley Kubrick. I'm a big fan of Kubrick.

What he's done is recognise the cinematic nature of the book. It's beautifully realised - it's a beat film.

I think the height of ridiculousness was when I was playing Elizabeth in 'The Golden Age' while preparing to start shooting 'I'm Not There.' I literally finished filming Elizabethan grandeur on Friday, flew to Montreal, and started being Bob Dylan on Monday.

Watching a movie from beginning to end is like reading, because even though what you see are images, they are telling you a story.

I realized what interested me as a student of film was one thing and the movies that I liked were another.

'Beatrice Cenci' was an amazing film. If it were released today it'd win Best Picture. It's so well done, it's so contemporary, and the filmmaking is so smart.

No critic writing about a film could say more than the film itself, although they do their best to make us think the oppposite.

A fragmented film such as 'Babel' gives the impression of 'edginess' but, in its form, tells us nothing we didn't already know.

'Barton Fink' owed something to Roman Polanski. As a director, he always goes beyond the obvious narrative drift.

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.

The great thing about 'Fargo' is that it's a more objective style of filmmaking: the camera moves in very classical ways, and the most interesting things normally are the characters.