William Friedkin Quotes

My lifetime dream has been to assemble and preserve the history of the Hollywood film industry.

My father comes from a generation of film that actors my age don't even know about, which is really sad.

In the past, once a movie musical was made, it was believed that you were left with that version, good or bad, for posterity.

I am very concerned about our national heritage, and I am very concerned that the films that I watched when I was young and the films that I watched throughout my life are preserved, so that my children can see them.

It was also great shooting in London at Pinewood Studios because of all its history. So many of the 007 movies were filmed there, as well as classics by everyone from Marilyn Monroe to Jack Nicholson to Martin Scorcese. It's like working on hallowed ground. So, I felt a responsibility to make sure I did as good a job as I possibly could.

But you know, as you say, the original versions of my films are getting out there, slowly.

I still think of Columbia as one Rita Hayworth movie a year, or maybe one a year directed by Frank Capra in the '30s. To see how many really outstanding movies Columbia made, and all together, is kind of eye-opening.

Then I realized my early work did have something special that audiences adored apart from what I humbly thought about them. They occupy a distinguished niche in Italian film history and probably always will.

Film is forever.

What's the shelf life of a 1931 movie? If it still exists, there will always be film buffs and a niche audience who will want to see it. But in terms of people even understanding in common usage, some of the words we use to describe these movies, I don't know how long that's going to last.

I've been fortunate to be in films that are classic, that are going to be around.

My father did 90-plus films. He was Spartacus!

I am so happy that every generation still tunes into most of the classic and cult films I was lucky to be a part of.

The work I did in Vertigo meant nothing if no one cared about the movie. Luckily, Vertigo had a revival and people had begun to recognize there was something special and it gained in reputation. But it just as well could have ended up rotting in film cans somewhere.

Films made in the spirit of the past continued to be made.

The John Ford pictures I made are highly regarded, but at the time they didn't seem like that.

I prefer the old masters, by which I mean John Ford, John Ford, and John Ford.

I think that the work that Bette Davis and Joan Crawford did was truly extraordinary, and that's their legacy. Not the other petty stuff.

I'm proud to have been in some of the films that continue to be a special part of people's lives.

I want Punjabi film industry to make it's way into the text books, so that when children read about this industry they should know how it reached to its glory.

I'm an advocate of all mediums - it's a larger canvas for us as artists - but we have to keep in mind that celluloid film is what created this wonderful art form, and we have to keep it alive.

When I was twelve, the passage from silent film to the talkies had an impact on me-I still watch silent films. I don't think that there is any such thing as an old film; you don't say, 'I read an old book by Flaubert,' or 'I saw an old play by Moliere.'

The Pink Panther is legendary, but a lot of people my age haven't ever seen the original. So, I think it's great to bring it back for my generation, and to expose them to where that theme song which still sounds so modern and that legendary image of a pink cat came from. It's great to be a part of that, because it's history.

I grew up on 'Lawrence' and 'Zhivago'. A legacy with not one but multiple timeless classics.

The BFI exists to celebrate all poets of world cinema, of the past and present.