Shirley Knight Quotes

You can be moved by an animated film and not by a live action film. There could be great inspiration in and humanity in that animated story.

A lot of the struggle I had with movies is I really loved moments and tones and feelings in a scene, and I loved creating those, but I never really had great stories to string them together.

I look at the stories that Spike Lee tells... Great stories. Great director, great storyteller.

My interpretation of a strong director is someone who knows their story. That's what directors are, they're storytellers because they're directing where your focus is going to be as an audience.

I love the kind of movies I watched when I was a kid. But, I also love telling great stories.

A script like 'Nightcrawler' gives me an opportunity to truly realize a vision that's mine, which is exciting.

I liked Vittorio De Sica a lot, and I got to work with him once in a segment movie. He was a great director. He was a very charismatic character and a guy I watched a lot when he was directing.

Within the microcosm of a film you get drawn to people. There are certain projects you care enormously about, and 'The Edge Of Love' was one because I was portraying a great hero of mine, Dylan Thomas.

The film of tomorrow will be an act of love.

Anyone who's made film and knows about the cinema has a lifelong love affair with the experience. You never stop learning about film.

Jason Katims creates truly relatable three-dimensional people you fall in love with right away. Jason always puts a lot of heart into what he does. He has a way of touching your emotional core in a life-affirming way. And he's a great show runner.

I feel like the great filmmakers who have a true voice, yeah they take the notes, they understand the notes, but it's really about the notes underneath the notes. When you do a test screening and somebody says, 'Well, I didn't like the love story,' but it was probably just too long.

Oftentimes, you read these pilot scripts that come through for American work, and they don't sing to you. I've got to be honest, not many of them ignite the flame or give you that burning feeling of, 'Oh, God, I really want to be a part of this.'

I would love to work with Shane Meadows - great director.

We're used to a story in modern terms as an information delivery device. Certainly on television and even with the studio films, there's really only one note that you get, and that's clarity. And people will sacrifice everything for clarity. They'll sacrifice the joke. They'll sacrifice the moment, or the romance.

Sometimes it feels as if the artist hasn't done the real work of engaging with the material. Film noir can't just play off looks and attitudes. A thriller needs a dose of genuine suspense. It does not have to be literal, but it does have to feel genuine. Otherwise the artist is just leeching off the form.

A movie like 'The Apartment' is beautifully directed, but you can't put your finger on why it's such a good movie. It just is, because of all these things that Billy Wilder is subtly doing. That level of filmmaking is something I aspire to.

'A Perfect Place' is character-driven. The director for that wanted a couple of identifiable themes with a bunch of variations. That is what I did. The director for 'The Solitude of Prime Numbers' did not want that at all.

When I watch a movie I don't really care too much about the plot - not that it isn't important, but what I remember is the visual imagery, something that happens in an individual scene.

I studied Hitchcock and Josef von Sternberg under Richard Dillard at Hollins, and that year under his tutelage just completely rewired my brain. Both directors combine moral seriousness with great artistry and, certainly in Hitchcock's case, an enormous respect for plot, for its power to enthrall and delight.

I mean, we should only be talking about the merits of film ["Moonlight"] because one of the great things about the visual language is that it is the great equalizer.

When I make a film, the yardstick is my mind. If I laugh at the jokes and feel sad at the serious undersides, then the subject works.

The only kind of people who pursue stop-motion as a career are people who are absolutely in love with the medium.

There are sections of the film that I don't love. There are moments that really lift and elevate, and then there are parts that feel clunkier to me. But the totality of 'Harold and Maude' is so much greater than maybe other films that are more perfect or look more beautiful or handle every moment more exquisitely.

I love when you get the feeling of some social reality with a fictional film.