Toby Jones Quotes

I wanted to work with Sriram Raghavan, the master of noir.

The visual architecture of 'Biutiful' is the most sophisticated of all the films I have directed.

There are some scenes that work beautifully in a moving, sweeping master, which is how I like to work.

Polanski's 'Chinatown' is a film that I have purposefully and consciously imitated, but 'Vertigo' is one that has got into my bloodstream. Every time I reappraise things that I've done, the influence is there, time and time again.

Every different director has another language - for instance, Hitchcock does not like any bright color ever, unless the story says 'there goes the girl in a red dress.'

I don't have a style. I've never thought of myself as a stylist like the visual stylists I admire enormously - Adrian Lyne, Ridley Scott, Alan Parker - in which every shot has a great idea in them.

Hitchcock loved long convoluted shots that contained a lot of tracking and camera moves.

The reason I like tracking shots has to do more with a sense of real time than anything else. In 'Gravity,' the use of tracking - of long extended takes - was partially because we wanted to film it like an IMAX-style Discovery Channel documentary. You don't have the luxury of cuts when you're in space. The camera is there; you're just observing.

There are some long silences in Scandinavian and some Japanese films, when the audience knows action is taking place, but the audience hears no action.

In a way, 'Sin City's designed to be paced somewhere between an American comic book and Japanese manga. Working in black and white, I realized that the eye is less patient, and you have to make your point, and sometimes repeat it. Slowing things down is harder in black and white, because there isn't as much for the eye to enjoy.

It's a risk, but I'm sort of ready to let go of thinking of movies as books that you can watch. The notion of, 'If I put the narrative blocks in the right order, this will solve all of my storytelling problems.' No, it won't, and you end up with little more than books on film.

It's too bad for us 'literary' enthusiasts, but it's the truth nevertheless - pictures tell any story more effectively than words.

So I like to try to go back and develop pure visual storytelling. Because to me, it's one of the most exciting aspects of making movies and almost a lost art at this point.

A special effect is a tool, a means of telling a story. A special effect without a story is a pretty boring thing.

Guys like Spielberg and Zemeckis and really anybody who is a storyteller-filmmaker today has studied Hitchcock and the way he visually tells a story. He was the master of suspense, certainly, but visually you would get a lot of information from what he would do with the camera and what he would allow you to see as the story was unfolding.

I love it when television is shot in a cinematic way and I think to aspire to that is no bad thing.

I watched a couple of really bad directors work, and I saw how they completely botched it up and missed the visual opportunities of the scene when we had put things in front of them as opportunities. Set pieces, props and so on.

I love telling stories with images. But I think there's more to just saying a movie is great visually.

Hitchcock had a very strange mind.

The style of direction in 'Room,' maybe a little bit like 'Spotlight,' tries to be hidden.

One picture is worth a thousand words.

“One picture is worth a thousand words,” said an ancient Chinese; but it may take ten thousand words to validate it.

'Twin Peaks' was incredibly slow, methodic, taking shots that were uncomfortably long, with a lot of scenes where there was barely any dialogue. 'Riverdale' has a much faster pace.

Everything I try to do wants to be able to push communication through the notion of the visual image.

I don't use film in the way that the great auteurs do. I use film, the camera, to record as effectively and as perceptive as I am able what I want to say through the actors.