Edward Norton Quotes

...There are too many people studying it [photography] now who are never going to make it. You can't give them a formula for making it. You have to have it in you first, you don't learn it. The seeing eye is the important thing.

I think if you're artistic in any way, you're probably born with it. I guess it's a talent that can be learned here and there, but I think the instinct to tell a story or to create something happens maybe in the womb.

Often people going into directing want to learn as much as they possibly can about "technique." And I say the hell with that.

I think it[3D] should be used as a new artistic form, not as a gimmick, not to impress you but the existence of an environment that you view as a theatrical dramatic experience is - you don't just have the X-Y axis, you have the Z and that makes a difference. You still have the framing, you still use lenses, so most of the cinematic rules and languages still apply but I think it's a different existence.

I'm pretty focused on what I do. I think directing is a very specific talent, and I'm not real big on putting puzzles together, which is basically what a film is.

There’s always been this hocus-pocus or magical, mystical thing associated with the making of film that sort of psyches people out and makes them think that this cannot be done; that this is a craft that cannot be learned.

I think the artist has an ability to draw pictures for people to where they can process these messages that otherwise they wouldn't be open to hearing.

As a filmmaker, I get compared to people who have no clue how to do anything, but because of some Internet writing, it looks like they would actually be better filmmakers. I think this is absurd.

You usually get one or the other, you get someone who knows how to tell a story but they don't necessarily know about light and camera and rhythm, or you get someone who can make beautiful images but they can't necessarily tell a great story. He does both and I think he's going to be one of the film-makers that our time is remembered for.

And Later I Thought, I Can't Think How Anyone Can Become a Director Without Learning the Craft of Cinematography.

Neither instinct nor style ..can be bought or taught.

It's true that I don't think I'd be a good director. If I were a director, I'd try to hire the best people I could and then leave them alone. I don't know much about cameras or lighting, so I'd make sure that I had a really good cameraman who understood lenses and lighting, and I say to him, "This is the scene we have to shoot and this is what I think it should be, you go do it." Same with actors. But really, very good directors who know everything do basically the same thing. They hire you and then they leave you alone.

I think my first big heartbreak made me more compassionate about other people's heartaches. It enabled me to feel more for others when they are in moments of pain.

I think that's my nature, to want to bring people together rather than to try to bombard them into agreement.

I think of filmmaking as a form of communication. Maybe it's also an art, but that's for somebody else to decide.

I guess I probably see myself as a director. If I had to choose, I think that that's the aspect of the process that I'm most excited by.

You are still young, so you think only of your own self. You do not notice the tribulations that occur all around you, to other people. Do not protest; it is true. I am not condemning you. I was as selfish as you, when I was your age. It is the custom of the young to be selfish... But someday you will understand that nobody passes through this world without suffering-no matter what you think of them and their supposed good fortune.

I don't really care if people like a character ornot; I think in life we don't always like everybody. But you haveto be able to understand them.

I think auditions are set up for failure because they're not really the set experience. There's no time to develop the character. You're just looking at someone... if someone's really good in an audition, sometimes they're not good in the film. It's something you learn when you're doing short films. It's the same way that some people do well at taking tests and some people don't. But when you're on a long-term filmmaking process it's a completely different feeling.

I realized that a lot of the great directors that I admire from [Ingmar] Bergman to [Fredrico] Fellini re always shooting, then going into the editing room, and shooting again.

Jackson [Rathbone] is the most artsy, creative and, I think, the most talented.

The hiring of Phil Messina, the production designer, was a big decision. He's so gifted, and his ideas were always so smart and rooted in American history and architecture. Nothing feels like it's not us, or couldn't be us, and I think that's very important.

I think that, like anything, people take their image and what they want somebody else to be and then people just run with it. And when you really know the person and really love the person, you recognize that that person is nothing like that.

When I made my first film, Basquiat, I think one of the criticisms was that the way I work is episodic. Later, as people started to look at the movies, they started to realize that maybe that's my style. If I could do it better or another way, I guess I would.

Whatever you think people are withholding from you-praise, appreciation, assistance, loving care, and so on-give it to them.