Whit Stillman Quotes

As a storyteller, when you're writing a movie and when you're directing, you want to keep people entertained. That's the whole point, right? It has to be entertaining.

Network television is all talk. I think there should be visuals on a show, some sense of mystery to it, connections that don't add up.

When art in general, and film in particular, succeeds is when it pulls you away onto a voyage. Then it's a good film.

There are all these great TV series; you can watch all these hours and hours of shows and ideas, but there's still something great about a movie that unfolds in a couple of hours, and you have the complete experience.

Cinema is so slow and boring compared to television.

The technology is really where all of the changes have taken place, but the fundamentals of a good story being the basis of every good picture, and really the only basis still remains the rule, more so today, I think, because we've unfortunately weaned an audience from birth to kind of mindless movies.

In the case of 'Jack Ryan,' it was a huge collaboration, and I enjoyed it very much, and most of all, I want the audience to enjoy it, too. I want them to feel immersed in this world.

You set out to tell a good story. You don't do it because there is a deep message involved because the movie is almost always bad when you do that.

I think good art should always be entertaining, or at least give pleasure of some sort. And my chief goal as a writer has always been to tell a good story and give my readers a good time.

In the end, my reasons for moving down the timeline and introducing a new cast have more to do with keeping myself entertained, on the assumption that if I get bored, my readers are going to be even more bored.

There's no difference between movies and television. None at all. Except in a lot of cases, television's much better than movies.

A good story is a good story, whatever the medium.

Films and television and even comic books are churning out vast quantities of fictional narratives, and the public continues to swallow them up with great passion. That is because human beings need stories.

The success of the storytellers - we're only as good as what we can withhold from the audience. Aspects of surprise and letting things play out for the audience - it's so much a part of their enjoyment. It's one of the great things about working in the movies and being a great storyteller.

All we think about is how to keep the audience engaged, and normally we're big on plot because that's the easy way to do it.

A great director is someone who makes you feel like you're moving forward.

Making a movie to entertain people, that's just as important as telling people about our stories.

I realized, because I've been doing these very small, character-driven movies, that this is entertainment. This is so much fun.

Great writing makes great television.

I'm writing for entertainment. I like people to reach the end and feel they got their money's worth.

I always tell people this - when you start wrestling, don't forget that part you liked as a child. If you can keep a bit of that in your act, you can keep a bigger audience.

What I want to impart on any movie I work on is I want to make it entertaining. That's what I feel I do.

I look for good scripts, not anything. It should inspire me, and the audience should like it.

It could be sci-fi, love story, historical drama what counts for me is the fact that they're made by great directors with a great point of view who bring the audience to be elevated and at the same time entertained. That's what cinema is.

I think, in a film that's supposed to last an hour and a half, I think you have to really pay attention to what kind of movie you're making, what is the audience experiencing, and does this joke fit with this joke?