Kazuo Ishiguro Quotes

I think it's always a challenge to adapt a beautiful literary work into a fresh and alive film.

You take some creative license when you make a movie, and things can be a little bit different.

I'd like to think that my films are personal enough to exist without hearkening back to their respective novels.

Unfortunately, the author of a book pretty much gives up control of the story when the producers take over a book to make it into a movie.

To be quite honest, I've been very blessed when I've worked with Hollywood. The studios that have purchased my work to be adapted to film have really liked the work and wanted to stay as close as they could to what the book was.

Yes, I'm happy with Alan Ball's production of my novels.

I think comics can be the basis for great films, but I think the focus of such a project should be on making the film as good as possible, not on painstakingly replicating the comic.

I started out doing music videos and photography, and I always loved writing. Filmmaking seemed to be a good compilation of all these skills in a way that allowed me to tell a story 'greater than the sum of its parts.'

To make a film is easy; to make a good film is war. To make a very good film is a miracle.

The best adaptations are the ones that really excavate the material. The movies that work are the ones in which somebody very smart figured out how to take all the thematic material, all the character material, all the filigree, all the beautiful writing and put it into a story.

I wanted to write and direct movies and not be forced to adapt them from a bestselling book.

Peter Jackson's instincts are extraordinary, as is his stamina.

I think that any actor - any artist, period - would love to work with an artist like Lee Daniels.

I don't hold with the notion that only bad books make good movies.

I do believe, and I will always believe, that Shakespeare on film is really something that should be tried more often because it is an opportunity to take the humanity that Shakespeare writes into characters and express it.

Most writers are unhappy with film adaptations of their work, and rightly so. 'Field of Dreams,' however, caught the spirit and essence of 'Shoeless Joe' while making the necessary changes to make the work more visual.

A lot of young filmmakers bring their movies to my dad because he always gives lots of good editing ideas and notes. He'd be a good film professor.

The novel succeeds on terms exclusive to literature. A good film succeeds on terms exclusive to the cinema. That's why so many bad novels can become good movies, like 'Jaws' or 'The Godfather.'

When you're making a film, you become incredibly close. It's not like you're filing away papers all day. You're creating with human emotions, so you do become very connected, so it is familial and romantic.

Directing 'Fifty Shades of Grey' has been an intense and incredible journey for which I am hugely grateful. I have Universal to thank for that.

Any adaptation - and I've done three in my career. I did 'Sweeney Todd' and 'Hugo' and 'Coriolanus.' It's important to find what makes it a movie as opposed to just a film presentation of a stage play.

I've seen 'Babel' four times. And each time I realize anew what a monumental project that had been for me.

I would love to work with Tim Burton. I think we would be very good together.

I have a great little camera, and I had a theory that if the story is interesting, it doesn't matter what medium you shoot it on. You just have to make a good film.

I'd love to do a Michel Gondry film. That would be ideal! I'd love to do an Almodovar film; you know, I think he's very, very talented. I don't care that people say he's pretentious. So what? He's a good director; he can be pretentious.