Cinematic Heritage Quotes

In fact, it is amazing how much European films - Italian, French, German and English - have recovered a certain territory of the audience in their countries over the last few years.

My father always told me that story was first and foremost. We would watch not just his films but a lot of classic American films. My father was a great David Lean fan, and David Lean's one of my favorite directors. We would discuss films endlessly.

I love to look at The Graduate, or Lawrence of Arabia, or things I had nothing to do with. But you could not get me to go back and watch movies that it was a privilege just to be around them when they were being made.

I'd love to build a company that will continue to make movies well beyond me someday. And I'd like to help start something great, even investing in it myself.

I grew up cinematically in the '70s. I was watching a lot of Godard, Bresson, Dreyer, and all sorts of old films and the Czech New Wave.

Television and film are our libraries now. Our history books.

Movies and television show build on top of each other, succeed one another. In a large way, in terms of filmmaking aesthetics, they evolve because they can't help but be a consequence of all the movies and TV shows that came before it.

You know, this is such a rich time that we've just been involved in, and there's really a job now for historians. Film is still very young. This is the first hundred years of filmmaking. So I think it's important that we have some sense of history and continuity. Especially in film.

I discovered the 7th art at home when I was kid, through Charlie Chaplin's movies and those of my father who shot documentaries. He was my biggest influence. So I took his camera and started shooting.

The creative process is a very collaborative process. I know it might seem that way because so much ink is spilled and the media is obsessed with business and numbers and studios... but filmmakers don't think of it that way. We just go off and we tell our stories. It's the same torture that we adore, it's the same torture that our forefathers endured making movies in the golden era of Hollywood. So, from my perspective it's no different, I'm sure, from the men and women who I admire so much who made the earliest movies.

Like I said about Freaked, people tend to find these films, and I think that in the end the cool thing about a movie is that it can be sort of burnt temporarily, but then it's burnt into the fabric of your culture.

'Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope' (1977) is probably the most influential film of my generation. That work was the personification of good and evil and the way it opened up the world to space adventure, the way westerns had to our parents' generations, it left an indelible imprint. So, in a way, everything that any of us does is somehow directly or indirectly affected by the experience of seeing those first three films.

I want to be a part of films that will be watched even after twenty years.

If I had only one film in the world to save, it would be 'Grand Illusion.'

Even as a teenager, my sensibility was different because my parents introduced me to some amazing films. I grew up watching films like 'Kabuliwala,' 'Casablanca,' and 'Mandi.'

I still think of Columbia as one Rita Hayworth movie a year, or maybe one a year directed by Frank Capra in the '30s. To see how many really outstanding movies Columbia made, and all together, is kind of eye-opening.

I am a child of cinema, and I am a cineaste, so everything I do is a reference to something I've heard or experienced or seen. And we all do it, we all steal. The ones who claim they don't, are obviously lying, because you do. You just have to make it your own.

Hollywood is a wonderful machine for making big movies. In France, we make smaller and more personal films, but if things keep changing, this will disappear. The industry in Italy is practically gone. Cinecitta now is used mostly by filmmakers from others places, like Martin Scorsese.

I am inspired by both Japanese Samurai films, in particular the films of Kurosawa, and how they share the spirit of American Westerns, with the influences running in both directions, and including the 'Spaghetti Westerns' and films of Sam Peckinpah.

My father, who was a good deal older than my mother, had basically grown up with silent films; sound didn't arrive until he was 30 years old. So he took me to see silent pictures at MoMA when I was 5 or 6 years old.

The modern cineplexes are mundane, dull boxes. But 'The Majestic' pays tribute to the movie palaces that made people feel like royalty. It honors a time when pictures helped Americans get through grim periods like the blacklist and the war.

It's crazy because, you know, my parents always want me to watch old films to make me realize how amazing some of the older actors are. And I was obsessed as soon as I watched 'Stand by Me.'

I love old movies. The '40s theatre pace is fantastic.

My dad has always been such a great dad, and he's brought so much culture to my life. He dragged me to see every single movie at the cinématheque as a kid. I saw everything from Star Wars to Bergman.

The BFI exists to celebrate all poets of world cinema, of the past and present.