Cinematic Power Quotes

I'm not emotionally excited by the power of cinema's tricks anymore.

No one wants to hear from the producer. He's the guy by the pool with a cigar in his mouth and a couple of lovelies on his arm. But when you're a director, they want to hear what you have to say about everything - the war, the world.

The eye solicited alone makes the ear impatient, the ear solicited alone makes the eye impatient. Use these impatiences. Power of the cinematographer who appeals to the two senses in a governable way. Against the tactics of speed, of noise, set tactics of slowness, of silence.

Can a film really change anything? I mean, what was the last time? Maybe the Italian neo-realists, where they became the voice and the heart and the soul of Italy, a nation that had been destroyed. I don't know.

Films cannot change anybody's life. That's a load of crap.

When I use violence in a movie, it's just to express the power, the impact of it.

When you have something that brings a real emotion, that's the power of cinema.

It is an example of what films can do, how they can slip past your defenses and really break your heart.

Writers would hate me saying this, and I love words, but I have to say that cinema exists, on one level, for the power of the big image and what that image does.

Film as a medium has a power that sports like wrestling lack.

Lenin in 1921 observed very presciently that motion pictures were the most powerful tool ever invented to shape the way we thought. He was right. Political films can be successful.

The idea that cinema can be dangerous is a great idea.

I recently rewatched Stand By Me and was like, "Wow, this is so powerful because these young men are so vulnerable and so emotional, and love each other." That's a rare quality for a film.

I care about the connection with the audience. Film is such a powerful medium. Movies can change the way people think.

Hollywood is right. A good and strong movie can have a more powerful social impact than any and all political speeches or newspaper editorials and columns.

Film is probably the medium best suited to reach the most people - the visual, the aural, the limbic, the intellectual: it captures all these parts of our mind and soul. No other art form comes close.

Films are artifice. We're telling stories on film. At the same time, when it works, there is a real tough immediacy and spontaneity to it, and a punch.

To me, the stories that have always intrigued me are the stories of people leaving my movies and being affected by them. They walk home 20 blocks the wrong way. Or they lock themselves in their office. Or they find themselves weeping when in the shower after the film. And those intrigue me, because I know I've touched something inside them.

I find films incredibly emotional. That's the power of the medium.