Cinematic Symbolism Quotes

In the theater, while you recognized that you were looking at a house, it was a house in quotation marks. On screen, the quotation marks tend to be blotted out by the camera.

In TV and movies, you kill yourself spending all this time to think up the symbolism or what if that deer that runs across your hero's path somehow conveys what's going on inside your hero's head? When a lot of times, you just want to hear what he's thinking.

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.

It is interesting to note that the best periods of Italian Horror films came out of the Sixties, when Italy was enjoying a carnival period of phenomenal optimism, and the shadowy side surfaced with all of its attendant dark, beautiful, baroque, catholic symbolism.

Qing Cheng Mountain was a direct influence on the mysterious final shot of 'Kung Fu Panda 2.'

When you move the camera, or you do a shot like the crane down (in Shawshank) with them standing on the edge of the roof, then it's got to mean something. You've got to know why you're doing it; it's got to be for a reason within the story, and to further the story.

The best movies have one sentence that they're exploring, a thesis, something that people can argue about over dinner afterward.

I think it's pretty classic if you look at the way entertainment reflects the country's status. There was a reason in the '50s when communism was bubbling that there were a million zombie movies. Because that is the direct allocation. So for the last two years we've been hearing, "Make America great again." People go, "Well, America was never great." What do you mean? What you mean is that they want to look back in history. And so I think it's only natural for entertainment to reflect that.

In a way, we tried to make 'The Salvation' a contemporary film with contemporary emotions. At the same time, in the script, you get a feel that all the small talk is not a part of our universe. It's more precise talk.

There are certain sounds that have a loaded past. Like the sound of a harp, if you go back to old movies, represents a dream sequence; it transports you there.

The title 'Dohchay' is very perfect for the film. It is used very well in the title track. If you see the film, you will understand it.

Bergman made countless masterpieces, but for one reason or another, 'Winter Light' stays closest to my heart.

Claire Denis's 'Beau Travail' is one of Denis's greatest achievements. One of the most mysterious and beautiful endings in movies.

Americans don't understand what metaphor in cinema is about. They're extremely good at making straightforward, linear narrative movies, which entertain superbly. But they very rarely do anything else.

Movies are as old as psychoanalysis. So if I were to put you or anyone else on a couch and say, 'Tell me your favorite movies,' it would be a way of psychoanalyzing you.

I was, like, 'I really wanna see an Eric Rohmer movie take place in a Bert I. Gordon universe.' Where there's a story going on that's about, you know, loss and desire, but with a giganticized-animal element.