Directorial Authority Quotes

Show me a Scorsese film, and I'll show you a movie where he's taken risks. It's just his nature. He's an artist, and artists take risks. He always does what he believes in.

With Kubrick and most film directors, they are in complete control, but one can influence them.

In looking at Hollywood and its structure, the director controls the medium, and I want to be in control of certain things. I want to be able to get my own ideas and my own feelings out there, and the only way to do that is to be behind the camera.

When I read 'The Water Diviner,' I was having the same kind of visceral reaction that I would normally have acting in something. I believed that I was the only person that could tell this story the way it needed to be told. That's the real arrogance of a director!

To be a film director is not a democracy, it's really a tyranny. You're the head of the project, for better rather than worse. I write the film and I direct the film, I decide who's going to be in it, I decide on the editing, I put in the music from my own record collection.

I think, as a filmmaker, you're always responsible for your film.

The last thing a director needs is an actress who feels an ownership towards a particular character.

When I grew up, a director was Cecil B DeMille, a guy sitting down with a megaphone speaking. He was the voice of God, the image of God. When I went to start making docs, I quickly turned the megaphone to my ear not to my mouth. It's more about funneling in the words and listening as doc filmmaker.

For 'The Book Thief,' I wanted only one outcome, and that was for the director to follow his own vision, just as I had.

When I come up against a director who has a concept that I don't agree with, or maybe I just haven't thought of it or whatever, I'd be more prone to go with them than my own because I want to be out of control as an actor, I want them to have the control, otherwise it's going to become predictably my work, and that's not fun.

As a director, you never think about how an audience would respond. You can think about that, but you will never change what you're going to do.

After making 'Secretary,' it was a real shock to me to learn that some directors just aren't interested in what actors have to say. They just don't want to collaborate.

I can't imagine bringing in somebody else to direct my show. Wouldn't that be funny, if next season I had, like, Michael Bay come in and direct 'Better Things'? I wonder what that would be like?

You really think that on my films people tell me what to do? I don't think so. On my films I decide.

As producers, we can influence where the budget goes, but only the director really controls what tone, what type of movie you are trying to make.

I grew up with a concept of cinema as a directorial thing, meaning the director is allowed to sail the ship. Not a dictatorial thing.

There's really powerful and potentially dominating forces when you make a film that can harm it if you're incapable of orchestrating things.

My style of working is I'll often be behind the camera, or right next to the camera yelling words at people, like, 'Say this, say this! Say it this way!' I'll straight-up give Anthony Hopkins a line reading. I don't care.

I find that male directors are more interested in what the film looks like as opposed to what the film is about emotionally. My job is not to make the film look pretty, and I don't feel drawn to making myself look pretty within the film.

History is rife with stories of directors who got so obsessed that their films went massively over budget - out of control.

I know a lot of editors who are very bitter about the directors they work with. They feel they could have done a better job, and I say to them, 'Oh really? Why don't you go try - it's not easy.'

A lot of directors don't know what they want to do. Every director I've seen that was a good director that I've admired knew exactly what he wanted to do. They didn't sit there and think about it.

In Europe, the director is the king: it's his vision. It's an auteur tradition.

I've heard directing talked about as being a benign dictatorship, and I think that's probably the best way a director should be. They're open to collaboration and feedback from people, but ultimately, it's got to be that one person's vision. That's what I think makes a film really stand out.

I've been shocked by film actors - 25 and under - having such confidence and cockiness to rewrite a scene. My background is more about the director being in control. It's all about yielding. It's an oddly submissive relationship in which you're moulded, Pygmalion-style.