Film Discovery Quotes

We didn't really have television when I was a kid. Around 30, I discovered films and started systematically catching up. I collect interesting documentaries and films, and watch a few nights a week.

I grew up on particular movies that said something to me as a kid from Missouri, movies that showed me places I'd yet traveled, or different cultures, or explained something, or said something in a better way than I could ever say. I wanted to find the movies like that. It was less about a career than finding the films I wanted to see.

I'm coming from a small town in Quebec where, at that time, there was no Internet, and the way to be in contact with movies were those American fan magazines like 'Fantastic Films' and 'Starlog,' and I still remember the shock, the impact of seeing the first frames, the first pictures coming out of 'Blade Runner.'

I wasn't really sure about the kind of films I wanted to be a part of. That's when I saw 'Aaranya Kaandam.' I was stunned; it was such a stylish film.

I grew up on Mel Brooks films. That was film to me until I got a little bit older and realised there were other kinds of movies.

I had a really generic upbringing, I think, when it comes to viewing movies as a kid. I didn't really know what was out there or what was being tried. I was, like, 'E.T.' and 'Indiana Jones.' Those were the only things I knew existed.

I'm always excited when I can discover new filmmakers.

I want every movie to have a big audience. I'm always hopeful that it's going to be discovered, and audiences are fantastic that way because every once in a while they surprise you. I didn't think 'Beautiful Mind' was going to be that kind of global success.

I come from the belief that all good films find their time whether it's on opening week or sometime later. That's certainly true with some of my favourite films that might relate to this [The Assassination of Jesse James] film in terms of cadence like Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid, or McCabe & Mrs Miller or Days of Heaven. I found them 10 to 20 years after they were made.

I don't think a lot of really good films get seen.

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.

'Beasts of the Southern Wild' was one of those films that I felt like I could dismiss because it received so many accolades, but then I watched it and was won over.

I didn't discover how music and film could work together until Jim Jarmusch had me do 'Ghost Dog.'

I came rather late to film. I've done an awful lot of theater before - before I discovered the camera, you know, seeing everything, requiring much less acting and - and much less presentation, much less projecting, more just being.

When I was seven, I said, "I want to act." When I was 10, I realized that films exist, and I wanted to be in them. Not a comedian, I wanted to be a dramatic actor. Films just seemed such fun, and like such a great thing to do.

Everyone has loved 'Chhichhore' for a different reason, which I think for an actor is the best thing to hear. What I've been most touched by is that most people have discovered something new about the film when they have walked in the second time.

I remember, the first time I saw a [Andrei] Tarkovsky film, I was shocked by it. I didn't know what to do. I was fascinated, because suddenly I realized that film could have so many more layers to it than what I had imagined before. Then others, like Kurosawa and Fellini, were like a new discovery for me, another country.

When I found film, it was like, 'Of course!' It was this very intense realization that this is perhaps the most powerful, honed context that I've found.

I always say I make the movies where people go, 'Hey, I never saw it, but when I finally did, I really liked it.' People saw 'Baby Driver,' though. I was pleased with that.

I lived within walking distance of Harvard Square, and that's where I discovered my love of cinema. I saw a lot of foreign and independent films there.

In L.A. Confidential, it was great to surprise the audience with Guy Pearce and Russell Crowe - two Australian actors that they didn't know at all - and let people discover them through the course of the film.

Movies find me, and I kind of just allow them to find me.

'Super Troopers' benefited from the old way of watching films, the way we watched at Colgate, when you went to someone's house, looked at their DVD collection, and then just picked one.

You're watching the movie for the first time when you're working with the actors in front of the camera. You don't think about how the audience will react. You discover the film.

I was not raised with films. And when Alain Resnais did the editing on my first film, he said, 'You should go to the Cinematheque.' I didn't even know we had one in Paris.