Filmmaking Influence Quotes

When I see an amazing play or movie, it inspires me as an actress and a filmmaker.

To me, one of the main things that a director does is create the tone of his movie.

'Up the Junction' really made me understand the power of cinema to create a vivid sense of a community. When I went on to make 'Bhaji on the Beach,' it was this sense I tried to recreate.

I've always tried to be aware of what I say in my films, because all of us who make motion pictures are teachers - teachers with very loud voices.

The influence of Steven Spielberg to my career is unquantifiable. Every day on the set with him is a master class in filmmaking.

My roommate at Yale University introduced me to the auteur theory of filmmaking. I soon became a big fan of the works of John Ford, Kenji Mizoguchi, Ernst Lubitsch, and Stan Brakhage. I then decided to make my own films!

Initially, it connected with me when I was a kid, seeing a lot of movies while growing up in Los Angeles. And Sam's [Fuller] pictures are an expression of such a distinct voice that he was one of those filmmakers who made me aware that there was, in fact, a real presence behind the camera that was telling the story, as opposed to actors just presenting it.

I'm a product of older filmmakers I guess, the past where you get to make movies and scenes are what they are.

You choose the film, and then the film chooses everyone else; a film decides everything on its own.

If I've seen the movie, it means it's an influence on my own filmmaking. Every movie has a reflection in 'Night Watch.'

I think Woody Allen calls it 'anxiety of influence.' When you're in your formative years and you watch a movie that makes you want to make movies... For Wes Anderson, it's Truffaut. I'm sure for P.T. Anderson it was Scorsese and Jonathan Demme.