Modern Filmmaking Quotes

I'm no longer interested in making political films. There's something old-fashioned about them. Young people now don't care for politics. It isn't present in life as it used to be. And increasingly I like films which reflect present-day reality.

Growing up, a film was an action film or it was a comedy or it was romantic, but you don't really see such stark lines between genres nowadays.

Earlier films were meant only for entertainment, but now filmmakers, who are products of these times, do not compromise on real stuff. That is why storytelling has become more convincing.

I'm of the opinion that the technology is in a place where there's really no excuse not to just make your movie.

I think it's a total fallacy for people to say, "You couldn't make those old movies today." I think there's more ways to get a movie made today than ever in the history of the entertainment industry. It's a very exciting time to work in movies, if you're a creative person looking to make a very personal, weird vision.

I think that in France, we really admire American films, we admire their drive, we admire the modernity and ellipsism in the film and the writing and the style of acting, and we look at them perhaps in a way to see what we can steal from them, too, to make our own films more modern.

If I made a film today, it would certainly be on digital.

Every time you play one old-time picture along with today's kind of work, and they throw in the computers and the guns and the this and the that and the God-almighty, it gets to be a hassle and you wonder who the hell's doing what!

I don’t want to be an old-man filmmaker, making old-man movies, and I don’t want to be the one not to know when to leave the party.

I feel like we cheated... because you read about these other directors, just like, 'Damn! They paid dues for 10 years before they got to get behind the camera.' We cheated because technology was in the right place at the right time, and we were alive at the right age at the right time for us to take advantage of that.

Everyone loves the seventies because that's when movies were character-based, and you saw great characters and you saw very interesting filmmaking. There are interesting movies being made now, but it's harder and harder to make them.

It's difficult to keep anything fresh for an audience these days. With technology being what it is people seem to know everything there is to know about a film before you've even made it.

What always made me proud - almost blushing with pride - is that Francis Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg all told me that 'The Conformist' is their first modern influence.

It's sad - it's sad for us old enough to remember when directors ruled, and films were substantially better than they are today. But it's hard to argue with those kinds of grosses.

My entire career is contemporary based, not by choice, but just by character. So, all the movies I've done, except for one in 40 years, are contemporary. But I never did an effects movie. So, I'm also a producer and I was really curious about how this whole thing went together.

The modern film tries too hard to be real. Its techniques of illusion are so perfect that it requires no contribution from the audience but a mouthful of popcorn.

Both TV and movies seem to be produced in a more similar way as time goes on. It used to be that movies were much bigger productions on every level and took much longer to shoot. I liked that. But with the advent of digital, everything can be done much quicker and cheaper, and that seems to be the goal of most movies and TV these days.

For most of the movies that I've done, we've shot in a contemporary house, in contemporary clothes, speaking in a contemporary way. So, I really enjoy that. It really helps.

I think in 'Rocky IV' there are three montages with three five-minute songs, which is insane. You can't do that today.

I do believe that a film like Ten could never have been made with a 35mm camera. The first part of the film lasts 17 minutes, and by the end of that part, the kid has totally forgotten the camera.

I feel like everybody's waiting for a job y'know, you can make a movie on your phone. And so there really is no reason to worry about how to get in with people- and you can do that, there's a lot to learn working for people -but you can just make a movie, where in the old days that was completely impossible.

Right now is a very interesting time because of the digital cameras, and the fact that you can edit anywhere. It's a great time to be a filmmaker, is a great time to be starting off.

I think all the great studio filmmakers are dead or no longer working. I don't put myself, my friends, and other contemporary filmmakers in their category. I just see us doing some work.