Movie Interpretation Quotes

A film that I love is 'Deliverance' from back in the day. You start out with these archetypal characters - the hero, the bookworm, the pacifist - and by the end, it's all turned upside down. I love that.

You shouldn't think of these movies as being 'The Lord of the Rings.' The Lord of the Rings is, and always will be, a wonderful book - one of the greatest ever written. Any films will only ever be an INTERPRETATION of the book. In this case my interpretation.

The interesting thing about Cleopatra is that she is such a shape-shifter. I mean through history we've all molded her to our times and our places. So there's room for a movie for her, but I don't think it will hew to the book.

When I was a kid, 'Robocop' to me was just good guys and bad guys.

When I was told that I was doing a movie called 'Lola Rennt,' I was like, 'What?' I didn't get it, or the title. I started reading the script, and I still couldn't fathom that it was about a person named Lola running. Before my agent explained it to me, I couldn't even make any sense out of it.

I'd say that 'Tree of Life' is not a Christian so much as a spiritual film.

When people say "What do you want people to get from this movie?" I say, "Well, it depends on what they bring to it." I don't try to decide what people should get from it or why. I don't do a part for those kinds of reasons.

I think, 'Scott Pilgrim,' it was something where the general audience didn't necessarily understand straight away what it was.

I have kind of a funny relationship with movies. I don't have to see the whole movie to get an impression of it or to let it have an influence on me.

I'm always frustrated when somebody makes a movie out of a book and they leave the book behind, or the heart of it.

Occasionally an unsuspecting innocent will stumble into a movie like this and send me an anguished postcard, asking how I could possibly give a favorable review to such trash. My stock response is Ebert's Law, which reads: A movie is not about what it is about. It is about how it is about it.

Reviews about film acting are very... tricky, because movies are such a collaborative thing.

Every frame of a Coen brothers movie is filled with history and meaning, and the deeper you go, the deeper you get. That's why their movies stand up particularly well to repeated viewing and investigation.

People tell me I'm in a genre kind of movie, but it never crossed my mind that The Matrix was genre. To me it was about, for me anyway, my character, I had this rock outside my door which said "faith" or "believe" or something, and I remember felt like that was my key into her, into Trinity. It was like she was the heart of it.

I don't think 'Shotgon Stories' or 'Take Shelter' have hopeless endings. I think there's hope in both those films, no matter how hard you have to search for it. It's there.

If an audience doesn't get that [Black Snake Moan] is a movie about overcoming exploitation, it could come across as incredibly misogynistic. That would be the worst thing in the world for me.

I didn't think of 'Thelma and Louise' as a feminist movie.

Part of accepting a role is being interested in the character and part of it is being interested in the movie or what it means and the exploration of it. But it's more about not knowing the answers to certain questions but wanting to go on the journey of discovery to find the answers.

I don't want to tell them what to take away from a movie, I think a movie should tell that.

The title of the movie is open to interpretation.

I was able to read a movie before I was able to read a book.

I absolutely believed Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger loved each other in 'Brokeback Mountain.'

I think all minority audiences watch movies with hope. They hope they will see what they want to see. That's why nobody really sees the same movie.

The question is: Where would it get you if something that's a little bit ambiguous in the movie is made clear? It doesn't get you anywhere.

I was never a critic. I was a journalist and wrote about filmmakers, but I didn't review movies per se. I make that distinction only because I came to it strictly as someone who was just a lover of storytellers and cinematic storytellers. And I still am. I'm still a great movie fan, and I ,that love of movies is very much alive in me. I approach the movies I make as a movie-lover as much as a movie-maker.