We find ourselves in a state of mediocrity where journalists are no longer willing to risk free access to movies for fear of being left behind on opening day. That's an impractical concern in an era when movie coverage is everywhere all the time and the only real news is a critic's individual point of view—if he has one. Armond White, (Web Exclusive) Embargo Blues: Reflections on the Film Critic Business, Dec 14, 2011
Has anyone else but me noticed that movies projected in theaters these days appear darker on the screen than usual? Have all these digital projectors wrecked the movie-going experience? Are they using the cheaper lamps to save $$? ... Automated digital projectors, 3D filters that are not taken off to show a 2D movie- they are killing their own business. So the crappy look on the screen at your local multiplex is not the filmmaker's fault. Corp theater chains are trying to get by on the cheap. Michael Moore, "How Capitalism is Killing the Movies" , 14 December 2011
If Shakespeare was alive today he would write about crime, not the royal family. Nicolas Winding Refn, "Lars von Trier is getting old" , 13 December 2011
I do have an interest in things in movies that we don't want to look at. Anything forbidden is really exciting. Nudity is nothing. It's not really a provocation. Try to talk about leaving and dying and all those things. ... I would like to think that everybody that got on the subway and saw some old lady sitting across from them, that they would imagine a whole, huge life lay behind all those wrinkles. There's almost nothing less interesting in our consumerist society than an old lady. Dismissed. We don't make movies for her, we don't give a damn. We can't sell her anything, she doesn't buy anything. But just the idea that everything, the whole panoply of human experience: births, deaths, struggles, joy. Everything's in there. To imagine that, that's what I would hope. Meryl Streep, 13 Lessons Playing "The Iron Lady" , 7 December 2011
My dad did come out of the closet when he was 75 after my mom past away. It was - as you can imagine - a very chaotic, crazy time in our lives. Who is this guy I'd been with all these years? Who is this guy now? He went from being one of the most stuck, emotionally dampened people I knew. A very sweet, kind guy but kind of muted. He went from being that, to totally revived. He became totally emotionally open and vivid. He was doing all things he'd never done before like seeing a trainer and getting testosterone shots and having boyfriends... It was so chaotic, but it was so positive. It was this huge, positive change so late in the game. After he passed way, I was in my own moment of feeling so emotionally tense and keyed into how fragile everything is. And I thought 'I should report this. This is like the biggest story I know about in a real way and that's what I should do as a filmmaker. Mike Mills, "Beginners," a Love Letter to his Father , 2 December 2011
I am a collector, and the environment I live in reflects this. I am convinced that people who collect something do it because they fear the world and other people. With their collections, they create an alternative world that they are able to control. Jan Svankmajer, Puppets and politics, 5 December 2011
Faust in Sokurov's interpretation is absolutely devoid of any romantic features. He is a cynic and hard-core utilitarian of the post-Soviet time when people were ready to step over corpses in order to achieve their goal with a cynic conviction that they know how to change the world. Valery Kichin, Faust and Furious, Sight & Sound, December 2011
Wuthering Heights is gothic, feminist, socialist, sadomasochistic, Freudian, incestuous, violent and visceral. Trying to melt all that together into a film is an ambitious and perhaps foolish task. Andrea Arnold, Love Will Tear Us Apart, Sight & Sound, December 2011
My father had served in World War I. He must have been almost 50 when the war broke out. He just followed his rutine as a doctor. We lived in a industrial suburb of the city of Wiesbaden. ... In '44 we were bombed out. The house was just an empty shell. We moved into the woods, into a log house, and the next thing I knew the war was over. [After] the last haggard and gaunt German soldiers - there was nothing glorious left of that army - in came the wonderful, youthful American GIs with all their beautiful machines and equipment. ... I remember that very, very well. For me, this was a new period, a new age. We children ran over to the enemy, so to speak. We considered them our natural allies because they won over our fathers, After that, the German society of pre-1945
never had a chance with us... ... What I don't like about "Downfall", is that it pretends to be documentary-like, but it is not the way people spoke. If you look at German films of the 50s, when you still had the generation of actors who had been living in that time, they had completely different diction and a different attitude. In "The Ninth Day" I tried to have this kind of precision, but there is a lot of what I call 'television realism': put in a few props and an old car, hang an old flag and you have recreated the past... ... I have an 18-year-old daughter and I can see in her and her friends maybe the first generation growing up without any guilt [of war]. Volker Schlondorff, Little Voice, Sight & Sound, December 2011
In the 1960s and 1970s, an avant-garde cinema emerged in Japan which, Isolde Standish [in her book, "Politics, Porn and Protest: Japanese Avant-Garde Cinema in the 1960s and 1970s" ] claims, "contest[ed the] hegemonic 'official version', or definition of what essentially it is to be Japanese". The dominant post-war narrative of peace, reconstruction and economic growth was challeged by films that explored the legacy of wartime colonialism, defeat and occupation, examined themes of class conflict and prejudice, and questioned how fully post-war promises of democracy and freedom had been fulfilled... ... Standish follows conventional wisdom in describing 'Rashomon' (1950) as a fable about variable truths, which shows "the unreliability of memory as a testament to past events". But as Robin Wood suggests, 'Rashomon' is more plausibly interpreted as a film about people who lie to show themselves to their best advantage, and this interpretation is arguably more precisely relevant to early 1950s Japan, where men with questionable war records were being quietly restored to positions of influence. Alexander Jacoby, Manufacturing Dissent, Sight & Sound, November 2011
Whenever I write a film, I write about myself and I might divide myself into two men and then write some terrible female cliche parts that are idiots or idealists or both. Just before I make the film, I switch the sexes around. No man today will stand up and say, "The male parts are a little cliched," whereas a woman will say it straight away. Even though I'm not trying to make the characters female, that's what I end up doing. I'm not making an effort to make them female, I'm giving them some conceptual idea of who they are, because it's a concept I have for myself, and that makes it more believable. Lars von Trier, The Confessions of Lars von Trier, Sight & Sound, October 2011
It’s obvious for me as a German with a different historical background, I respectfully disagree with the practice of [capital punishment]. And not just in America, in China, in India, in Pakistan and Japan, for example. But I never make up my mind, I am just very curious, and I start exploring. And of course, in this case, I had very little time with every single individual in the film ["Into the Abyss" ] -- none of them I met with for more than one hour in my entire life. But even after shooting, I keep my mind completely open, and because of that, all of a sudden I discover something in the footage that I had never anticipated – and that’s life, the urgency of life. This is why the film has the title, “Into The Abyss,” and then under it, it says, “A Tale of Death, A Tale of Life.” In the last chapter of the film is the urgency of life. And this is something completely unplanned, but it came from all of the footage at me so strongly that I had to include it, even as a chapter in the film. Werner Herzog, Werner Herzog Talks Teaching Lock-Picking, Being A Living Legend And 'Into The Abyss' , November 14, 2011
"Tyrannosaur" is about the complexities of survival and the faces we put on to survive every day. You walk past people in streets, or they serve you in shops, and you know nothing about the horrors they may be living with... ... It's an expression of where I was from. This is what love was in my house. It's a cup smashing off the wall, and it's a hug and a laugh and a kick. These are things you have to try and express, or else it will eat you alive. Paddy Considine, Battered Souls, Seeking Salvation in Each Other, November 11, 2011
I'm completely uninterested in justifying it. The justifications are the films themselves. I'm a practitioner; I just like doing it... ... Actually, that's why I look to critics and good film writers for clues to how I work, which I hope won't hinder my creative process but might help articulate something I'm doing, or something that I could do better... As a film viewer and a reader, I wonder: What is Oedipus? What is Michael Corleone? What is Alex in "A Clockwork Orange"? What is a protagonist? What is the guy in "Sunset Boulevard"? He pimps himself out! Isn't good narrative about people bumping up against their limitations, flaws, hubris, delusions, discrepancies? They're wanting the wrong thing, or they're wanting the right thing and going about it the wrong way. That's what makes drama. Alexander Payne, On "The Descendants" And Why It's a Minor Work, October 24, 2011
I'm not interested in the upper class. I don't know how to write dialogue for them. I don't know how they talk. I've always been working, working, working, so those are the characters I know. And I don't travel so much... ... This is not a very personal film. I have tried to put my skill of the last 30 years to make a film that a Chinese lady could understand without any subtitles. Aki Kaurismäki, "I'm not interested in the upper class." , October 20, 2011
I'm not sure if I'm representative of French cultural moralism. I shoot stories about [mores] but I'm not a moralist. There's a quote from [author] Marguerite Duras that goes, "I seem to have no morals in my stories, but what it is is doubting some others morals." I think my characters are very free with their sexuality and in their conversation, but when I write I don't think about being a provocateur. It's because fiction needs a place where characters are free to do anything. But I don't pretend to be representative of how the French generally view these things. ... I think for a gay director of my generation, it's not necessary to do something about coming out. It's not important to us. It's more important to try and represent more complex relationships between men and women and the blurring of gender. I think for women today, it's hard to recognize a male gay, the typical rules that may have existed before aren't true anymore mostly. And actually, this is also the same phenomenon for gay men. They can have a desire for straight men because not everyone knows right away. Gays don't need to exist in a gay ghetto to be happy now. Christophe Honoré, "I think my characters are very free with their sexuality" , September 16, 2011
I wonder whether my bleak-o-meter is set differently from other people's. I have such passion for what I do that I can't see it as bleak. When people use that word, or 'grim' or 'gritty', I just think, 'Oh, come on, look a bit deeper.' My films don't give you an easy ride. I can see that. The sense I get is that people have quite a physical experience with them. They feel afterwards that they've really been through something. Andrea Arnold, 'I don't do easy rides' , 31 October 2011
Errol Morris says I kidnapped my ex-boyfriend [ in "Tabloid" ]. That's a slander. I rescued him from the cult Mormon machine. Did you know I did my doctoral studies in film? I thought Errol Morris was a respectable film-maker but he used misleading jump cuts and composite shots and made my story a funny story. It's not! I'm an Erin Brockovich-style victim of a financial corporation masquerading as a religion ... I was popular – like Kate Middleton. Errol Morris is a deceiver and a master manipulator. His trashy, perverted film makes me look like a bimbo, slut, sexpot. I'm suing him for $50m. Maybe more. The creep! Joyce McKinney, Errol Morris: creating reality, 28 October 2011
There's real power in a documentary, and there's real power in movies to begin with. Movies transcend culture; they transcend countries, and to be able to have something that can create global awareness is necessary today. Morgan Spurlock, Reel to real: can documentaries change the world?, 6 October 2011
Storytelling is inherently dangerous. Consider a traumatic event in your life. Think about how you experienced it. Now think about how you told it to someone a year later. Now think about how you told it for the hundredth time. It's not the same thing. Most people think perspective is a good thing: you can figure out characters arcs, you can apply a moral, you can tell it with understanding and context. But this perspective is a misrepresentation: it's a reconstruction with meaning, and as such bears little resemblance to the event. Charlie Kaufman, Why I wrote Being John Malkovich, 3 October 2011
Natural is not what interests me. I want to act, to be inventive. When I see actors I admire, like Meryl Streep, who is one of the greats, she's not natural. We don't care if she's natural but she brings across something – a madness, a fantasy – that's what is interesting. Natural, it's a good quality for an actor, but it's not enough. Charlotte Gainsbourg, 'It's good to be disappointed in yourself', 28 September 2011
[ In "My Blueberry Nights" ] what seemed nonchalant in Cantonese becomes obvious and sentimental cheese in English. The nakedness of his characters' utterances and the lack of sufficient colloquial translation makes the affecting discourses of his Hong Kong films seem like nothing more than a succession of sentimental clichés here—clichés that lay bare the formulaic drive behind his conception of romantic relationships. Wong's film exists wholly outside the historical and the social. In My Blueberry Nights, America becomes little more than a backdrop for the technical virtuosity of a filmmaker unwilling to discover a new reality; instead, he lazily recycles his own cinematic mannerisms. He has the potential to reinvent, but first he needs to reinvent his own language. Vicente Rodriguez-Ortega, Gone Horribly Wong
Twelve Canoes (2009) 66 min
Directors: Rolf de Heer, Molly Reynolds
Having a child made me a much better director. Everything in my life changed. I understood that what I was making was not about me, it was about the process of creating. You have to cut the tie to your own ego. ... Film-making is the only thing a man can do that could possibly be similar to a woman giving birth. It's such an emotionally complex experience, we men could never understand what a woman goes through, which is why women are so much more sophisticated and interesting, and in my opinion should rule the world. Nicolas Winding Refn, 'Film-making is a fetish' , 8 September 2011
It is our connection to each other that allows the virus to spread. But it's also our connection to each other that tells us to care for one another. Scott Z. Burns, Word of Mouth: 'Contagion' could really catch on, September 8, 2011
I've been saying for years that the biggest difficulty of the 21st century is going to be anarchism. There's no question that the internet aids and abets that. People have had hard times before. It didn't mean you just cocked a snook at society. The first sign of it was punk, which was the first youth movement that was negative, that said: "You don't want us? Well, fuck you." I don't think anybody took enough notice of that, sociologically. Previous youth movements had optimism, hope, something to offer. But suddenly a generation came along saying: 'we don't feel wanted.' John Hurt, 'I'd be a rubbish spy', 6 September 2011
Just because you are offended doesn't mean you are right. People fall into this myth that I'm a shock comedian. I've never been that. People say I crossed the line but I didn't draw the fucking line, you did. Ricky Gervais, Ricky Gervais invited back to host Golden Globes, 26 August 2011
The screenplay [of "The Tree of Life" ] is the most magnificent one that I've ever read but I couldn't find that same emotion on screen. A clearer and more conventional narrative would have helped the film without, in my opinion, lessening its beauty and its impact. Frankly, I'm still trying to figure out what I'm doing there and what I was supposed to add in that context! What's more, Terry himself never managed to explain it to me clearly. Sean Penn, Sean Penn on The Tree of Life, 22 August 2011
I once read about a director who referred to an actor as the equivalent of a color on a painter's palette. Penn brings an acid yellow to the glass-and-metal grays of his scenes, and it adds something important to the film; but he doesn't get to do the kind of showy and theatrical performance for which Oscars are won. The star system, the flatteries of celebrity—and, for that matter, the temperament that makes a person become an actor in the first place—contribute much to an actor's sense that a movie is, or should be, all about him. Richard Brody, Sean Penn Vs. Terrence Malick, 21 August 2011
But what about the fact that we still see so few women, especially over the age of 40 – Juliette Binoche is 47 – in leading roles? [Binoche] interrupts, raising her voice. "That debate has been there for ages! It's boring! We're kind of feeding this thought in talking about it. If we talk about something else, people will think differently, and we'll change it. Because we're responsible, as women – journalist, actress, whoever – just to move on." Laura Barnett, Being Juliette Binoche, 31 July 2011
