You have kids studying master class visual arts who are pushed to make films that will be successful economically; that's what they focus on. So they work for corporate interest instead of artistic expression.
I gradually work myself into a frenzy as the shoot approaches, while we're choosing the costumes or working with the make-up artist. I'm not so much interested in my character as the film itself.
Independent films have a very different cachet than success films.
The silent film has a lot of meanings. The first part of the film is comic. It represents the burlesque feel of those silent films. But I think that the second part of the film is full of tenderness and emotion.
The Sixth Sense is not a good white film. Insomnia is not a good white film. They're just good films. So why we can't we have good films that happen to have black people, or Asian, or Latino, or any other minority group in them?
We make, see, and love films, not digitals. To convert all of our movies, home videos, theaters, photographs and television to digital would be like telling a painter to throw away his brushes and canvas for an I-Pad. Celluloid isn't just nostalgic, ...
American movies are often very good at mining those great underlying myths that make films robustly travel across class, age, gender, culture.
I had very strong feelings, so the chance to make a film that deals in an imaginative way with stuff you care tremendously about is a real high. It's a really amazing thing to be able to do.
There's always the influence of music, film, art and the other things that drive me. I'm usually inspired by my environment and whatever is making me happy or mad.
I'm a contemporary artist and I show in art galleries and museums. I show a number of photographs and films, but I also make television programs, books and some appetizing, all with the same concept.
I always argued against the auteur theory; films are a collaborative art form. I've had some fantastically good people help me make the movies.
Israel is a wonderful place to be an artist - a place where imagination flourishes. Israeli culture is refreshingly avant garde - making films, music, performance art and visual art that continues to push the envelope, inspire and empower.
The Weinsteins believe in test screenings. I don't. I don't think good films are made that way. Call me crazy, but I'd like to think you need a singular vision to make good art.
Part of what I like about the best villains in TV and film is when you feel sorry for them, and that makes you feel even worse for feeling guilty about wanting them to succeed, in some way.
Maybe by his second year in Hogwarts, Harry Potter will learn the trick to making a movie this good, but don't bet on it. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring is one of the best films of the year.
I think every director has a different take, some are good, some are bad. The directors you get on best with sometimes don't make the best films, so who's to say who is right.
In documentary films, the most difficult thing to achieve is to make something complex appear simple.
I have often thought it was very arrogant to suppose you could make a film for anybody but yourself.
One thing I know is that I don't want to be a director for hire, making genre films.
But I think Barry Sonnenfeld let his ego go out of control. He told me in a meeting that he had to do something to make it his film.
You really have to soak up the culture of the people to get it right. If you're making a fiction film, it's entertainment, but you want it to be as real as possible.
