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Cinema seats make people lazy. They expect to be given all the information. But for me, question marks are the punctuation of life.

Abbas Kiarostami

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Abbas Kiarostami
Age: 75 †
Born: 1940
Born: January 1
Died: 2016
Died: January 1
Actor
Cinematographer
Contributing Editor
Film Director
Film Editor
Film Producer
Graphic Designer
Illustrator
Painter
Photographer
Teheran
Given
Marks
Make
Seats
Life
Lazy
People
Cinema
Mark
Expect
Question
Information
Punctuation

More quotes by Abbas Kiarostami

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In my films, I try to give people as little information as possible, which is still much more than what they get in real life. I feel that they should be grateful for the little bit of information I give them.
Abbas Kiarostami
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People have curiosity, they have intelligence, they have interest in understanding their peers. But producers and directors of cinema have decided that the seats in the theaters have been made to transform people's minds to lazy minds.
Abbas Kiarostami
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I don't generally derive my stories from novels. I try to turn into film things I have felt or experienced.
Abbas Kiarostami
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I really enjoy listening to stories. I remember them and keep them in my mind.
Abbas Kiarostami
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When we start shooting I don't have rehearsals with characters at all. So, rather than pulling them towards myself, I travel closer to them it's very much closer to the real person than anything I try to create. So I give them something but I also take from them.
Abbas Kiarostami
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I don't have very complete scripts for my films. I have a general outline and a character in my mind, and I make no notes until I find the character who's in my mind in reality.
Abbas Kiarostami
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Therefore, when you see the end result, it's difficult to see who's the director, me or them. Ultimately, everything belongs to the actors - we just manage the situation.
Abbas Kiarostami
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I only make notes, I don't write dialogues in full. And the notes are very much based on my knowledge of person.
Abbas Kiarostami
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I am still very surprised that I managed to make that film [Close Up]. When I actually look back on that film, I really feel that I was not the director but instead just a member of the audience.
Abbas Kiarostami
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Close-Up has affected later films that I've made.
Abbas Kiarostami
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The one-word cinema wasn't possible for me anymore. I'd hit a wall, a dead end. Therefore I thought I'd turn back.
Abbas Kiarostami
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In the total darkness, poetry is still there, and it is there for you.
Abbas Kiarostami
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Whether you consider me a master filmmaker or not, I do it with my intuition and my vision, my experience as a storyteller.
Abbas Kiarostami
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I never intended to write poems, nor to be a photographer, nor to be a film-maker. I just took many, many pictures and I would put them in an album, and then some years later I decided to show them and suddenly I was called a photographer. Same thing with my poetry. They're notes that I'd written in a book and it may be considered poetry.
Abbas Kiarostami
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The digital camera has given me total freedom and a different way of filming.
Abbas Kiarostami
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Having an international voice is not really about whether we speak Persian or any other language.
Abbas Kiarostami
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I spend a lot of time doing carpentry. Sometimes there is nothing that gives me the contentment that sawing a piece of wood does.
Abbas Kiarostami
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I wasn't searching for a common denominator - I started wondering about the challenge of working in other cultures. What I reached was the sudden acknowledgment of the universal aspect of filmmaking.
Abbas Kiarostami
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I really haven't seen The Report in a long time. I don't have a copy, but I'll have to see it again. I think it would be good to put both these men next to each other.
Abbas Kiarostami
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It's true that the best way of knowing yourself is to put yourself into different situations.
Abbas Kiarostami