Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
I really think that I don't mind people sleeping during my films, because I know that some very good films might prepare you for sleeping or falling asleep or snoozing. It's not to be taken badly at all.
Abbas Kiarostami
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
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
Mind
Prepare
Really
Falling
Good
Films
Think
Sleep
Thinking
Taken
People
Fall
Asleep
Film
Sleeping
Might
Badly
More quotes by Abbas Kiarostami
I thought that choosing a non-professional was a condition for me, because it would allow Juliette to have a less-professional way of acting. It would challenge her performance as a professional actress.
Abbas Kiarostami
This was pointed out to me by somebody who referred to the paintings of Rembrandt and his use of light: some elements are highlighted while others are obscured or even pushed back into the dark. And it's something that we do - we bring out elements that we want to emphasise.
Abbas Kiarostami
This concept that you refer to in Buddhism is something I've been nurtured with through the history of my country for 700, 800 years - Persian poets and philosophers haven't said anything different with regard to experiencing life in the moment, as opposed to the belief of permanence.
Abbas Kiarostami
Anything I've not experienced I do not look to for a subject. I have to feel it.
Abbas Kiarostami
Close-Up has affected later films that I've made.
Abbas Kiarostami
My last experience of film-making was Tickets, a three-episode film in Italy, the third of which is directed by myself. It's not for me to judge whether it's a good film or a bad film, but what I could say is that nobody had a cultural or linguistic issue with what was produced.
Abbas Kiarostami
I didn't just see myself as a film director here [in Life And Nothing More], but also as an observer of people who had been condemned to death.
Abbas Kiarostami
I've often noticed that we are not able to look at what we have in front of us, unless it's inside a frame.
Abbas Kiarostami
The Iranian government as a whole has no relationship with my films. They're not particularly interested, perhaps this kind of cinema is not very interesting to them.
Abbas Kiarostami
The only thing that I can do is hold a mirror in front of men and women, in front of the viewer in the theater, to reflect. There is nothing but reflection that I could intend to offer the viewer of the film.
Abbas Kiarostami
Cinema gives you the opportunity to be both a grandparent and a grandchild whereas in life you cannot be both at the same time.
Abbas Kiarostami
This [the earthquake] was a very big influence on me, and the issue of life and death from then on does recur in my films.
Abbas Kiarostami
I was mentioning with the digital camera, maybe this new fashion of filmmaking gives a closer look of what life may be like. But it's still nothing but a copy.
Abbas Kiarostami
The starting point and the ending point are nothing but two arbitrary choices. You make them as in soccer games, where they chose that it's 90 minutes, not less and not more. But the choices are the responsibility of the filmmaker. You have to choose to join the story at an arbitrary point, and you leave it at an arbitrary point.
Abbas Kiarostami
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
The fact of having this very new context, this unheard-of way of working, for me was very pleasant. I didn't feel that I was working, that I had any kind of burden to wear, to carry. I really was very happy and very lighthearted during the whole process of making the film [Certified Copy], of shooting it.
Abbas Kiarostami
I often say to my students in workshops that if they are trying to find literary inspiration, they should not go and read novels, because novels are more appropriate for series. Where as they should read short stories - that's the right format for you to be able to actually display the narrative in a film.
Abbas Kiarostami
Unfortunately, cinema critics are very few in America, 400-500 people, but there are more critics of Iran.
Abbas Kiarostami
Maybe more than a teller, I am a story listener. I really enjoy listening to stories. I remember them and keep them in my mind. All of my films are a collection of small stories that have been told to me.
Abbas Kiarostami
The [Iranian] government grapples with more important issues and we can maybe say that these films don't really exist for them. It's not about whether they like it or don't it's just not very important to them.
Abbas Kiarostami
