Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
I think it was [Jean-Luc] Godard who said that life is nothing but a bad copy of film, but then our ambition must be to make better films and better shapes of forms that are given in life.
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
Form
Copy
Better
Copies
Nothing
Forms
Must
Ambition
Make
Shapes
Think
Films
Thinking
Given
Godard
Life
Film
Jean
More quotes by Abbas Kiarostami
Good cinema is what we can believe and bad cinema is what we can't believe. What you see and believe in is very much what I'm interested in.
Abbas Kiarostami
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
I prefer the countryside to cities. This is also true of my films: I have made more films in rural societies, and villages, than in towns.
Abbas Kiarostami
When you take a tree that is rooted in the ground, and transfer it from one place to another, the tree will no longer bear fruit. And if it does, the fruit will not be as good as it was in its original place. This is a rule of nature. I think if I had left my country, I would be the same as the tree.
Abbas Kiarostami
I prefer the films that put their audience to sleep in the theater. Some films have made me doze off in the theater, but the same films have made me stay up at night, wake up thinking about them in the morning, and keep on thinking about them for weeks.
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
There are certainties in existence, but love is something much harder to define than light and dark, life and death. I think saying you are like someone in love sounds right.
Abbas Kiarostami
Of the hundreds of points to enter and exit that are offered to me, I have to choose the one that I feel is the least wrong, the least fake. It is fake, it is a moment that I choose to erupt the story, but I make it as smooth as I can. What enables me to do it is the skill of filmmaking.
Abbas Kiarostami
If you are a businessman or a politician in Iran, you can get a visa as quickly as you ask for it.
Abbas Kiarostami
If I do continue to have the opportunity to work in Iran, that's very much what I'd prefer to do.
Abbas Kiarostami
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
Close-Up has affected later films that I've made.
Abbas Kiarostami
In this type of cinema, whether working with actors or non-actors, as much as you do direct them, if you allow yourself to be directed by them, then the end result will be much more pleasing. The real and individual strengths of the actors is allowed to be expressed and is something that does affect the audience very deeply.
Abbas Kiarostami
I have no advice for anyone on how to live.
Abbas Kiarostami
I don't generally derive my stories from novels. I try to turn into film things I have felt or experienced.
Abbas Kiarostami
With the RED, I didn't have this impression at all. I felt that it was as heavy as a film camera. Having this great crew, with the DP and his assistants, I found it making as much of an impression as a very big film camera. I didn't relate to it as much. I remember avoiding it during the shooting rather than paying attention to it.
Abbas Kiarostami
It's very true that non-actors feel more comfortable in front of a digital camera, without the lights and the large crowd around them, and we arrive at much more intimate moments with them.
Abbas Kiarostami
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
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
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
