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I did not have a script [of Close Up]. I made notes in the evenings and we filmed during the day over 40 days.I didn't sleep a wink for those 40 nights. I have a picture from the end of the shoot, and in it I have lost all my hair.

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
Made
Close
Evenings
Hair
Nights
Days
Script
Sleep
Shoot
Lost
Evening
Night
Scripts
Didn
Notes
Wink
Ends
Picture
Filmed

More quotes by Abbas Kiarostami

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As film-makers, it is very important for us to find common ground between cultures, and maybe that's less the case for politicians who benefit more from finding the conflicts and differences between us.
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I'm not sure that my films show the reality of life in Iran we show different aspects of life. Iran is a very extensive and expansive place, and sometimes, even for us who live there, some of the realities are very hard to comprehend.
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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.
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It was a film that I knew, that I had seen, that I was familiar with, but I wasn't anxious about it at any point during the screening. I snoozed twice, and this is something I couldn't have imagined that I would feel detached, as I did with this film [Certified Copy].
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I do believe in [Robert] Bresson's method of creation through omission, not through addition.
Abbas Kiarostami
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It's true that the best way of knowing yourself is to put yourself into different situations.
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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.
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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.
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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
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Anything I've not experienced I do not look to for a subject. I have to feel it.
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.
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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
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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
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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
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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
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I would be too selfish if I said everyone should see my movies more than once. To say that would mean I'm just marketing my work!
Abbas Kiarostami
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A movie is about human beings, about humanity.
Abbas Kiarostami
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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
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Unfortunately, cinema critics are very few in America, 400-500 people, but there are more critics of Iran.
Abbas Kiarostami
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In my mind, there isn't as much of a distinction between documentary and fiction as there is between a good movie and a bad one.
Abbas Kiarostami