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What is filmmaking but groping in the dark?

Alexander Payne

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Alexander Payne
Age: 63
Born: 1961
Born: February 10
Film Director
Film Producer
Screenwriter
Writer
Omaha
Nebraska
Groping
Movie
Dark
Actors

More quotes by Alexander Payne

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Cinema really lends itself well to big, archetypal stories, you know, classic old stories and you need kind of a weird, big terrain like the Japanese plains for Samurai movies or the West. You need that for these giants to walk around.
Alexander Payne
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I'm attracted to short screenplays. Nobody really wants a film to be over two hours, or at least I don't.
Alexander Payne
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That's how I like to do it with actors, have them really go for it and I'll tell them when it's too much. It's always easier to bring it back then to push it further.
Alexander Payne
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The biggest fear I have is to die with regrets, and of course that will come true.
Alexander Payne
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Somewhat dramatic things happen, and you don't even always notice them — that's what life is.
Alexander Payne
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Joe E. Lewis said, 'Money doesn't buy happiness but it calms the nerves.' And that is how I feel about a film being well-received.
Alexander Payne
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Adult movies with any artistic credit are released in the last quarter of the year and expected to gird for battle for Globes and Oscars. So the films aren't being seen just for themselves, but rather in a competitive context.
Alexander Payne
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When I'm introduced as a two-time Oscar winner, I'm happy that a film of mine has found an audience and some acclaim because that keeps me in business. A filmmaker's greatest concern is the ability to make future films, so it helps keep me in business.
Alexander Payne
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You just never know when you're living in a golden age.
Alexander Payne
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There is an audience out there for literate films - slower, more observant, more human films, and they deserve to be made.
Alexander Payne
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Hollywood films have become a cesspool of formula and it's up to us to try to change it... I feel like a preacher! But it's really true. I feel personally responsible for the future of American cinema. Me personally.
Alexander Payne
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Even if we die at 100, we're still dying young. I want at least 700 years. There's a lot of travelling and books to read and movies to see. I'm not going to squeeze it all in in 85 years.
Alexander Payne
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My editor and I remain very disciplined. It's just sometimes when you're making a film, you get into the cutting room and you see a scene that's slowing you down in a certain section, but if you remove that scene then, emotionally or story-wise, another scene a half-hour later won't have the same impact. You just get stuck with it.
Alexander Payne
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A lot of people get stuck, like, Oh, if it's made by a studio, it can't be independent. Often they link it to the source of financing, or how it's distributed, but I don't really know how you can. A filmmaker will take his money from anywhere. It doesn't matter.
Alexander Payne
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I want all of my films to belong to me.
Alexander Payne
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A book suggests a whole world and story that I could have never thought of in a million years.
Alexander Payne
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I think a badly crafted, great idea for a new film with a ton of spelling mistakes is just 100 times better than a well-crafted stale script.
Alexander Payne
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I still have energy and some degree of youth, which is what a filmmaker needs.
Alexander Payne
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I always wanted 'Sideways' to be like a great 1960s Italian film.
Alexander Payne
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Each one of my movies becomes easier to get off the ground.
Alexander Payne