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I always wanted 'Sideways' to be like a great 1960s Italian film.

Alexander Payne

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Alexander Payne
Age: 63
Born: 1961
Born: February 10
Film Director
Film Producer
Screenwriter
Writer
Omaha
Nebraska
Great
Always
Like
Sideways
Italian
Film
Wanted

More quotes by Alexander Payne

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The best cinema is about ethics.
Alexander Payne
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A pitfall of making a comedy with a studio-and it's also an American cultural thing-is that I get tired of being encouraged to go always for laughs.
Alexander Payne
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I mean, look, I love movies, not just the ones I make... In fact, I don't like the movies I make very much.
Alexander Payne
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A lot of documentaries have been made very quickly, but I think they're like frogs in an ecosystem: They're harbingers. Film is always two or three years behind, because it takes so long to write a script, get financing, and get it made. It just takes a while. But I think it's coming. It has to.
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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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I think cynicism lasts. Sentimentality ages, dates quickly.
Alexander Payne
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I love comedies. I take comedy very seriously as a form. It's a serious form, involving a certain way of looking at life, specifically the painful aspects of life. I get asked, How can you have such failures in your films? Well, what else is life about? There's some sense of constant failure in something. Humor gives you a distance from it.
Alexander Payne
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In real life, I myself am kind of a rambling guy. I like to travel.
Alexander Payne
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What is filmmaking but groping in the dark?
Alexander Payne
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My flag is always flying. My shingle is always out. I'm always looking for movie ideas. The hardest part of this whole movie-making endeavor is finding ideas. That's the real goal.
Alexander Payne
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I'm hoping one day I can make one really good film.
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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The worst thing for people to say about your movies is, Yeah, it was pretty good, but it was too damn long..
Alexander Payne
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I like voice-over in films, and most of my films have been voice-over films.
Alexander Payne
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But it's just that the whole country is making generally lousy films these days and has been for quite a while. That's the big problem that we all have to think about.
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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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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In a general sense, to convert any short story, novel, play, or opera into a movie, you have to re-rig it. Even though they're all narratives over time, they're very different forms.
Alexander Payne
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Forgiving yourself may be for many people, at least for myself, extremely difficult. And then in a larger context, I will say that I'm constantly astonished by those who pray daily, Forgive me my sins as I forgive those who sin against me, and beat very loudly the war drum.
Alexander Payne
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I never wanted money worries to slow me down or make me take a job I didn't want.
Alexander Payne