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I think cynicism lasts. Sentimentality ages, dates quickly.

Alexander Payne

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Alexander Payne
Age: 63
Born: 1961
Born: February 10
Film Director
Film Producer
Screenwriter
Writer
Omaha
Nebraska
Thinking
Sentimentality
Dates
Cynicism
Ages
Quickly
Age
Lasts
Think

More quotes by Alexander Payne

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I like action films, not exclusively, but I like Samurai films. I like Westerns. Not so much war pictures, but a few. I like kinetic cinema.
Alexander Payne
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I've always approached screenplays and so forth with, How would it really happen? Not What's the movie version? but What's the real-life version? Then I just follow my nose.
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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I spend a long time casting, but once I've cast a film there's a reason why I selected those people. So I'm hands-on in selecting the cast, hands-off to see what they do with their characters, and hands-on again to offer suggestions.
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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Each one of my movies becomes easier to get off the ground.
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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I don't want all of American cinema to be big cartoons that are just made to be digested by the entire world.
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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What science-fiction premises do is it gives you a what-if prism to look at the contemporary world with a wack on the side of the head.
Alexander Payne
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When you're a houseguest and you leave, it's nice to straighten something up or send your hosts a useful gift. And when you leave the planet, it's nice to have made a positive contribution.
Alexander Payne
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As the years go by and I make more films, I am increasingly interested in capturing place as a vivid backdrop for my films.
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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Comedy is a wonderful device for distance that allows us to look at what we're talking about with some degree of distance and hopefully with a bit more perspective and honesty. With many exceptions, a movie with no jokes is far less appealing to me.
Alexander Payne
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What is filmmaking but groping in the dark?
Alexander Payne
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The kindest thing a director can do is look with open eyes at everything.
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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A book is a book, but a movie is a movie. The more faithful you are, the more you'll come up with Harry Potter #1 and #2, which are like filmed books on tape. They're so petrified of turning off the readers that they make no concessions to the fact that they're trying to make a piece of cinema.
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
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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