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I think if you watch most of my films with the sound off, you could still tell what's going on.

Alexander Payne

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Alexander Payne
Age: 63
Born: 1961
Born: February 10
Film Director
Film Producer
Screenwriter
Writer
Omaha
Nebraska
Stills
Still
Films
Going
Watches
Think
Watch
Thinking
Sound
Tell
Film

More quotes by 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 like voice-over in films, and most of my films have been voice-over films.
Alexander Payne
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If you're not making epic, archetypal films on some level, I think you're wasting a great potential of cinema.
Alexander Payne
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I think about what movie I would like to see. I don't think of them as a correction or palliative. I certainly am irritated by anything that's shot in the Midwest and filled with these noble people. Oh, they're so good, and they're so honest... I'm not interested in that. I just think of what's right for a movie.
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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Somewhat dramatic things happen, and you don't even always notice them — that's what life is.
Alexander Payne
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Acting is a lot easier than people think it is.
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 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 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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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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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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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 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 always wanted 'Sideways' to be like a great 1960s Italian film.
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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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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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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I like to think of film-making not just as an act of personal self-aggrandisement but rather as an act of public service.
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