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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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Alexander Payne
Age: 63
Born: 1961
Born: February 10
Film Director
Film Producer
Screenwriter
Writer
Omaha
Nebraska
Even
Always
Things
Life
Somewhat
Notice
Dramatic
Happen
Happens

More quotes by Alexander Payne

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Marketing has supplanted story as the primary force behind the worthiness of making a film, and that's a very sad thing. It's film only as a function of consumerism rather than as an important component of our culture, and that's everywhere around the world.
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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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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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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This is how good movies get made and always have: from the gut instinct of the financiers, not just by committee and research.
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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The better a novel is, in literary terms, the more you can't be faithful. The novel succeeds on terms exclusive to literature. A good film succeeds on terms exclusive to the cinema. That's why so many bad novels can become good movies.
Alexander Payne
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I think cynicism lasts. Sentimentality ages, dates quickly.
Alexander Payne
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Acting is a lot easier than people think it is.
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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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'm hoping one day I can make one really good film.
Alexander Payne
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What is filmmaking but groping in the dark?
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 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.
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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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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The biggest fear I have is to die with regrets, and of course that will come true.
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'm attracted to short screenplays. Nobody really wants a film to be over two hours, or at least I don't.
Alexander Payne