Quote

If you're not making epic, archetypal films on some level, I think you're wasting a great potential of cinema.

Alexander Payne

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Alexander Payne
Age: 63
Born: 1961
Born: February 10
Film Director
Film Producer
Screenwriter
Writer
Omaha
Nebraska
Thinking
Potential
Films
Level
Levels
Making
Archetypal
Film
Wasting
Great
Epic
Think
Cinema

More quotes by Alexander Payne

Image
I think if you watch most of my films with the sound off, you could still tell what's going on.
Alexander Payne
Image
A book suggests a whole world and story that I could have never thought of in a million years.
Alexander Payne
Image
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
Image
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
Image
I never wanted money worries to slow me down or make me take a job I didn't want.
Alexander Payne
Image
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
Image
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
Image
I think that Peter Jennings is the only decent one of the big three.
Alexander Payne
Image
There is an audience out there for literate films - slower, more observant, more human films, and they deserve to be made.
Alexander Payne
Image
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
Image
The best cinema is about ethics.
Alexander Payne
Image
The biggest fear I have is to die with regrets, and of course that will come true.
Alexander Payne
Image
I like actors who, when you see them on screen, you sense a person, not just an actor.
Alexander Payne
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
I'm hoping one day I can make one really good film.
Alexander Payne
Image
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
Image
In the moment of making films, I want to share my observations of life, not of other films.
Alexander Payne
Image
If you have your movies so that everyone understands everything, I think that's probably not a very good movie.
Alexander Payne