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
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
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
Each one of my movies becomes easier to get off the ground.
Alexander Payne
Image
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
Image
Somewhat dramatic things happen, and you don't even always notice them — that's what life is.
Alexander Payne
Image
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
Image
I never wanted money worries to slow me down or make me take a job I didn't want.
Alexander Payne
Image
The actors are the greatest executors of tone in a film. They're the most important cinematic component.
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
Just because I make films doesn't mean I think they're great. I just make them and then when I'm done with them I'm just a filmgoer like I always am. They're all lessons. I'm still in film school, honestly. And this one is just a dry run for whatever the next one is.
Alexander Payne
Image
I think cynicism lasts. Sentimentality ages, dates quickly.
Alexander Payne
Image
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
Image
I don't feel despair because I am able to make the films I want to make, and that gives me hope.
Alexander Payne
Image
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
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
The best cinema is about ethics.
Alexander Payne
Image
I think that Peter Jennings is the only decent one of the big three.
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
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
Image
A book suggests a whole world and story that I could have never thought of in a million years.
Alexander Payne