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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

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Alexander Payne
Age: 63
Born: 1961
Born: February 10
Film Director
Film Producer
Screenwriter
Writer
Omaha
Nebraska
Wants
Least
Hours
Film
Two
Screenplays
Really
Attracted
Short
Nobody

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The best cinema is about ethics.
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I think that Peter Jennings is the only decent one of the big three.
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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.
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You just never know when you're living in a golden age.
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I like actors who, when you see them on screen, you sense a person, not just an actor.
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I always wanted 'Sideways' to be like a great 1960s Italian film.
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I'm hoping one day I can make one really good film.
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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.
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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.
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There is an audience out there for literate films - slower, more observant, more human films, and they deserve to be made.
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What is filmmaking but groping in the dark?
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Hollywood films have become a cesspool of formula and it's up to us to try to change it... I feel like a preacher! But it's really true. I feel personally responsible for the future of American cinema. Me personally.
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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.
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I don't feel despair because I am able to make the films I want to make, and that gives me hope.
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It seems that our politicians see the world in black and white, so why not our artists? Did Woody Allen's 'Manhattan' have to be in black and white? No. But is it fantastic that it was? To see New York like that? Yes!
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I never wanted money worries to slow me down or make me take a job I didn't want.
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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.
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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.
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Somewhat dramatic things happen, and you don't even always notice them — that's what life is.
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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.
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