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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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Alexander Payne
Age: 63
Born: 1961
Born: February 10
Film Director
Film Producer
Screenwriter
Writer
Omaha
Nebraska
Bigs
Making
Film
Problem
Lousy
Whole
Generally
Country
Films
Think
Days
Thinking
Quite

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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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I never wanted money worries to slow me down or make me take a job I didn't want.
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I want all of my films to belong to me.
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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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What is filmmaking but groping in the dark?
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I definitely in filmmaking more and more find writing and directing a means to harvest material for editing. It's all about editing.
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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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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.
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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.
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The kindest thing a director can do is look with open eyes at everything.
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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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Adult movies with any artistic credit are released in the last quarter of the year and expected to gird for battle for Globes and Oscars. So the films aren't being seen just for themselves, but rather in a competitive context.
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I want studios to be financing director-driven, auteurist cinema, as they did in the '70s. I think it's starting to happen now. Plus, because of how our world has changed politically, I think audiences are demanding more realism. We need to have more stuff in our culture about what is really going on right now.
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The best cinema is about ethics.
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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.
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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.
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If you have your movies so that everyone understands everything, I think that's probably not a very good movie.
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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.
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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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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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