Quote

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

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
Always
Financiers
Committee
Guts
Instinct
Research
Movies
Made
Good

More quotes by 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
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
Image
What is filmmaking but groping in the dark?
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
I never wanted money worries to slow me down or make me take a job I didn't want.
Alexander Payne
Image
I like to think of film-making not just as an act of personal self-aggrandisement but rather as an act of public service.
Alexander Payne
Image
I love comedies. I take comedy very seriously as a form. It's a serious form, involving a certain way of looking at life, specifically the painful aspects of life. I get asked, How can you have such failures in your films? Well, what else is life about? There's some sense of constant failure in something. Humor gives you a distance from it.
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
You just never know when you're living in a golden age.
Alexander Payne
Image
I definitely in filmmaking more and more find writing and directing a means to harvest material for editing. It's all about editing.
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
I think that Peter Jennings is the only decent one of the big three.
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
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
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
Image
In real life, I myself am kind of a rambling guy. I like to travel.
Alexander Payne
Image
Each one of my movies becomes easier to get off the ground.
Alexander Payne
Image
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.
Alexander Payne
Image
In the moment of making films, I want to share my observations of life, not of other films.
Alexander Payne
Image
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