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
Instinct
Research
Movies
Made
Good
Always
Financiers
Committee
Guts

More quotes by Alexander Payne

Image
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
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
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
What is filmmaking but groping in the dark?
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
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.
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 don't feel despair because I am able to make the films I want to make, and that gives me hope.
Alexander Payne
Image
I always wanted 'Sideways' to be like a great 1960s Italian film.
Alexander Payne
Image
Somewhat dramatic things happen, and you don't even always notice them — that's what life is.
Alexander Payne
Image
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!
Alexander Payne
Image
I like actors who, when you see them on screen, you sense a person, not just an actor.
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
Marketing has supplanted story as the primary force behind the worthiness of making a film, and that's a very sad thing. It's film only as a function of consumerism rather than as an important component of our culture, and that's everywhere around the world.
Alexander Payne
Image
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.
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
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
Image
I mean, look, I love movies, not just the ones I make... In fact, I don't like the movies I make very much.
Alexander Payne
Image
I never wanted money worries to slow me down or make me take a job I didn't want.
Alexander Payne