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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

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Alexander Payne
Age: 63
Born: 1961
Born: February 10
Film Director
Film Producer
Screenwriter
Writer
Omaha
Nebraska
World
Contemporary
Gives
Fiction
Side
Head
Science
Wack
Look
Prism
Giving
Premises

More quotes by Alexander Payne

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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.
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I still have energy and some degree of youth, which is what a filmmaker needs.
Alexander Payne
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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.
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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.
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As the years go by and I make more films, I am increasingly interested in capturing place as a vivid backdrop for my films.
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Acting is a lot easier than people think it is.
Alexander Payne
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My editor and I remain very disciplined. It's just sometimes when you're making a film, you get into the cutting room and you see a scene that's slowing you down in a certain section, but if you remove that scene then, emotionally or story-wise, another scene a half-hour later won't have the same impact. You just get stuck with it.
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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.
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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.
Alexander Payne
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In a general sense, to convert any short story, novel, play, or opera into a movie, you have to re-rig it. Even though they're all narratives over time, they're very different forms.
Alexander Payne
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The worst thing for people to say about your movies is, Yeah, it was pretty good, but it was too damn long..
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What is filmmaking but groping in the dark?
Alexander Payne
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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.
Alexander Payne
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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.
Alexander Payne
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In the moment of making films, I want to share my observations of life, not of other films.
Alexander Payne
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I've always approached screenplays and so forth with, How would it really happen? Not What's the movie version? but What's the real-life version? Then I just follow my nose.
Alexander Payne
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A book suggests a whole world and story that I could have never thought of in a million years.
Alexander Payne
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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.
Alexander Payne
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The actors are the greatest executors of tone in a film. They're the most important cinematic component.
Alexander Payne
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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.
Alexander Payne