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I love silent cinema but don't hold it sacred. Like any branch of film there are some very boring films alongside the masterpieces.

Michel Hazanavicius

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Michel Hazanavicius
Age: 57
Born: 1967
Born: March 29
Actor
Film Director
Film Editor
Film Producer
Screenwriter
Paris
France
Michel Hazanavičius
Like
Cinema
Boring
Sacred
Silent
Masterpieces
Films
Alongside
Hold
Branch
Film
Masterpiece
Love
Branches

More quotes by Michel Hazanavicius

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I think we are at the very beginning of high changes, not only in terms of digital film, but in the way the movies will be screened, whether they'll be screened on phones, on computers - on everything
Michel Hazanavicius
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I think the writer is always the creator, because he's starting with nothing, but the actor comes in and gives flesh and blood.
Michel Hazanavicius
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If you try to make a silent movie with a normal script and you just pull out the dialogue, you will have big problems with the actors because you will ask them to tell a story that you don't know.
Michel Hazanavicius
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I guess all the directors in France are influenced by Hitchcock, because he's the perfect visual director, in my eyes.
Michel Hazanavicius
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Bernard Herrmann was a genius, a great, great composer.
Michel Hazanavicius
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Actually, I met a lot of directors and most of them have that fantasy to make a silent movie because for directors it's the purest way to tell a story. It's about creating images that tell a story and you don't need dialogue for that.
Michel Hazanavicius
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I think there's something in common with the OSS 117 movies. The big difference is there's no irony in this one. It's not parody. I tried to make it very simple. It's a simple story, but to be simple, it's very complex in the way it's done.
Michel Hazanavicius
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I guess George Clooney would be a wonderful silent actor, and Leonardo DiCaprio is such a wonderful actor he certainly could do it.
Michel Hazanavicius
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I thought 'The Artist' was a perfect way to find a good balance. The artistic challenge is obvious because the film is black-and-white and its silent, but I did my best to make the movie accessible and easy to watch. I really don't want to make elitist movies. I really try hard to work for the audience. Audiences are smart. They get everything.
Michel Hazanavicius
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I can say is usually people are slightly confused. They think that silent movies are old. But, the fact is, they are old because they have been made in the '20s. That's the thing that makes them old. Not the format. The format is just a format. It's not an old format.
Michel Hazanavicius
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The Germans were much more graphical. The expressionism is much more than cinema. It was a movement with artists, painters, music and architecture, so it's really graphic and visual. And the French were something else.
Michel Hazanavicius
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I think Hollywood is cleverer than you think. I'm not sure they will do it. I don't think so, but maybe I'm wrong. When we were doing the preparation of the movie, we didn't have all the money so we were looking for all the solutions possible, and 3D was one option.
Michel Hazanavicius
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I only have one obsession - not to be boring.
Michel Hazanavicius
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When you're with your wife, you don't say I love you to your wife every day but the ways you look at her and your actions are another way to communicate. Don't focus on dialogue, only focus on what you're expressing.
Michel Hazanavicius
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Sometimes I think you have to try to do things that people don't think are doable. I remember at the very beginning actually, the first person I had to convince was myself really because there's a self-censorship. When everybody says 'we don't do silent movies anymore,' you agree with everybody, and you say 'yeah, you're right.' It was a fantasy.
Michel Hazanavicius
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Hollywood is much more than America. Hollywood belongs to all of the planet.
Michel Hazanavicius
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I looked at a lot of photos from Hollywood in the '20s, photographs of silent movies being filmed all over the world which are very specific and very evocative. Berenice, the lead actress, is my wife. She really followed the same path with me.
Michel Hazanavicius
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This is the problem with language, and this is what makes silent movies fun, because the connection with them, me or the audience is not with the language. There's no question of interpretation of what we are saying it's just about feeling. You create your own story
Michel Hazanavicius
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I think being a foreigner and talking about Hollywood allowed me to use some cliches and some references that an American would maybe not use.
Michel Hazanavicius
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French people are strange about America, I think.
Michel Hazanavicius