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I like taking genres and subverting them. I did that with In the Valley of Elah. I said, Okay, this is just a murder mystery. Relax. And then, two thirds of the way through, I broke every convention of a murder mystery.

Paul Haggis

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Paul Haggis
Age: 71
Born: 1953
Born: March 10
Film Director
Film Producer
Screenwriter
London
Ontario
Paul Edward Haggis
Every
Genre
Way
Broke
Subverting
Like
Thirds
Genres
Murder
Convention
Okay
Valley
Mystery
Valleys
Taking
Conventions
Two
Relax

More quotes by Paul Haggis

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I like to write about things about which I have no answers, questions that trouble me. These things trouble me.
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The wrong one will start saying things like withdraw with honor. We've heard phrases like that before, and they led to thousands and thousands of deaths. Democrats always want to look tough.
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I just want to thank people who take big risks in their daily lives when there aren't cameras rolling. I want to dedicate this award to people who stand up for peace and against injustice and intolerance.
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Walk through Santa Monica and try to find somebody who knows a young man or woman who's in this war. Here, war is an intellectual concept. If you lose your son or daughter, it's no longer an intellectual matter.
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This is our fault. My fault as much as the next man's, because even if I was against the war, I didn't do enough to stop it.
Paul Haggis
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If you're in a relationship and you try to trust somebody who's completely untrustworthy, when trust is the basis of any relationship and everyone else says not to trust, is love transformative.
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Always write from your gut, no matter what the project is.
Paul Haggis
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I optioned the magazine article. That was end of 2003. It was a time when the war was incredibly popular here and everyone was driving around with flags on their car, if you remember not too long ago.
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You hear this story that we're all on the left, but when there's a demonstration, you count how many actors actually come out. If there's a half dozen, that would be a big day.
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There's something that's so basically corrupt about any system in which a good and fair profit is not enough. There has to be more, every year, every quarter, because your stock price has to rise.
Paul Haggis
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What I love about writing is the contradictions we all embody as human beings.
Paul Haggis
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I miss my mother very, very much.
Paul Haggis
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You don't make a film because the audience is ready for it. You make a film because you have questions that are in your gut.
Paul Haggis
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I wanted to do a political film that is as nonpartisan as can be, because I wanted to do a story that was American. I wanted to tell an American tragedy.
Paul Haggis
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When I started to allow the characters to go where they wanted to go, I just had to follow.
Paul Haggis
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I've lived in America for many years. I mean, I love being a Canadian, but I truly identify with America. I love America so much.
Paul Haggis
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A creative person has to believe in the unseen and the untouched.
Paul Haggis
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United States could be a great country. It needs to be a great country. It's our responsibility as citizens to make that happen, every single one of us.
Paul Haggis
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I like to really respect the audience and let them come through on answers.
Paul Haggis
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I was fired from my own television show, CBS's Family Law. It was the second time this had happened in my career, the first being when I was fired from The Facts of Life. I had been grateful to work in TV for so long but had always been chasing a career as a feature writer-director and had completely failed.
Paul Haggis