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Most of my films I call arena films. I deal with a confined area -- an arena -- and I try to cover every aspect of it.
Robert Altman
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Robert Altman
Age: 81 †
Born: 1925
Born: February 20
Died: 2006
Died: November 20
Film Director
Film Editor
Film Producer
Librettist
Screenwriter
Theatrical Director
Writer
Kansas City
Missouri
Deals
Confined
Call
Arena
Film
Area
Trying
Cover
Every
Areas
Aspect
Films
Deal
More quotes by Robert Altman
They'll never give me an Oscar. And I sincerely, honestly don't care. I always turn up when I'm nominated and it would be nice to get one, but to win one would be bad luck. It comes with too much expectation. It would be the end.
Robert Altman
I love fishing. You put that line in the water and you don't know what's on the other end. Your imagination is under there.
Robert Altman
If you have a child who is seven feet tall, you don't cut off his head or his legs. You buy him a bigger bed and hope he plays basketball.
Robert Altman
If something works for you, you continue to do it. I did a bunch of pictures for 20th Century Fox when Alan Ladd was over there, but I set the budgets so low that they'd approve and I'd deliver the film. They would have no say in it, which is the kind of arrangement I liked.
Robert Altman
Happy endings are absolutely ludicrous, they're not true at all. We see the guy carry the girl across the threshold and everybody lives happily ever after -- that's bullshit. Three weeks later he's beating her up and she's suing for divorce and he's got cancer.
Robert Altman
Chance is another name that we give to our mistakes. And all of the best things in my films are mistakes.
Robert Altman
Retirement? You're talking about death, right?
Robert Altman
We make too much of the good and too much of the bad.
Robert Altman
I was a heavy drinker, but the alcohol affected my heart rather than my liver. So I stopped. I smoke grass now. I say that to everybody, because marijuana should be legalized. It's ridiculous that it isn't. If at the end of the day I feel like smoking a joint I do it. It changes the perception of what I've been through all day.
Robert Altman
I'll give you the same advice I give my children: Never take advice from anybody.
Robert Altman
What is an ending? There's no such thing. Death is the only ending.
Robert Altman
I insist that they do what they became actors to do. I want them to create something and not just hit marks and say words. So they all love that because they're playing. It's called playacting. Their contributions are not only welcomed, but are accepted and used.
Robert Altman
I've never had a big hit movie. MASH was probably the biggest. I don't make those kind of films, and I never have. I wish each one of them would just do billions of dollars worth of ticket sales, but they never do and they never will.
Robert Altman
I want to see something that I've never seen before, so how can I tell that actor what that is? I'm not trying to construct a document or situation that is what I want, because what I want is something new to me.
Robert Altman
Making a movie is like chipping away at a stone. You take a piece off here, you take a piece off there and when you're finished, you have a sculpture. You know that there's something in there, but you're not sure exactly what it is until you find it.
Robert Altman
I like audiences to crane their necks.
Robert Altman
There was not a lot of dialogue. The titles were just to keep you up. It's the visual stimulation that hits the audience. That's the reason for film. Otherwise, we might as well turn the light out and call it radio.
Robert Altman
That wasn't an ending. It was just a stopping point.
Robert Altman
Words don't tell you what people are thinking. Rarely do we use words to really tell. We use words to sell people or to convince people or to make them admire us. It's all disguise. It's all hidden -- a secret language.
Robert Altman
Maybe there's a chance to get back to grown-up films. Anything that uses humor and dramatic values to deal with human emotions and gets down to what people are to people.
Robert Altman
