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That wasn't an ending. It was just a stopping point.

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
Film
Stopping
Ending
Hollywood
Wasn
Point

More quotes by Robert Altman

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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.
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Why should I keep doing things that I've done before?
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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.
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Titanic I thought was the most dreadful piece of work I've ever seen in my entire life. Another film that I think is equally bad was American Beauty. So badly acted and directed. But people like that.
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What is an ending? There's no such thing. Death is the only ending.
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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.
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Chance is another name that we give to our mistakes. And all of the best things in my films are mistakes.
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I've had it-the agencies, the winking, the networks, the ratings. Anyone who thinks TV is an art medium is crazy-it's an advertising medium.
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I don't know what Altmanesque means, though I suppose I'm flattered by it.
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The Oscar for the films, it'd be nice. But I don't make those kind of films, and I don't think that will ever happen.
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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.
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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.
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You will never see'Altman's Great Film of the Seventies: The Director's Cut' because you have never seen a film of mine that wasn't the director's cut. I have never permitted it.
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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.
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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.
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I'll give you the same advice I give my children: Never take advice from anybody.
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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.
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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.
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[M*A*S*H] didn't get released by FOX, it escaped.
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I have never made a movie that's attracted a 14-year-old boy.
Robert Altman