Jeff's Favorite Auteurs
Displaying auteurs 1 - 20 of 33 in total
Georges Franju
“Surrealism had taught me that reason comes after creation, and creation is a true deflagration when confronted, not with a solution, but an obstacle.”
Jacques Becker
"There are several good ways of making French films. Italian style, like Renoir. Viennese, like Ophuls. New Yorker, like Melville. But only Becker was and is French as France, French as Fontenelle’s rose and Bonnot’s gang." —Jean-Luc Godard
Nicholas Ray
“You like these films, but you can't imagine how often they represent only fifty percent of what I wanted to do. You have no idea how I had to fight to achieve even that fifty percent.”
Satyajit Ray
“What is attempted in these films is of course a synthesis. But it can be seen by someone who has his feet in both cultures. Someone who will bring to bear on the films involvement and detachment in equal measure.”
Mike Leigh
“The whole thing about making films in an organic film location is that it's not all about characters, relationships and themes, it's also about place and the poetry of place. It's about the spirit of what you find, the accidents of what you stumble across”
Apichatpong Weerasethakul
“I, as a filmmaker, treat my works as I do my own sons or daughters. I don't care if people are fond of them or despise them, as long as I created them with my best intentions and efforts.”
Jacques Tourneur
“I look for very strong visual unity by using a type of framing and camera movement that is very simple. Everything must come from inside. It mustn’t be superficial. I hate weird camera angles and distorting lenses.”
Robert Siodmak
“Making a film is a matter of cooperation. If you look at the final credits, which nobody reads except for insiders, then you are surprised to see how many colleagues you had who took care of all the details. The director, of course, has everything under control.”
Jacques Demy
"He has an idea of the world he is trying to apply to the cinema or else… an idea of cinema which he applies to the world." —Jean-Luc Godard
Hou Hsiao-hsien
“The main thing is for the actors to forget the camera. They have to act as if they are working in a documentary.”
Rainer Werner Fassbinder
“It isn't easy to accept that suffering can also be beautiful...it's difficult. It's something you can only understand if you dig deeply into yourself.”
Douglas Sirk
“If I can say one thing for my pictures, it is a certain craftsmanship. A thought which has gone into every angle. There is nothing there without an optical reason.”
Joseph Losey
“Films can illustrate our existence…they can distress, disturb and provoke people into thinking about themselves and certain problems. But NOT give the answers.”
Otto Preminger
[Giving direction to a group of children on Exodus (1960)] "Cry, you little monsters!"
Tsai Ming-liang
“The body always plays an important role in my films. You could say the body is the most beautiful thing we have or you could say it’s the ugliest thing we have. We can sell bodies, we can adore or worship bodies.”
Buster Keaton
“I don't act anyway. The stuff is all injected as we go along. My pictures are made without script or written directions of any kind.”
