Harmony Korine

“What I remember myself from films, and what I love about films, is specific scenes and characters.”

Todd Solondz

“Some people will of course accuse me of misanthropy and cynicism. I can’t celebrate humanity but I’m not out to indict it either. I just want to expose certain truths.”

Todd Field

Frank Capra

“My advice to young filmmakers is this: Don’t follow trends. Start them!”

Yasujirô Ozu

“I formulated my own directing style in my own head, proceeding without any unnecessary imitation of others… For me there was no such thing as a teacher. I have relied entirely on my own strength.”

Lucio Fulci

“Cinema is everything to me. I live and breathe films — I even eat them!”

Mario Bava

“In a horror film, lighting is 70% of the effectiveness. It’s essential in creation the atmosphere.”

Elem Klimov

“I’ve lost interest in making films. Everything that was possible I felt I had already done. ”

John Ford

“I hate the cinema. But I like making westerns.”

Monte Hellman

“I've been in love with the movies as long as I can remember.”

Fritz Lang

“I should say that I was a visual person. I experience with my eyes and never, or rarely, with my ears...to my constant regret.”

Woody Allen

“Comedy just pokes at problems, rarely confronts them squarely. Drama is like a plate of meat and potatoes, comedy is rather the dessert, a bit like meringue.”

Andrew Dominik

Paul Thomas Anderson

“I'll rebel against powers and principalities, all the time. Always, I will.”

Alfred Hitchcock

“For me, the cinema is not a slice of life, but a piece of cake.”

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.”

Werner Herzog

“It is my duty to direct because the films might be the inner chronicle of what we are, and we have to articulate ourselves. Otherwise we would be cows in the field.”

Terrence Malick

“[On Badlands (1973)] I tried to keep the 1950s to a bare minimum. Nostalgia is a powerful feeling; it can drown out anything. I wanted the picture to set up like a fairy tale, outside time, like Treasure Island. I hoped this would, among other things, take a little of the sharpness out of the violence, but still keep its dreamy quality.”

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.”

Charlie Chaplin

“Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot.”