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.”

Don Siegel

“Most of my pictures, I’m sorry to say, are about nothing. Because I’m a whore. I work for money. It’s the American way.”

Paul Thomas Anderson

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

Lindsay Anderson

“Revolution is the opium of the intellectuals.”

James Toback

James Cameron

“People call me a perfectionist, but I'm not. I'm a rightist. I do something until it's right, and then I move on to the next thing.”

Brett Ratner

“No matter how successful you are, you are not invincible. The studio is writing the checks. It's all about leverage and who has the power. The goal is to get the biggest deal you can, because you are going to have to give something back to the studios anyway.”

Richard Donner

“In motion pictures, the actor rules. The camera served the actor. ”

Warren Beatty

“Movies are fun, but they’re not a cure for cancer.”

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.”

George Stevens

“To produce and direct a movie today, a man really ought to have two heads. It is like trying to be a traffic cop and write a poem at the same time.”

Roman Polanski

“You have to show violence the way it is. If you don't show it realistically, then that's immoral and harmful. If you don't upset people, then that's obscenity.”

Robert J. Flaherty

“Sometimes you have to lie. One often has to distort a thing to catch its true spirit.”

Robert Altman

“Filmmaking is a chance to live many lifetimes.”

Bernardo Bertolucci

“I don't film messages. I let the post office take care of those.”

Sergio Leone

“In my childhood, America was like a religion. Then, real-life Americans abruptly entered my life in jeeps and upset all my dreams.”

Victor Fleming

“Don’t get excited. Obstacles make a better picture.”

Stanley Donen

“For me directing is like having sex: when it’s good, it’s very good; but when it’s bad, it’s still good.”

William Wyler

“I made over forty Westerns. I used to lie awake nights trying to think up new ways of getting on and off a horse.”

Takashi Miike

“I don't think about the audience, I don't think about what makes them happy, because there's no way for me to know. They think of the audience as a mass, but in fact every person in the audience is different. So entertainment for everyone doesn't exist.”