I do believe in [Robert] Bresson’s method of creation through omission, not through addition.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMIThis was pointed out to me by somebody who referred to the paintings of Rembrandt and his use of light: some elements are highlighted while others are obscured or even pushed back into the dark.
More Abbas Kiarostami Quotes
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I thought that I had been asked every kind of question possible.
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Silence doesn’t seem heavy or difficult.
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If you are a businessman or a politician in Iran, you can get a visa as quickly as you ask for it.
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Religion works on some people but not on everyone, because it says, ‘Stop thinking and accept what I tell you.’ That’s not valid for people who want to think and reflect.
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I thought that choosing a non-professional was a condition for me, because it would allow Juliette to have a less-professional way of acting. It would challenge her performance as a professional actress.
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The experience of life teaches us that being like someone in love is more real, because everything is uncertain.
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My car is my best friend. My office. My home. My location. I have a very intimate sense when I am in a car with someone next to me. We’re in the most comfortable seats because we’re not facing each other, but sitting side by side.
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People have curiosity, they have intelligence, they have interest in understanding their peers. But producers and directors of cinema have decided that the seats in the theaters have been made to transform people’s minds to lazy minds.
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I wasn’t searching for a common denominator – I started wondering about the challenge of working in other cultures. What I reached was the sudden acknowledgment of the universal aspect of filmmaking.
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The one-word cinema wasn’t possible for me anymore. I’d hit a wall, a dead end. Therefore I thought I’d turn back.
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I have received the digital camera as a blessing. It has really changed my life as a filmmaker, because I don’t use my camera anymore as a camera. I don’t feel it as a camera.
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I saw this French woman, this English man in Italy. It was a film [Certified Copy] I knew well, but I had already seen it, and I was familiar with it, and I had no feeling of anxiety or responsibility toward it.
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When I find the character, I try to spend time with them and get to know them very well. Therefore my notes are not from the character that I had in my mind before, but are instead based on the people I’ve met in real life.
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Whether you consider me a master filmmaker or not, I do it with my intuition and my vision, my experience as a storyteller.
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My way of expression is full of complications and mystery because that’s my perception of life.
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I’ve often noticed that we are not able to look at what we have in front of us, unless it’s inside a frame.
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In order to be universal, you have to be rooted in your own culture.
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I have no advice for anyone on how to live.
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Close-Up is a very particular film in my oeuvre. It’s a film that was made in a very particular way; mainly because I didn’t really have the time to think about how to go about making the film.
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I think that in life, being is nothing but an illusion. If we acknowledge that and accept the fact that we are in between states, that we are moving, and this movement is the nature of our lives
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Directors don’t always create, they can also destroy with too many demands.
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I’m still very grateful to digital cameras in general, but I didn’t have this feeling with the RED one.
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If we’re not going to take full advantage of digital, then 35mm is a better medium. Especially for shooting dramas – I have no problem with 35mm.
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I didn’t just see myself as a film director here [in Life And Nothing More], but also as an observer of people who had been condemned to death.
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I would be too selfish if I said everyone should see my movies more than once. To say that would mean I’m just marketing my work!
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I can only display what I’ve been nurtured with, which is this worldview which has become my view. If I displayed anything different from it in my work, I wouldn’t deserve this heritage.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI