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.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMIUsing non-actors has its own rules and really requires that you allow them to do their own thing.
More Abbas Kiarostami Quotes
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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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As soon as people enter a theater they must become moron consumers who must be fed information.
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Close-Up has affected later films that I’ve made.
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Therefore, when you see the end result, it’s difficult to see who’s the director, me or them. Ultimately, everything belongs to the actors – we just manage the situation.
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It’s true that the best way of knowing yourself is to put yourself into different situations.
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I never reflect or convey that which I have not experienced myself.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
I spend a lot of time doing carpentry. Sometimes there is nothing that gives me the contentment that sawing a piece of wood does.
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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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Cinema seats make people lazy. They expect to be given all the information. But for me, question marks are the punctuation of life.
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In my opinion the man looks at the relationship in a more bitter fashion and the woman still holds great hopes.
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You’ve noticed that same joke told by two different people, once works, and the other time doesn’t, simply because how the person edits it. The silences, the pauses, what they neglect, what they emphasize – all of this matters.
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I believe there’s only good cinema and bad cinema.
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We don’t look at each other [in the car], but instead do so only when we want to. We’re allowed to look around without appearing rude. We have a big screen in front of us and side views.
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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 do think that we are sometimes, as directors, guilty of portraying or asking our actors to behave in certain ways that are perhaps not very morally acceptable. I’m not the only one.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI