In my experience as a director, I think there is obviously something of the way men – maybe that’s a common point with Shirin – the way men see women in the film, and the way these two characters see each other.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMIWhen you take a tree that is rooted in the ground, and transfer it from one place to another, the tree will no longer bear fruit.
More Abbas Kiarostami Quotes
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My films have been progressing towards a certain kind of minimalism, even though it was never intended. Elements which can be eliminated have been eliminated.
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I really enjoy listening to stories. I remember them and keep them in my mind.
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The Iranian government as a whole has no relationship with my films. They’re not particularly interested, perhaps this kind of cinema is not very interesting to them.
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Good cinema is what we can believe and bad cinema is what we can’t believe. What you see and believe in is very much what I’m interested in.
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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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Close-Up has affected later films that I’ve made.
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I thought that I had been asked every kind of question possible.
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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 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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I believe there’s only good cinema and bad cinema.
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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 don’t have very complete scripts for my films. I have a general outline and a character in my mind, and I make no notes until I find the character who’s in my mind in reality.
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Using non-actors has its own rules and really requires that you allow them to do their own thing.
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This 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.
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It’s very true that non-actors feel more comfortable in front of a digital camera, without the lights and the large crowd around them, and we arrive at much more intimate moments with them.
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There are certainties in existence, but love is something much harder to define than light and dark, life and death. I think saying you are “like” someone in love sounds right.
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Having an international voice is not really about whether we speak Persian or any other language.
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If it does, the fruit will not be as good as it was in its original place. This is a rule of nature. I think if I had left my country, I would be the same as the tree.
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Directors don’t always create, they can also destroy with too many demands.
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The day we run out of petrol is the day Iran will be free.
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Despite the great advantages of digital video and the great ease of using the medium, still those who use it have first to understand the sensitivities of how to best use the medium.
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If I do continue to have the opportunity to work in Iran, that’s very much what I’d prefer to do.
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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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Film is very much a universal and common voice, and we can’t limit it to one particular culture.
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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 have a picture from the end of the shoot, and in it I have lost all my hair.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI