Everybody knows that I am not usually patient enough to actually sit down and watch one of my own films from the beginning to the end – I never do.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMIMy 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.
More Abbas Kiarostami Quotes
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I never really learned photography.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
I really think that I don’t mind people sleeping during my films, because I know that some very good films might prepare you for sleeping or falling asleep or snoozing. It’s not to be taken badly at all.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
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 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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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.
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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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The only thing that I can do is hold a mirror in front of men and women, in front of the viewer in the theater, to reflect. There is nothing but reflection that I could intend to offer the viewer of the film.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
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.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
This [the earthquake] was a very big influence on me, and the issue of life and death from then on does recur in my films.
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When I’m in the process of making a movie I’m not thinking about the finished result, and whether people have to see it once or more than once, and what the reaction to it will be. I just make it, and then I live with the consequences.
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I do believe in [Robert] Bresson’s method of creation through omission, not through addition.
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While shooting Ten I was sitting in the backseat, but I didn’t interfere. Sometimes, I was following in another car, so I was not even present on the “set”, because I thought they would work better in my absence.
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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.
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I think violence can never be justified. At the same time, nobody’s culture or beliefs should be insulted, that’s not something I can accept either. But I cannot justify or accept any violence at all.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
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.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
I really haven’t seen The Report in a long time. I don’t have a copy, but I’ll have to see it again. I think it would be good to put both these men next to each other.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
It seems that film-makers are being divided between those working in digital and those who are not. I think it’s not something predetermined – it all depends on what project we have in mind, and on that basis we choose the medium.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
It’s true that the best way of knowing yourself is to put yourself into different situations.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
In order to be able to cooperate with a child, you have to come down to below their level in order to communicate with them. Actors are also like children.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
I think Woody Allen is Woody Allen, and no matter where he goes he still makes his Woody Allen films.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
I only make notes, I don’t write dialogues in full. And the notes are very much based on my knowledge of person.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
A digital camera does have many advantages and I was a believer that digital video would be a big influence on film-making.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
We are nothing but a link between our culture and what we can actually produce.
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A movie is about human beings, about humanity.
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I remember when I came out of an exam thinking I had done well and then I had a clue that maybe one answer was wrong, I remembered that I rather stop knowing, stop thinking about it, appreciating life instead.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI