When I began to think about the head of the family, the storyteller, the rise of television which became the new storyteller, the break-up of the American family as an idea and then Avalon came.
BARRY LEVINSONStudios just sometimes make decisions on their own that you’re always flabbergasted by. It just happens that way for whatever reason – not even pointing fingers, it just is.
More Barry Levinson Quotes
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First of all, just to get Diner made would have been an achievement in that I got a chance to direct.
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There was a time when I said, “I’m going to go do a television thing,” after doing all these theatrical films, and heard, “Television? Why are you going to go back to television?” It’s an interesting place.
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Some actors are supposed to be very difficult, but I’ve not found that to be the situation.
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I don’t know that you can do an absurdist film and just have everybody embrace it in terms of filling out cards. I just don’t think it happens. So you have to prepare an audience.
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I’ve had a lot of movies that didn’t get great numbers on test screening, but a lot of times the film was able to survive, or the studio still stayed and supported it.
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I always think that there is the good and the bad of it all.
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Even back in the ’90s, I shot certain things on something that wasn’t digital then, but it was on VHS with a smaller camera and we would up it to film.
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No one really has the power, and everybody’s trying to get through the day, and everybody’s nervous and desperate.
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Craig Nelson who is an actor and is in a show called Coach in the United States. We began to do some improvisational stuff and we used to get laughs and things.
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You don’t always have to have the ending, but you want to have a satisfactory conclusion.
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Studios just sometimes make decisions on their own that you’re always flabbergasted by. It just happens that way for whatever reason – not even pointing fingers, it just is.
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I don’t know that you can do it as a satire. I mean, the business is crazy enough as it is. It’s like doing Wag The Dog – we took a thing that was almost completely absurd on one level, and then ultimately those things came about.
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I do know when you look at some ballplayer and all of a sudden he is the size of a truck something is wrong.
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I never really wanted to be an actor. And that was the beginning of it, I began to write things down and eventually became a writer on a television show.
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I’m fascinated by documentaries, to begin with. Because of the nature of television, as opposed to theatrical, documentaries can be in this long form and take you on a journey.
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