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.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMII prefer the films that put their audience to sleep in the theater. Some films have made me doze off in the theater, but the same films have made me stay up at night, wake up thinking about them in the morning, and keep on thinking about them for weeks.
More Abbas Kiarostami Quotes
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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.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
When 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.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
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
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
If I do continue to have the opportunity to work in Iran, that’s very much what I’d prefer to do.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
In order to be universal, you have to be rooted in your own culture.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
I think that if you’re a digital thinker, you can use a digital camera.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
Close-Up has affected later films that I’ve made.
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 -
Having an international voice is not really about whether we speak Persian or any other language.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
I have a picture from the end of the shoot, and in it I have lost all my hair.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
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.
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.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
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.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
I am still very surprised that I managed to make that film [Close Up]. When I actually look back on that film, I really feel that I was not the director but instead just a member of the audience.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
As long as I take the responsibility of the choice, I have to make the choice that is as right as possible.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
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.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
Anything I’ve not experienced I do not look to for a subject. I have to feel it.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
Using non-actors has its own rules and really requires that you allow them to do their own thing.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
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.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
In my opinion the man looks at the relationship in a more bitter fashion and the woman still holds great hopes.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
My way of expression is full of complications and mystery because that’s my perception of life.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
We are nothing but a link between our culture and what we can actually produce.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
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 -
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.
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 -
I was mentioning with the digital camera, maybe this new fashion of filmmaking gives a closer look of what life may be like. But it’s still nothing but a copy.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI