Directors don’t always create, they can also destroy with too many demands.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMIMy car’s 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’m not sure that my films show the reality of life in Iran; we show different aspects of life. Iran is a very extensive and expansive place, and sometimes, even for us who live there, some of the realities are very hard to comprehend.
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I think life is so difficult to catch, it’s so furtive, that a copy, a film, can in no way catch it and represent it.
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I thought that I had been asked every kind of question possible.
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Those same people, when they leave the theater, when they look behind the curtains they are curious about their neighbors, they can guess if their neighbors are siblings or a couple, how old they are, what their occupation is.
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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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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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A work of art doesn’t exist outside the perception of the audience.
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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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People have curiosity, they have intelligence, they have interest in understanding their peers. But producers and directors of cinema have decided that the seats in the theaters have been made to transform people’s minds to lazy minds.
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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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As film-makers, it is very important for us to find common ground between cultures, and maybe that’s less the case for politicians who benefit more from finding the conflicts and differences between us.
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.
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I prefer the countryside to cities. This is also true of my films: I have made more films in rural societies, and villages, than in towns.
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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.
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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