I think Woody Allen is Woody Allen, and no matter where he goes he still makes his Woody Allen films.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMIWith the RED, I didn’t have this impression at all. I felt that it was as heavy as a film camera. Having this great crew, with the DP and his assistants, I found it making as much of an impression as a very big film camera.
More Abbas Kiarostami Quotes
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I have somewhat lost my enthusiasm in the last years. Mainly because film students using digital video these days have not really produced anything which is more than superficial or simplistic; so I have my doubts.
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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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Cinema gives you the opportunity to be both a grandparent and a grandchild whereas in life you cannot be both at the same time.
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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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A digital camera does have many advantages and I was a believer that digital video would be a big influence on film-making.
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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.
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The digital camera has given me total freedom and a different way of filming.
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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 -
My way of expression is full of complications and mystery because that’s my perception of life.
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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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I have no advice for anyone on how to live.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
I thought that I had been asked every kind of question possible.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
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.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
In my films, I try to give people as little information as possible, which is still much more than what they get in real life. I feel that they should be grateful for the little bit of information I give them.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
I 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.
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Close-Up has affected later films that I’ve made.
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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.
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 -
I think it was [Jean-Luc] Godard who said that life is nothing but a bad copy of film, but then our ambition must be to make better films and better shapes of forms that are given in life.
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 -
In my mind, there isn’t as much of a distinction between documentary and fiction as there is between a good movie and a bad one.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
Using non-actors has its own rules and really requires that you allow them to do their own thing.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
I think that if you’re a digital thinker, you can use a digital camera.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
I think being someone in love is so hard to define, so temporary, because retrospectively we often deny the state in which we were in love.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
I do believe that a film like Ten could never have been made with a 35mm camera. The first part of the film lasts 17 minutes, and by the end of that part, the kid has totally forgotten the camera.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
Directors don’t always create, they can also destroy with too many demands.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI