In the total darkness, poetry is still there, and it is there for you.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMIThis 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.
More Abbas Kiarostami Quotes
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I do believe in [Robert] Bresson’s method of creation through omission, not through addition.
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I thought that choosing a non-professional was a condition for me, because it would allow Juliette to have a less-professional way of acting. It would challenge her performance as a professional actress.
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I don’t have very complete scripts for my films. I have a general outline and a character in my mind, and I make no notes until I find the character who’s in my mind in reality.
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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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If you are a businessman or a politician in Iran, you can get a visa as quickly as you ask for it.
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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.
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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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As soon as people enter a theater they must become moron consumers who must be fed information.
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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.
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Directors don’t always create, they can also destroy with too many demands.
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I don’t generally derive my stories from novels. I try to turn into film things I have felt or experienced.
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I thought that I had been asked every kind of question possible.
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It’s not so much a question of whether we’ve shot it through 35mm or digital video; what is important is whether the audience accepts it as real.
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It’s true that the best way of knowing yourself is to put yourself into different situations.
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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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I wasn’t searching for a common denominator – I started wondering about the challenge of working in other cultures. What I reached was the sudden acknowledgment of the universal aspect of filmmaking.
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There were years when Hitchcock was like a master to me, but now I think he’s so artificial. I can watch films and say how technically beautiful they are, but I’m not impressed by any technicality.
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If it does, the fruit will not be as good as it was in its original place. This is a rule of nature. I think if I had left my country, I would be the same as the tree.
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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.
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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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My way of expression is full of complications and mystery because that’s my perception of life.
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Maybe more than a teller, I am a story listener. I really enjoy listening to stories. I remember them and keep them in my mind. All of my films are a collection of small stories that have been told to me.
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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.
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I believe there’s only good cinema and bad cinema.
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I never really learned photography.
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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