Cinema seats make people lazy. They expect to be given all the information. But for me, question marks are the punctuation of life.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMIWe 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.
More Abbas Kiarostami Quotes
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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 thought that I had been asked every kind of question possible.
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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.
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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.
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In the total darkness, poetry is still there, and it is there for you.
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Having an international voice is not really about whether we speak Persian or any other language.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
The day we run out of petrol is the day Iran will be free.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
In my experience as a director, I think there is obviously something of the way men – maybe that’s a common point with Shirin – the way men see women in the film, and the way these two characters see each other.
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The film [Close Up] made itself, to a large extent. The characters involved were very real, I wasn’t directing the actors so much as being directed by them. So it was a very particular film.
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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.
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Using non-actors has its own rules and really requires that you allow them to do their own thing.
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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 -
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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I’m still very grateful to digital cameras in general, but I didn’t have this feeling with the RED one.
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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 -
Close-Up is a very particular film in my oeuvre. It’s a film that was made in a very particular way; mainly because I didn’t really have the time to think about how to go about making the film.
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 -
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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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 -
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.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
The digital camera has given me total freedom and a different way of filming.
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 -
Cinema gives you the opportunity to be both a grandparent and a grandchild whereas in life you cannot be both at the same time.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
I don’t generally derive my stories from novels. I try to turn into film things I have felt or experienced.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
I don’t like reverse-angle shots – I find them very fake and very untruthful to the viewer.
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Anything I’ve not experienced I do not look to for a subject. I have to feel it.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI