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 KIAROSTAMIAnything I’ve not experienced I do not look to for a subject. I have to feel it.
More Abbas Kiarostami Quotes
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I don’t like reverse-angle shots – I find them very fake and very untruthful to the viewer.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
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.
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 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 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 -
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.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
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.
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 -
I never reflect or convey that which I have not experienced myself.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
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.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
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 -
I do believe in [Robert] Bresson’s method of creation through omission, not through addition.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
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.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
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.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
Anything I’ve not experienced I do not look to for a subject. I have to feel it.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI