My 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.
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.
More Abbas Kiarostami Quotes
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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.
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 -
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.
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 -
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.
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 -
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 -
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.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
In the total darkness, poetry is still there, and it is there for you.
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.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
Cinema seats make people lazy. They expect to be given all the information. But for me, question marks are the punctuation of life.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
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.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
In real life, when someone’s partner calls them, they can tell from the first word their partner says what their mood is.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
The digital camera has given me total freedom and a different way of filming.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
I thought that I had been asked every kind of question possible.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI