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.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMIWhen 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.
More Abbas Kiarostami Quotes
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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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A movie is about human beings, about humanity.
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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.
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Anything I’ve not experienced I do not look to for a subject. I have to feel it.
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The digital camera has given me total freedom and a different way of filming.
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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 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.
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Whether you consider me a master filmmaker or not, I do it with my intuition and my vision, my experience as a storyteller.
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If I do continue to have the opportunity to work in Iran, that’s very much what I’d prefer to do.
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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 did not have a script [of Close Up]. I made notes in the evenings and we filmed during the day over 40 days.I didn’t sleep a wink for those 40 nights.
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Silence doesn’t seem heavy or difficult.
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I believe there’s only good cinema and bad cinema.
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The experience of life teaches us that being like someone in love is more real, because everything is uncertain.
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I’ve often noticed that we are not able to look at what we have in front of us, unless it’s inside a frame.
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I spend a lot of time doing carpentry. Sometimes there is nothing that gives me the contentment that sawing a piece of wood does.
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I think Woody Allen is Woody Allen, and no matter where he goes he still makes his Woody Allen films.
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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’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.
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If we’re not going to take full advantage of digital, then 35mm is a better medium. Especially for shooting dramas – I have no problem with 35mm.
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This [the earthquake] was a very big influence on me, and the issue of life and death from then on does recur in my films.
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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.
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I never reflect or convey that which I have not experienced myself.
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I have a picture from the end of the shoot, and in it I have lost all my hair.
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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