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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.

Abbas Kiarostami

Whether you consider me a master filmmaker or not, I do it with my intuition and my vision, my experience as a storyteller.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI

Consider Filmmaker Intuition Master Storyteller Vision
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.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI

Condemned Death Director Film People
I think life is so difficult to catch, it’s so furtive, that a copy, a film, can in no way catch it and represent it.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI

Difficult Furtive Life Represent Thinking Way
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.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI

Character Director Experience Men Shirin Thinking
I think being someone in love is so hard to define, so temporary, because retrospectively we often deny the state in which we were in love.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI

Complication Deny Expression Life Perception Thinking
As soon as people enter a theater they must become moron consumers who must be fed information.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI

Consumer Fed Information Moron People Theater
When I’m in the process of making a movie I’m not thinking about the finished result, and whether people have to see it once or more than once, and what the reaction to it will be. I just make it, and then I live with the consequences.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI

Finish Making More Movie People Process Talking Thinking
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

Couple Curtain Guess Neighbour People Sibling
I really enjoy listening to stories. I remember them and keep them in my mind.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI

Enjoy Listening Mind Remember Story
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.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI

Audience Back Director Film Looks Film Managed Surprised
Children are very strong and independent characters and can come up with more interesting things than Marlon Brando, and it’s sometimes very difficult to direct or order them to do something.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI

Character Children Independent Interesting Marlon Brando Strong
Using non-actors has its own rules and really requires that you allow them to do their own thing.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI

Actor Non Actor Own REquired Thing
I really haven’t seen The Report in a long time. I don’t have a copy, but I’ll have to see it again. I think it would be good to put both these men next to each other.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI

Copy Long Men Report Thinking Time
The one-word cinema wasn’t possible for me anymore. I’d hit a wall, a dead end. Therefore I thought I’d turn back.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI

Cinema Dead End Possible Turn Wall Word
The experience of life teaches us that being like someone in love is more real, because everything is uncertain.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI

Experience Life Love More Real Teach Uncertain
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.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI

Frame Front Inside Notice Often
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.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI

Death Earthquake Film Influence Issue Issues Life Recur
I do think that we are sometimes, as directors, guilty of portraying or asking our actors to behave in certain ways that are perhaps not very morally acceptable. I’m not the only one.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI

Asking Behave Director Guilty More Perhaps Thinking
I have received the digital camera as a blessing. It has really changed my life as a filmmaker, because I don’t use my camera anymore as a camera. I don’t feel it as a camera.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI

Anymore Blessing Camera Changed Digital Filmmaker Life People
As long as I take the responsibility of the choice, I have to make the choice that is as right as possible.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI

Choice Long Possible Responsibility Right
I think, just as footballers play better at home, maybe film-makers, too, create better at home, even though the rules of football are the same wherever you go.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI

Better Football Footballer Home Rule Thinking
My way of expression is full of complications and mystery because that’s my perception of life.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI

Complication Expression Life Mystery Perception Way
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

Cinema Giving Grandchildren Lesson Life Opportunity
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

Artificial Beautiful Hitchcock Master Saw Technically Thinking Year
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

Camera Digital Intimate Moments Light
We 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.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI

Appearing Around Car Look Rude Silence View
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

Challenges Common Other Cultures

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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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Abbas Kiarostami Quotes