A work of art doesn’t exist outside the perception of the audience.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMIA work of art doesn’t exist outside the perception of the audience.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMICinema seats make people lazy. They expect to be given all the information. But for me, question marks are the punctuation of life.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMII’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 KIAROSTAMIGood 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 KIAROSTAMIIt’s true that the best way of knowing yourself is to put yourself into different situations.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMII have no advice for anyone on how to live.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMIIn real life, when someone’s partner calls them, they can tell from the first word their partner says what their mood is.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMIIf I do continue to have the opportunity to work in Iran, that’s very much what I’d prefer to do.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMII 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 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.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMIChildren 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 KIAROSTAMIWhen 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 KIAROSTAMIWe are nothing but a link between our culture and what we can actually produce.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMIClose-Up has affected later films that I’ve made.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMII 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 KIAROSTAMII think that in life, being is nothing but an illusion. If we acknowledge that and accept the fact that we are in between states, that we are moving, and this movement is the nature of our lives
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI