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 KIAROSTAMII believe there’s only good cinema and bad cinema.
More Abbas Kiarostami Quotes
-
-
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 -
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.
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 -
Religion works on some people but not on everyone, because it says, ‘Stop thinking and accept what I tell you.’ That’s not valid for people who want to think and reflect.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
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.
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 -
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 -
I really enjoy listening to stories. I remember them and keep them in my mind.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
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 KIAROSTAMI -
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 -
I saw this French woman, this English man in Italy. It was a film [Certified Copy] I knew well, but I had already seen it, and I was familiar with it, and I had no feeling of anxiety or responsibility toward it.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
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 -
I don’t generally derive my stories from novels. I try to turn into film things I have felt or experienced.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
A movie is about human beings, about humanity.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
I think that if you’re a digital thinker, you can use a digital camera.
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 -
It’s not so much a question of whether we’ve shot it through 35mm or digital video; what is important is whether the audience accepts it as real.
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 -
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 -
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 -
Anything I’ve not experienced I do not look to for a subject. I have to feel it.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
In order to be universal, you have to be rooted in your own culture.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
The only thing that I can do is hold a mirror in front of men and women, in front of the viewer in the theater, to reflect. There is nothing but reflection that I could intend to offer the viewer of the film.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
People have curiosity, they have intelligence, they have interest in understanding their peers. But producers and directors of cinema have decided that the seats in the theaters have been made to transform people’s minds to lazy minds.
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 -
As film-makers, it is very important for us to find common ground between cultures, and maybe that’s less the case for politicians who benefit more from finding the conflicts and differences between us.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI