I don’t generally derive my stories from novels. I try to turn into film things I have felt or experienced.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMIYou’ve noticed that same joke told by two different people, once works, and the other time doesn’t, simply because how the person edits it. The silences, the pauses, what they neglect, what they emphasize – all of this matters.
More Abbas Kiarostami Quotes
-
-
A digital camera does have many advantages and I was a believer that digital video would be a big influence on film-making.
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 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
In order to be universal, you have to be rooted in your own culture.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
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 -
I think Woody Allen is Woody Allen, and no matter where he goes he still makes his Woody Allen films.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
I thought that I had been asked every kind of question possible.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
The [Iranian] government grapples with more important issues and we can maybe say that these films don’t really exist for them. It’s not about whether they like it or don’t; it’s just not very important to them.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
I think I really produce my best work in Iran.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
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 -
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.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI