I think when Sarah Palin opened her mouth and started talking, the more she talked, the less appealing she became.
BARRY LEVINSONThere’s no downside to having too much experience.
More Barry Levinson Quotes
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It’s always hard to explain why an audience ultimately responds to a movie.
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I’m fascinated by documentaries, to begin with. Because of the nature of television, as opposed to theatrical, documentaries can be in this long form and take you on a journey.
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I got involved with an acting school and studied for a couple years. They used to have improv exercises that you would work on and you would do improvs.
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I thought a great line in the What Just Happened movie said, “We’re just the mayonnaise.”
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I would give the cameras to the kids in the swimming pools and they would play with them, and then I would collect them and we would upload it. If you’re in the process, you’re there.
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No one really has the power, and everybody’s trying to get through the day, and everybody’s nervous and desperate.
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Some actors are supposed to be very difficult, but I’ve not found that to be the situation.
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I don’t know that you can do it as a satire. I mean, the business is crazy enough as it is. It’s like doing Wag The Dog – we took a thing that was almost completely absurd on one level, and then ultimately those things came about.
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I always think that there is the good and the bad of it all.
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There was a time when I said, “I’m going to go do a television thing,” after doing all these theatrical films, and heard, “Television? Why are you going to go back to television?” It’s an interesting place.
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We’re never going to be the ultimate-insider look. You can do 50 insider looks at this Hollywood business, and the satire didn’t intrigue me. I think others can do that.
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I worked at a local television station and I got a chance to direct and do all those things – worked kiddie shows, Ranger House show with the hand puppets and things like that.
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Studios just sometimes make decisions on their own that you’re always flabbergasted by. It just happens that way for whatever reason – not even pointing fingers, it just is.
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As soon as digital editing came about, I immediately made the switch to digital.
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All I try to do is create an atmosphere that seems comfortable enough, that it removes tension and everyone feels free. If they feel free then behaviour happens, small moments happen and that’s what ultimately works the best for me.
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I do know when you look at some ballplayer and all of a sudden he is the size of a truck something is wrong.
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I play around with human things, human relationships and that, and allow that kind of talk to work in that way, on that level.
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There’s no downside to having too much experience.
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You don’t always have to have the ending, but you want to have a satisfactory conclusion.
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A lot of time mistakes are very interesting – you look for the behaviour that’s not the one you expect.
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You do understand that you can’t force the situation, but in terms of how you edit, you can define that to take the audience along, whether it be a storyline or a character moment that we can play out. The more experience you’ve had, the more beneficial it is, period.
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They’re intimidating the networks and levying these fines, so the networks are not sure of what they can or can’t do.
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I think we are seeing a radical shift in the business in general. The studios are making much more of the real big extravaganzas and there are other kinds of films that are coming out. I think you are going to begin to see more diversification that we’ve seen in the past.
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The interesting thing about movies, it’s not always – y’know, you have to have structure etc and all those things, but an audience responds, in many ways, we walk away and certain things stay in our heads that are memorable.
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I think certain movies work and that is part of the magic of it all. We can’t truly define why something succeeds.
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I got a chance to work with Mel Brooks on two of his films: Silent Movie and High Anxiety.
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