I think certain movies work and that is part of the magic of it all. We can’t truly define why something succeeds.
BARRY LEVINSONI got a chance to work with Mel Brooks on two of his films: Silent Movie and High Anxiety.
More Barry Levinson Quotes
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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’ve had a lot of movies that didn’t get great numbers on test screening, but a lot of times the film was able to survive, or the studio still stayed and supported it.
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Craig Nelson who is an actor and is in a show called Coach in the United States. We began to do some improvisational stuff and we used to get laughs and things.
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It’s always hard to explain why an audience ultimately responds to a movie.
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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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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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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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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 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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Some actors are supposed to be very difficult, but I’ve not found that to be the situation.
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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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I think test screening works at its best when the audience knows what it’s getting.
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You have a movie and it proves itself and then certain things happen.
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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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Even back in the ’90s, I shot certain things on something that wasn’t digital then, but it was on VHS with a smaller camera and we would up it to film.
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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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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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A lot of time mistakes are very interesting – you look for the behaviour that’s not the one you expect.
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I always think that there is the good and the bad of it all.
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I don’t know that you can do an absurdist film and just have everybody embrace it in terms of filling out cards. I just don’t think it happens. So you have to prepare an audience.
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I think when Sarah Palin opened her mouth and started talking, the more she talked, the less appealing she became.
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I think it’s a promising time which will show a lot of diversification that we’ve seen in the past.
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I never really wanted to be an actor. And that was the beginning of it, I began to write things down and eventually became a writer on a television show.
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As soon as digital editing came about, I immediately made the switch to digital.
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Ronald Reagan was this actor who was going to be president, and he was very charming. What he had was, he talked about America in ways that got people all caught up in it. He was creating this America – it could even be the mythical “America” – that we subscribe to.
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