I got a chance to work with Mel Brooks on two of his films: Silent Movie and High Anxiety.
BARRY LEVINSONAll 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.
More Barry Levinson Quotes
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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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When I began to think about the head of the family, the storyteller, the rise of television which became the new storyteller, the break-up of the American family as an idea and then Avalon came.
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I think test screening works at its best when the audience knows what it’s getting.
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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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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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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 thought a great line in the What Just Happened movie said, “We’re just the mayonnaise.”
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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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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 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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You have a movie and it proves itself and then certain things happen.
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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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There’s no downside to having too much experience.
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As soon as digital editing came about, I immediately made the switch to digital.
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I think when Sarah Palin opened her mouth and started talking, the more she talked, the less appealing she became.
BARRY LEVINSON