black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

I’ve always been interested in how to present something that relates to our reality – which is not really… I don’t even know if documentary itself does as good a job. It has its own problems in trying to get at the reality of the situation.

Gus Van Sant

Joanna Priestley is one of the most interesting and adept personal animators and filmmakers. I have enjoyed her work for years and been amazed at how she gets into her own thoughts onto the screen in a very elegant and focused way. You have to see this.
GUS VAN SANT

Amazed Interesting Way Years
Apparently there’s this kind of songbird that thinks it dies every time the sun goes down. In the morning, when it wakes up, it’s totally shocked to still be alive—so it sings this really beautiful song.
GUS VAN SANT

Beautiful Morning Song
I think over the course of 14 films, I’m returning to a place that I know to tell a story… the same way Spielberg returned to fantasy, Lucas returned to the ‘Star Wars’ saga, or John Ford returned to the western.
GUS VAN SANT

Stars Thinking War
If you don’t have the story and the unfolding of the trajectory of the saga, it’s like getting in a car and not having any gas.
GUS VAN SANT

Car Stories Unfolding
I try to shoot the first rehearsal because people are more spontaneous. People in real life don’t really know where they are going to be either positioning themselves or how they will be saying their words. When people goof during the first take, it usually looks realistic.
GUS VAN SANT

People Real Trying
It’s hard to speculate as a human about the afterlife because you’re not in it. And it’s probably as wild and wacky as you could imagine. The idea that people have figured it out, I’m not sure if I can fathom that.
GUS VAN SANT

Afterlife Idea Ideas People
And Later I Thought, I Can’t Think How Anyone Can Become a Director Without Learning the Craft of Cinematography.
GUS VAN SANT

Inspiring Movie Thinking
Free time keeps me going. It’s just something that’s always been a part of my life. I was originally a painter, and I made films sort of as an extension of that, and then I started to try to make dramatic films because the early films were experimental films.
GUS VAN SANT

Dramatic Film Trying
Free time keeps me going.
GUS VAN SANT

Free Time
Modern-day cinema takes the form of a sermon. You don’t get to think, you only get to receive information.
GUS VAN SANT

Cinema Information Thinking
In high school, I read ‘Silas Marner’ and I was very attracted to this character – he was very rundown and he’d just stop, and things would happen around him.
GUS VAN SANT

Character High School
Now the music industry is sort of like a Craigslist venture, right? Where you’re making your own records and selling them online.
GUS VAN SANT

Records Selling Venture
When you get to be 23, 24 or 25, you start to freeze up and become an adult.
GUS VAN SANT

Adult Adults Freeze
With ‘Good Will Hunting,’ Miramax made certain the recruited audience wasn’t expecting to laugh at Robin Williams like they normally do. From my limited experience, you can really blow test screenings by conducting them in the wrong way.
GUS VAN SANT

Blow Experience Hunting Laughing Limited
Yeah, I try to be really calm.
GUS VAN SANT

Calm Trying Yeah
I’m going in a really weird I-don’t-know-where direction, but I prefer anything [different] from how standardized filmmaking has become.
GUS VAN SANT

Different Filmmaking Really Weird

I’ve always been interested in how to present something that relates to our reality – which is not really… I don’t even know if documentary itself does as good a job. It has its own problems in trying to get at the reality of the situation.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

I’ve always been interested in how to present something that relates to our reality – which is not really… I don’t even know if documentary itself does as good a job. It has its own problems in trying to get at the reality of the situation.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Gus Van Sant Quotes