R. J. Cutler Quotes

Filmmaking, like any other art, is a very profound means of human communication; beyond the professional pleasure of succeeding or the pain of failing, you do want your film to be seen, to communicate itself to other people.

My heart is in independent film-making. For me, it's where the fun, gritty storytelling is being told.

I think film is a very powerful advocate and message carrier.

'Rocket Science' is really where I fell in love with filmmaking, I think 'Camp' was incredible, but it was so bizarre, and I was trying to find my footing in this world where you don't have an audience for immediate validation.

Never in the history of cinema has a medium entertained an audience. It's what you do with the medium.

It could be sci-fi, love story, historical drama what counts for me is the fact that they're made by great directors with a great point of view who bring the audience to be elevated and at the same time entertained. That's what cinema is.

I have always believed that facilitating good, unusual content should be one of my prerogatives as someone who has spent half his life in cinema.

I want to make movies that I want to see, and what I miss and I'm not seeing.

I love being a writer-director. I couldn't imagine directing without writing it. You have to write and tell your stories - that's what directing is to me.

You don't make a movie, the movie makes you.

The director's task is to recreate life, its movement, its contradictions, its dynamic and conflicts. It is his duty to reveal every iota of the truth he has seen, even if not everyone finds that truth acceptable.

It's amazing what you can do without in terms of filmmaking when a story is really important.

I got into filmmaking in order to tell very personal stories, and in this day and age, the opportunity seems all the more precious.

I think films are bigger than structure.

Movies are art and the spirit of the movie depends on the creators.

I think every movie is its own little world, and a director certainly sets the tone.

I know the movies that I've liked, and I know the experience that they've given me, so the goal is always to try to create a movie that I would like myself and that would knock me out, challenge me or intrigue me in some way. That's been my criteria for figuring out what I want to do, or also when I'm writing something or creating a scene.

I look at the film as an opportunity to see some bountifully creative minds do something that I could not do - tell the story with images. I can't wait to see what they do.

I began to exercise a lot of cinematic muscle with the precepts I had learned in the New York art world. Film was intriguing. I began to think of art as elitist; film was not.

As far as the balance between being a journalist, being an artist, being a storyteller - documentary filmmakers are all three of those things. The balance between them is affected by the film itself, the topic of the film.

Cinema is visually powerful, it is a complete experience, reaches a different audience. It's something I really like. I like movies.

A movie is really provocation. It's not a message, it's not a statement.

Cinema is not about format, and it's not about venue. Cinema is an approach. Cinema is a state of mind on the part of the filmmaker. I've seen commercials that have cinema in them, and I've seen Oscar-winning movies that don't. I'm fine with this.

I don't make films to reproduce reality.

Hollywood is a film industry, a film business. I don't approach my career in that way. I see it as 'art,' and I become involved in films that ring my bell.