Robert Eggers Quotes

I loved being asked 2,000 questions a day, storyboarding every move, knowing as though by instinct exactly where the camera had to be, because it was my story.

The great thing about having spent all this time on film sets is that I've been able to watch directors and how they work. I now know that this is what I want to do as well: to tell stories visually. But it's definitely my vision that I want to put across, nobody else's.

My M.F.A was in directing, and all the films I've made, for film school and after, I've written, directed and shot.

I think you should make movies as long as the story dictates.

I'm in awe of directors like the Coen brothers who can shoot their script and edit it, and that's the movie. They're not discovering the movie in postproduction. They're editing the script they shot.

I think film, to me, as a director, is about telling a story.

Directing is creating a whole. You're able to combine different elements and create a film that is unique and true to your vision.

Spike Lee is a master of tone, so basically, if he wants to do something, he should do it, and Imma listen.

I think the way you make a movie dictates the movie that you make.

I'm not the greatest filmmaker. There are a lot of better filmmakers than me.

I want to be the person who eventually doesn't have to be in front of the camera. I can be behind the camera and really change things cinematically, and this is giving me an opportunity to do something behind the camera, which I really want to maximize.

I prefer directing to acting. There is huge freedom that comes from being behind the camera. It brings a lot of responsibilities as well, but is intensely rewarding. Particularly the chance to help draw out the best in young actors.

I like directing much better. It's more fun, that's all there is to it. It's essentially the same job, which is storytelling, but you have more control over the way you want to tell the story. It's a high. I love it.

I enjoy logic and logic puzzles. And filmmaking is one fun logic puzzle that you gotta win.

I can't do the movies like I do painting because I am really more of a sort of dilettante or something. I mean I know guys that make movies that I can see it is absolutely their medium and they can just go from one movie right into the next because it is just - they have got it so much on the tips of their fingers. But for me it is a special effort.

For me, directing is like writing with meat. I can write live, in real time, and change things and be confident that I'm helping the movie.

I thought of myself as part of the general filmmaking effort. And as my scope broadened, I began to think about directing. I wanted to be the guy who got to say whether the dress is red or blue.

I've never seen myself as a documentary filmmaker. I see myself as a filmmaker, period, and I am interested in drama as well as in documentary.

Getting back in the directors chair - there's a sense of like doing something every year. It's not like riding a bike, you're always learning new things, you're gonna face new challenges and when you face new challenges you'll have an answer for them.

I am a director because I believe in my own impulses and my own point of view, and that belief encourages me to tell stories that will move, provoke, and change people. But I became a director because I wanted to be a part of the world.

Insofar as I'm good at directing, it's because I've become a writer.

Sometimes there are people who don't know how to make action movies - and that situation isn't a good one.

[Martin] Scorsese says one of the great things he loves about it is how Mark can't get the right shot and he's killing people because he can't get the right shot. It's an example of what film-makers are like.

A writer needs a pen, an artist needs a brush, but a filmmaker needs an army.

I'm really specific in the way that I shoot. I've always had a very good sense of what I need in the editing room.