Wes Craven Quotes

The greatest thrill is that moment when a thousand people are sitting in the dark, looking at the same scene, and they are all apprehending something that has not been spoken. That's the thrill of it, the miracle - that's what holds us to movies forever. It's what we wish we could do in real life.

The collective experience of watching a great film together in a room is a transcendent moment that will never die.

The thing of sitting in an audience and going into a dream-like state with several hundred other people that are sharing exactly what you're feeling is a profound event.

That's part of what I remember about seeing the movies that influenced me: the experience of watching them with a crowd and how they react to something.

Film is a collective experience, as you know.

A movie is so visually powerful, so overwhelming, that it tends to crowd out how you might have imagined things.

I try and create for the audience something that relates to real-life experience.

I think everybody's had that feeling of sitting in a theater, in a dark room, with other strangers, watching a very powerful film, and they felt that feeling of transformation.

I believe that one of the secret engines that allows cinema to work, and have the marvelous power over us that it does, is the fact that for thousands of years we have spent eight hours every night in a 'cinematic' dream-state, and so are familiar with this version of reality.

I have to feel the audience. I enjoy that feeling of community. There's something sort of spiritual about it in a lot of ways. It's like we're all doing this together.

We all do that thing which is the best in movies - we relate.

I just hope that theaters remain. I think there's something very wonderful about getting into a dark room with a bunch of people. There's something cool about that. Brings us all together in one room where we can experience all those emotions.

I was at the premiere of 'Prisoners,' and I heard two thousand people scream at the same time. I turned to my wife and said, 'I love cinema!' It's the sharing of emotions together, and it's collective. It's one of the last communions we have.

Live interaction with a crowd is a cathartic, spiritual kind of exchange, and it's intensified at a festival.

I wanted to make people feel the same way I feel when I see a good movie.

Movies have these transcendent moments where everything is just right, from the dialogue to the music to the lighting to the narrative context; everything is just perfect, and something magical happens - the film breaks through the screen and does something to you.

Music is a gut thing. You're working in a medium which is more in touch with the primal than the modern. A gig is a ritual. There's a congregation.

As a child, as a cinemagoer, I think there is nothing better than being in a cinema or watching a film. I think it's just a while magical... it almost feels like you're at a big party in India, where you're singing, you're dancing, you're laughing, you're crying, you feel like you're at a wedding because our films invariably cover all emotions.

I don't know any form of art or entertainment that can affect people the way movies can. I know it sounds ridiculous, but they can change your world. They can change your views.

I think that theater is a unique way to communicate with people as they gather together with other people they may not even know. It creates a sense of shared community for the time of the performance that hopefully carries over into other aspects of the audience's life because they have shared this experience together.

But in film you always watch situations or stories that you really have no relation to. A lot of times just because there's no personal connection doesn't mean you can't connect with the film or the characters in the film.

It is such a social thing, laughing. Two thousand people in a room laughing is such a great buzz and they tend to laugh much more in a group.

It's a contract of connection to be in the same space and watch and listen to stories and be caught in them. When you're in a theater, your brain expands because somebody in the theater may do something or respond to something that you wouldn't have.

That's the power of fiction, that it can take the collective and make it personal.

Giving people the opportunity to sit in a dark theater together and have emotions in public, whether they're laughing or crying - that's what makes me happy.