Quentin Tarantino Quotes

I don't think all films should necessarily look like they do on digital video. I think it cheats the audience, at some point. If you try to make an epic and you shoot it digitally, that doesn't make much sense. I think there's a certain kind of film that could be a "digital film." But it shouldn't be interchangeable with other films. It should be something more than just a capture medium. It should be a different form altogether, something new.

For 'Star Wars' I had to develop a whole new idea about special effects to give it the kind of kinetic energy I was looking for. I did it with motion-control photography.

You hear people say that there's too much CG in movies today, but CG is what allows me to take a green-painted wall in a studio and make it disappear, and then put 100 miles of landscape in. CG, in the right hands, can be a marvelous tool.

People will say, 'There are a million ways to shoot a scene,' but I don't think so. I think there are two, maybe. And the other one is wrong.

Nowadays, when you make movies, you don’t need any lights at all. You have to remember, back in the day, the film stocks that they had were very, very insensitive and they would have these humongous lights and lighting was everything, so everyone looked good. Nowadays with digital film where you don’t need any light at all, you could shoot in the [bleep] dark. It makes people not look so good and it makes aging on film much, much harder.

I don't like movies that are shot on green screen much, you know. I mean, I know that's the thing to do, and I know that it's getting. I'll put it this way; David Lean would probably kill himself, you know, again if he knew that people were watching Lawrence of Arabia on a telephone.

I don't want to speak for everyone, but I think it really picks up where the other film left off. It's true to the format. A lot of times, sequels get overblown for the sake of doing it. Even in the trailer, 'there's eight people in the house', that's just the worst thing you can promote in a sequel. Two people, now there's eight, it's like Jurassic Park with the dinosaurs playing video games.

There's nothing worse than an ostentatious shot or some lighting that draws attention to itself, and you might go, 'Oh, wow, that's spectacular.' Or that spectacular shot, a big crane move, or something. But it's not necessarily right for the film — you jump out, you think about the surface, and you don't stay in there with the characters and the story.

I'd always loved movies, but it wasn't some sort of desperate love of celluloid. It was literally like, "I want to write things, and I want people to see them more."

I've always said Thomas Edison invented the movie camera to show people killing and kissing.

[Kubrick] was unique in the sense that with each new film he redefined the medium and its possibilities. But he was more than just a technical innovator. Like all visionaries, he spoke the truth. And no matter how comfortable we think we are with the truth, it always comes as a profound shock when we're forced to meet it face-to-face.

When I think about the new film, I think I can do whatever I want with fiction, but the more documentary it is, the better it will be because that's what I'm good at. I'm good at observing people's behavior and putting these unspoken things into movie contexts in ways that other people can sometimes miss.

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

I don't blame the people for the fact that so many movies are bad. I think there's a corrupt, perverted, lazy and sloppy attitude that's pervasive in the movie business. The whole entertainment business is kind of crumbling around us.

I'm trying to use the camera to get into people's heads. I use camera techniques a lot to articulate character.

There’s always been this hocus-pocus or magical, mystical thing associated with the making of film that sort of psyches people out and makes them think that this cannot be done; that this is a craft that cannot be learned.

I'll decide to do a movie and then go oh, like "Twilight" fans are probably going to react to this or whatever. But that's always an afterthought. Like I don't plan things out based on other people's opinions of how like I think they're going to receive them. I do it like for the experience.

I think the artist has an ability to draw pictures for people to where they can process these messages that otherwise they wouldn't be open to hearing.

I really enjoyed being on movie sets, and I had fun with the people, but I didn't really think about acting or care, or I didn't think I cared about acting.

You usually get one or the other, you get someone who knows how to tell a story but they don't necessarily know about light and camera and rhythm, or you get someone who can make beautiful images but they can't necessarily tell a great story. He does both and I think he's going to be one of the film-makers that our time is remembered for.

I think I'm a prudent filmmaker.

Film is a truly magical medium. You can create illusions of reality, make people think they've seen things that they really haven't - like blowing a guy's head off with a shotgun.

Sometimes I want to work with a DP, sometimes I want to work myself. I go to 35mm, 16mm, it's all the same, but it depends on what you want to tell and what are the tools you need.

You make a movie and it's like convincing people to go on an expedition with you. You think you know where it's going to end up, and you're hoping and guessing. But, when people trust you and get involved, based on that trust, it's a really nice feeling to be able to have everything pay off.

I understand the opposite side of the camera. I have a profound respect for that. I have worked with people who, when you hit that mark, are doing 50 percent of your work for you. So, you know, it's a balance. When you walk into a mark and you're lit a certain way or something's happening so often you don't know what's behind you... And that's what's so strange about being a movie actor.