Sergei Eisenstein Quotes

Books and movies are different art forms with different rules. And because of that, they never translate exactly.

Film as a medium, like a novel as a medium, possesses a unique ability to communicate. Film is capable of communicating in a way that no other medium can, and I would say the same for the novel.

The danger of that - and there's a grave danger that I, myself, have to be very aware of - is that you become so involved and intrigued in the language that sometimes you lose track that that is only a means to an aesthetic experience that the listener has to get.

Film is such a very good tool for communicating emotions, and all designers and creative people look to inspire an emotional response.

A lot of movies are about life, mine are like a slice of cake.

I think my films are always quite self-reflexive and always question 'why am I doing this, is this the right way to do it, what is cinema for, does it have a purpose?'

People are mistaken to view cinema as some sort of gimmick. It's very much ingrained in the ways in which we understand each other.

A movie is painting, it's photography, it's literature - because you have to have the screenplay - it's music. Put a different soundtrack to a comedy and it's a tragedy. A movie combines all those forms and forces you to pay attention for two hours with a group of people.

What I've realized is that a film operates both on the intellectual and emotional levels, and if you can find a way to tell a riveting story and draw ideas out of that, it's very powerful.

What interests me about genre is that the public connects immediately with it, it has certain rules, certain codes the audience recognizes. I can use that to create something very big.

A movie is a movie and a book is a book, and they have different rules.

Film is abstract, not definite. It is a dream.

I always felt there was a kind of humanistic impulse in my thinking about film as well as a real interest in its formal and aesthetic properties - just this idea that it can bring you into a very intimate encounter with people.

I don't want to do a history lesson. I don't think cinema should be about that. Cinema should be about emotions.

Literature is painting, architecture, and music.

Sculpture and painting are moments of life; poetry is life itself.

One should be a painter. As a writer, I feel the beauty, which is almost entirely colour, very subtle, very changeable, running over my pen, as if you poured a large jug of champagne over a hairpin.

For me, film is an extremely powerful way of conveying a message to a mainstream audience.

I have never made a film to praise or to criticize something. That kind of filmmaking is nothing but propaganda.

Film is probably the medium best suited to reach the most people - the visual, the aural, the limbic, the intellectual: it captures all these parts of our mind and soul. No other art form comes close.

Film as a medium has a power that sports like wrestling lack.

I'm not very particular about the commercial angle in my films, but entertainment is very important.

My main thing was painting; I was just going to do that.

I was criticised for making 'Devdas' so ostentatious. But stark and realistic cinema isn't the only real cinema in this country.

An epic is the canvas Brian DePalma paints on.