Timur Bekmambetov Quotes

I mean, Scorsese's a genius, and that's one way of shooting.

Every time you say yes to a film there's a certain percentage of your yes that has to do with the director, a certain percentage to do with the story, a certain percentage with the character, the location, etc.

You ought to have a perspective when you're making a film.

As the years go by and I make more films, I am increasingly interested in capturing place as a vivid backdrop for my films.

As a filmmaker, you realize that places have character based on their history as much as a face does or an actor does.

When you make documentaries or short films, you have to have eyes and ears in the back of your head and on the sides and all around you. I like that in my films.

I don't mind being in studios, and I don't mind being out in nature. They're two different ways of making movies.

I don't think there is a movie that I've been on that I wasn't sure I could direct it better. But certainly also, as a director of photography, I have to serve the movie in whatever way I can as a filmmaker.

I guess for me - in the TV commercial world I was known for shooting locations, beautiful landscapes and things like that - so, it's interesting.

A lifetime isn't long enough to learn how to make films.

I was a big fan of Joe's film, Narc, so when you hear there's a script coming over from Joe Carnahan, you know it's going to be interesting because he has such a fresh voice.

All films are learning processes. I am still trying to work out how you make a movie. I didn't study at film school or any of those things. I didn't bother with film theory.

I always wanted to make movies no matter what. It's true. No matter how I was getting to do it, that's what I wanted to do.

I've always loved films, and I always felt like a storyteller. I left Norway after high school and moved to Manhattan and went to film school in Manhattan. That's when I really found out that this was my calling and what I wanted to do.

I'm not really equipped to do anything else but making movies. In every other aspect of my life I'm a total failure.

A lot of filmmaking is all about filtering out the bullshit.

I would recommend that any writer get off their ass at least once and just try it. Directing is a completely different set of muscles. It also affects your writing because, once you start directing, you tend to write your scripts with directing in mind.

I'm older and wiser. So and now having segued into filmmaking I'm looking at [Ridley Scott ] and what he does in an entirely different way and I have respect for what he does and how he composes shots. So that was what was completely fascinating.

I don't really believe in the mystery of cinematography - what happens in the camera is what the cinematographers create and all that nonsense.

I was fifteen, or sixteen. I was in high school. I was spending a summer in California with my second cousins. And I wanted to be a director really bad. I was making a lot of 8mm home movies, since I was twelve, making little dramas and comedies with the neighborhood kids.

Acting is one element in a film. Directing is sort of the painter using all of those elements - sound and music and camera and putting it all together. And that can be fun and exciting. If you fail, it's incredibly upsetting - much more upsetting than when you're an actor. But when you succeed it's incredibly, incredibly exciting, so I like the risk of it all.

I would love to be able to get behind the camera and direct actors. I think that would be a lot of fun.

Stanley Kubrick was very selective when he went into a close-up. Every director has his taste in a performance, but Stanley would explore a scene to find what was most interesting for him.

I enjoy directing. I don't know whether it's improving or not, but it's certainly evolving in different directions.

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.