Shane Black Quotes

All these directors, and I would include the Coen brothers and Quentin, have a very unique vision of what they want. They listen to ideas and make people feel like everyone is making the film.

Some of my best experiences are with writer/directors. Guy Ritchie is one. I feel they have a clearer view of what they want to do. They haven't got to try and interpret someone's writing; it's all theirs. I really admire that.

There is often a great disparity between a director's personal style and the movies he makes.

There are only so many movies you can direct. And yet there are movies that I want to make sure make it to the screen in as honest a way as possible.

The Weinsteins believe in test screenings. I don't. I don't think good films are made that way. Call me crazy, but I'd like to think you need a singular vision to make good art.

When you direct a movie, you're basically looking at a story, the way you want to look at it. You bring that director's vision, and I'm totally open for that.

'Frances Ha' is the closest final product to what I had in my head of any movie I've made. I'm not entirely even sure why that is.

'The Lobster,' at some point, was my most accessible film. Then I made 'The Killing of a Sacred Deer,' which turned out to be not as accessible as 'The Lobster.' It was the film I wanted to make and the story I wanted to tell.

I do believe that there are auteurs, in the sense that there are filmmakers with very strong voices and their voices are communicated on to the screen without a lot of compromise.

The director is the only person who knows what the film is about.

You know as a director what you want, but the film is smarter than you, the film says no, the film says there's something more here.

It's the reality: film is a director's medium, and, ultimately, they are the ones that are in charge, and you have to respect that because somebody has to be in charge. But, yeah, you do reach a point where you want to have your voice come out.

An actor is only a part of the film, not the whole, and very often, he is moulded by the director. That is why a good director can make so much difference to a film.

Everything I've ever written, I had a very distinct vision of what I wanted it to look like. But, other directors never do it that way.

With a film, you try to keep your vision in it. I think with 'The American' and 'Control' I managed to do that.

Studios never put pressure. They know the kind of films I want to make.

As a director, my job is to spend money, and the producer's is to save money. Masoom, Bandit Queen and the first Queen Elizabeth have been my most uncompromised films.

No two directors make the same film the same way.

When I did 'Stardust,' I was fighting the studio for things I believed were right.

I don't make films to reproduce reality.

Films are a director's medium. We're all stemming from the director.

I have always believed that when a film is being made, it has to be the director's vision.

The kind of work I do and the films I believe in, I had to take charge of making that kind of cinema.

Cinema is a creative medium. The director has the right to express.

I never control a film. The film controls me.