Jean-Jacques Annaud Quotes

I'm not naive enough to pretend that on its own cinema can capture the very soul of significant social and cultural problems.

Undeniably the American art form, too. And yet more and more, we see films made that diminish the American experience and example. And sometimes trash it completely.

I see it as my duty in some way is to be out in the world as an Australian putting forward what I consider to be authentic Australian music.

I think that our task as filmmakers is to create the most insightful reality given the most pressing questions.

The point is that a filmmaker is like a journalist in projecting reality in the true sense of the word. Only thing is he dramatically packages it to make more effect.

Art in America should be American, drawn from American sources, memorializing American achievement.

I don't think we've seen any cinema yet. I think we've seen 100 years of illustrated text.

Film is this incredible medium that allows us to feel empathy for people that are very different than us and worlds completely foreign from our own.

In many ways the film business is behind what's going on culturally. We are a world that is becoming more diverse and there's no going back.

There are artists in Belgium who try to imitate American artists. But it's like, if you're Belgian pretending to be American, you won't be better than the American because you aren't American. You have to do your own stuff.

I haven't written too many political lyrics. Nor have I written any pro-Canada lyrics, any kind of jingoistic, nationalistic cant... That stuff doesn't interest me and I don't even know if I could write that if I tried because I don't really feel it.

Philippines, what an amazing honor it has been to carry your name across my chest and to embody you in all aspects.

I love indie movies - I feel they can really allow you to develop a character.

I decided that we should have a flag, that a flag fit us as a symbol, that we are a people, a tribe if you will. And flags are about proclaiming power, so it's very appropriate.

There's a distinct American culture that evolved from the United States founding, and that is what made America great, is what allowed the human being to become.

America is a magical place, and I think my job, or the job of a lot of us European filmmakers is to just hold up America to Americans and present it to you in a new way. All I wanted to do is in a funny way say, "Look at your country. It's magnificent."

I think my work is very American because I'm American. But I found that Europeans like uncertainty and doubt.

They've been screaming about the death of literacy for years, but I think TV is the Gutenberg [printing] press. I think TV is the only thing that keeps us vaguely in democracy even if it's in the hands of the corporate culture. If you're an artist you write in your time. Moaning about the fact that maybe people read more books a hundred years ago - that's not true. I think the same percentage has always read.

We're Americans. I don't consider us to be evil, I just don't think we know any better. We're a really young culture. We're hillbillies, and the rest of the world sees us that way. I travel all over the world, and probably the only worse rednecks than us are the Australians. And they're an even younger country.

Fine art, poetry, that kind of thing, elevates a nation.

The American dream has always depended on the dialogue between the present and the past. In our architecture, as in all our other arts-indeed, as in our political and social culture as a whole-ours has been a struggle to formulate and sustain a usable past.

I think that Danish people may be thought off as the happiest people, but honestly...I love America.

I miss directing. I see stories in images and music more so than in dialogue.

Our poets have sung of wine, the product of a foreign plant which commonly they never saw, as if our own plants had no juice in them more than the singers.

Directing is all about storytelling. It's not about equipment, or anything else.