Takashi Miike Quotes

I love telling stories with images. But I think there's more to just saying a movie is great visually.

The visual architecture of 'Biutiful' is the most sophisticated of all the films I have directed.

A special effect is a tool, a means of telling a story. A special effect without a story is a pretty boring thing.

Where film is infinitely superior to any other medium is emotion and story and character.

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

Filmmaking, whatever the window dressing or the scale of a film may be, is eventually about telling a story.

As a cinematographer, I was always attracted to stories that have the potential to be told with as few words as possible.

Magicians will always tell you the trick is the most important thing, but I'm more interested in telling a story.

It's a risk, but I'm sort of ready to let go of thinking of movies as books that you can watch. The notion of, 'If I put the narrative blocks in the right order, this will solve all of my storytelling problems.' No, it won't, and you end up with little more than books on film.

The most important aspect of any story, to me, is character.

It's too bad for us 'literary' enthusiasts, but it's the truth nevertheless - pictures tell any story more effectively than words.

To me the most important thing is a good story, though I know how cliche that sounds.

You cannot base a whole movie on just the imagery alone. It has to be the story and the characters.

It's not a film-maker's job to explain his technique, but to tell his story the best way he can.

I think film, to me, as a director, is about telling a story.

In Hitchcock's eyes the movement was dramatic, not the acting. When he wanted the audience to be moved, he moved the camera. He was a subtle human being, and he was also the best director I have ever worked with.

Just telling a story. That's cinema. It's not silent, black and white. It's a simple story that's well made.

When I approach a story or movie, the story is the most important thing.

Creating a character is about what they look like. The look speaks volume to the audience.

I believe that the story is the most important element of any medium whether it's theater, film, TV.

I don't have a style. I've never thought of myself as a stylist like the visual stylists I admire enormously - Adrian Lyne, Ridley Scott, Alan Parker - in which every shot has a great idea in them.

For me, the most important thing is the writing - and certainly the director. But if the writing isn't there, it doesn't matter who the director is!

The camera is not the instrument. People are always the instrument.

I don't use film in the way that the great auteurs do. I use film, the camera, to record as effectively and as perceptive as I am able what I want to say through the actors.

I am interested in people. I'm interested in telling stories, whether that is behind the camera or in front of the camera.