Mani Ratnam Quotes

Let film-makers take a call about what films they want to do.

Tim also has enough confidence so that it always looks like a Tim Burton film, but it really is collaborative. You're allowed to do it your way but of course he's always going to choose his way.

Writing and directing your own film, for me, has been the best experience of my life.

You make a movie that is about what you want it to be about and let people have their reaction to it.

It's pretty clear to me that working as a director for hire agrees with me. I like it. The films that have come out of that, I personally like better than the ones that didn't.

I feel like I'm a filmmaker; I don't feel I need to yell action and cut.

The one thing I'm proud of as a filmmaker is that people are entitled not to like my films - that's the privilege of the public - but I think I have my own imprint.

For me, directing a film is like confining myself. I want to do something beyond direction. I can conceive stories, write screenplays, etc. That's better for me.

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

No power on earth can ever get me back to directing a commercial film.

Writer-directors are a little bit more liberal, rather than having just the writer on the set, because I think sometimes the writer becomes too precious with the words. If you're a writer-director, you can see what you're doing and see your work in action, so I think you can correct it right there and still not compromise yourself.

I would rather not make a film than make one where I don't have final cut.

I think the big evolutionary step for me is directing my own movies.

I practice the artist's golden rule. I wouldn't want somebody telling me how to finish my painting, I'm not going to tell him how to finish his movie or how to shape his movie.

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.

I had a philosophy, which may have been proven right, that directing isn't as hard as everyone says it is.

Every actor wants to direct.

To shoot a conventional film means that you are always covering yourself. You are putting nets and, in a way, letting bad decisions take over.

I'm not saying I wasn't flawed or amateurish. But you can never say I did anything to appease the music business.

But I'm never gonna get to a point in my life where what it costs to shoot a movie is going to determine what it is. The limits of my imagination is the only thing that's gonna stop me.

All the films I do, I write the scripts, I direct.

When I make a film - I direct my own film, I write my own script - that's what I want to hear from the audience. 'Oh, thank you, Jackie!'

And I may often question choices I make as a producer. But I've never questioned the choices I make as a director.

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.

I hope I can become a good enough filmmaker where I can take a script that I'm not 'heart and soul' into, but I could still make something really great out of it.