Nicole Kidman Quotes

'Funny Games' was conceived as a provocation. My other films are different. If people feel my other films are, or respond to them as provocation, then that's quite different. 'Funny Games' is the only one of mine where my intention was to provoke the audience.

I don't think it's right to define films as commercial or art house. What's important is that a film evokes a certain emotion when it's being watched.

Every laugh is not equal. They come from different places. That's sort of the challenge I go towards, making sure the laughs are for the reasons I want. It becomes a back and forth dance with the audience.

I still want to get some empathy from the audience, even though she's pathetic.

I want to do stories that really move me, that have an audience, and at the end of the day, I want people to feel something when they walk out of the cinema.

You finish a film not in the editing, but in the conversations that audiences have with themselves - and in that sense, every viewer is making a slightly different film. And that's wonderful.

A film should always at least be about something.

You can't control how an audience responds to something. It's up to them.

When I walk out of a movie that's actually good, I write emails to anybody I know who was involved with it.

Art is supposed to hold up a mirror to its audience and ask, 'What do you believe? What do you think? What do you feel?' and if you look at a painting and it makes you feel nothing, that's a feeling as well.

I need an audience to look at what I've done so I can understand it, so I can step back and watch them respond and figure out what they're understanding about what I'm trying to do and what they're confused about.

'Free Solo' has got nothing to do with politics, so to speak, but why are audiences responding to it in the degree that they did? I think it's because we give people an opportunity to see someone. Also, he's able to connect when you don't think he could connect. It's a respite.

Once you turn on the camera, making a movie is making a movie. I don't care if it's $9 million dollars or $50 million dollars. You have bigger toys, bigger set, actors who are better paid, but once you turn on the camera, it's director and performance, and I don't find a big difference.

The living experience of film only happens when a film is seen, and only within the spectator, because they project their own fears, desires, and fantasies upon those lights and shadows.

As an artist, it feels good that we've created something that is connecting with the audience, which is what we always strive to do.

My films are like drinking a good beer, but pleasure doesn't mean that it cannot change someone's point of view.

Every play is rhythmic control. If you want an audience to go on a journey, it's rhythmic control. You're crafting when they lean in, when they push back, when they breathe, when they surrender.

An actor is nothing without the vision of the director. The director needs to have a vision that will cross boundaries, that makes the audience sit on the edge of their seats and that pushes the envelope.

With Quentin Tarantino, he makes movies imagining himself as the audience. To be specific and true to what he wants resonates to people who like his movies.

I make movies to be watched the way I want to watch them, and I want to watch them in movie theatres.

One of the things I love about music and making beats is making something and watching someone's reaction, knowing you can do something to manipulate the way people move or act.

At heart, we believe that the films that work well are the films that do touch people emotionally.

Early on, many years ago when we started 'Avatar,' the executive that we were working with said to make the sad scenes sadder, the funny scenes funnier, the scary scenes scarier. That was kind of permission to do what we felt comfortable with.

It's interesting, for me sappy means sentimental and something that gets you in your heart, gets you emotional. That's what I mean. Also, of course, it means that I'm slightly setting up the audience that there's a bit of fun involved, as well.

I like the conscious manipulation that a great director can have. When you're both complicit in the manipulation of an emotion.