Vincent Cassel Quotes

Independent film is film that has thought in it. There's no independent thought in studio films. It's collective thought.

The Hollywood model is to develop scripts for 10 years, sell them, transfer them, attach this actor, then attach a director. This isn't what I'm about. I'm much more of a creator and a doer.

I gladly, I voluntarily gave up the kind of commercial film career I had going as soon as I had enough money to finance my own films.

Blockbusters run the mainstream industry. We may never again have a decade like the 1970s, when directors were able to find such freedom.

I am not ready to fit into the mould of commercial cinema.

My theory is, independent movies only work if you're willing to push the material and do something different.

'Independent' means one thing to me: It means that regardless of the source of financing, the director's voice is extremely present. It's such a pretentious term, but it's auteurist cinema. Director-driven, personal, auteurist... Whatever word you want.

One thing I know is that I don't want to be a director for hire, making genre films.

I don't think Hollywood makes many good films anymore. How many directors can you really trust to have an artistic vision, not a corporate vision or a watered-down communal one?

When we do a movie with the studios, they wouldn't be asking us to do it, I don't think, if it was a movie they wanted to get into themselves. What you see is what you get with us, so they let us do what we want to do.

I'll put it this way: with the kind of films that I do - creatively driven, with interesting directors and writers - I don't feel the need to work with the super established, top-tier directors that are out there.

In America, I don't think you have the creative freedom that I'm used to. Traditionally, it's a producer's cinema here.

It is easier to make a film but difficult to make it on your own terms. In that sense 'Madras Cafe' was a very satisfying experience.

People always ask why I don't make independent movies. I do make independent movies - I just make them at Sony and Paramount.

My good films were independent and my bad films were not.

The quality of mainstream cinema has changed. A lot of independent voices feel they can leave everything behind and make independent films.

The whole reason one wants to do lower budget films is because the lower the budget, the bigger the ideas, the bigger the themes, the more interesting the art.

I think, honestly, that the word 'indie' is a false gimmick. 'Independent' used to mean a movie that was financed outside corporate Hollywood, but a lot of what gets called independent these days is totally produced within that system. And there's nothing wrong with that.

Independent films, for the most part, to me, are not so independent. They often feel like people auditioning for a big commercial career. They often do not have independent spirit to them.

I love the energy of an independent film set. No one is there for the money. Everyone is there 'cause they really want to be there. It makes all the difference in the world. It's without ego and agenda, other than just wanting to fulfill a creative dream.

You know I'm proud that I was able to develop and produce movies that I wanted to make.

You don't do an experimental film to become rich, so the people who are involved are involved because they enjoy the creative aspect of it.

As soon as someone like me or David Lynch pops up everyone says hallelujah, how weird.

I always say that in my career as an actress, I've always worked with people like David Lynch or Guy Maddin or Peter Weir who are considered not mainstream directors and that could be because they are like my dad. They are pioneers, and pioneers, by definition, invent something new.

I don't like directing that much to want a career as a director for hire. I like to have as much creative control as possible.