Coen brothers movies are not always what life looks like but it's definitely what life feels like.
Ultimately, I want to direct a movie, so that's another thing, too, where I wonder what that will look like and how will I be able to manage.
One interview would lead us to another interview, which led us to another interview. We had the questions and the idea of chonicling this moment in time. But we didn't have a movie, per se. As we started interviewing people, it started to kind of define itself.
I walked out of Spielberg's 'Lincoln' having such a thirst for more. It used such a microscopic albeit enormous event in American history. It used such a small piece of his presidency to illustrate him as a president through the lens of that event.
I was originally a painter, and I made films sort of as an extension of that, and then I started to try to make dramatic films because the early films were experimental films.
My dad was always interested in characters he didn't understand - he was such a great bad guy in movies. And that is really the thing that calls me to the material often: something I struggle to understand in human behaviour.
When I make a movie, it's almost a relief to get shooting 'cause the hell is over, or part of the hell is over.
I watched a lot of movies. I was deeply influenced by movies.
Movies are not about moving, but about whether to move.
Movies are a voyeuristic experience. You have to make the audience feel like they are peeking through a keyhole. I think of myself as the audience. Then I use light, framing, and motion to create a focal point.
When I meet certain filmmakers, sometimes you sit down and you do have some kind of shorthand. It can be fun to see them as someone who has been through similar experiences, but also as someone who just loves film. You can talk with them about films in a way that feels really free.
I'd love to direct, and I think I'd be a great director, but... I've been approved by the studio to direct, which I think is a cool jump of faith for them. Or proof that they're really stupid. But I don't think so.
It's all movies for me. And besides, when you say documentaries, in my case, in most of these cases, means "feature film" in disguise.
For me, I was watching Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, Orson Welles, Victor Fleming movies, and I said, "I want to tell stories like that. I want to move people like that. But I'm good at magic, so what am I going to do?" So I started using magic for the right reasons - to get the girl.
Cinema as a means of expression fascinates me.
I've always wanted to do a movie, and I really feel the urge to do it.I'm in Hollywood - I have no business not being in the movie industry.
I'm reading Joe Eszterhas biography; it's fabulous. Every time he made a movie, he fought with the director or the producer over the ending.
I was never attracted to being a very proficient singer or player. I suppose I was interested in creating a vision; in the same way I was very drawn to tension within cinema.
I'm no longer interested in making political films. There's something old-fashioned about them. Young people now don't care for politics. It isn't present in life as it used to be. And increasingly I like films which reflect present-day reality.
If you wanna do a film where you have a big scope, you've got to make your characters relatable and genuine.
Mohan Raja is an interesting filmmaker. He is constantly, if I may use the word, contradicting himself. He explains a scene, and then he will try to break that and rebuild it. That, to me, is filmmaking. Every scene is constructed after a lot of discussions.
The earliest influence on me was the movies of the thirties when I was growing up. Those were stories. If you look at them now, you see the development of character and the twists of plot; but essentially they told stories. My mother didn't go to the movies because of a religious promise she made early in her life, and I used to go to movies and come home and tell her the plots of those old Warner Brothers/James Cagney movies, the old romantic love stories. Through these movies that had real characters, I absorbed drama, sense of pacing, and plot.
My stated goal as a filmmaker is to feel something. Is to have a palpable emotion in my life, carry it through the gauntlet of the filmmaking process and try and have it land for an audience at some point during the viewing experience. That to me is successful filmmaking.
I think Jesse Eisenberg is such a great writer. He was a great director and really tough.
Getting to work with good filmmakers and getting to play good characters in films is so special.
