Complex Storytelling Quotes

People say 'The Wire's bleak, y'know, but I see it as a love letter to Baltimore, and it's one written in a very strange and complex way.

Every time I make a movie I have too many characters and too many locations.

There is more meat and mileage in complex characters, like 'Running with Scissors.'

One of the things that I like about 'Narcos' is that not only Pablo but with all the characters - this is not a black and white show. This is not a regular American cop show where two cool cops go to save a country from a bad guy. All the characters are very complex.

In the case of 'Fantastic Woman,' I wanted to make it a more complex animal than just a 'cause' film. Even though I was sympathizing with the character's struggle, I didn't want to be trapped at that level - it's important, but it can be quite basic.

Anna Magnani, Sophia Loren, Meryl Streep - I love actresses that are strong and fragile at the same time. They bring complexity to their roles.

I don't know, a lot of people go crazy about 'Breaking Bad,' but I don't like the soap opera aspect of it and only following one character. I like the context to all of it, all the pieces, like 'The Wire.' It's more about the state of things; it's not about the narrative of a person.

'Deadwood' proved that viewers are smarter in terms of grasping intricate dialogue than they had been given credit for.

I like movies as a viewer that challenge me to actually think rather than spoon feed everything to me.

You don't get bored with stuff like 'Birdman.'

We pitched 'Sightseers' as a TV idea originally, and it was rejected because it was too dark. But then things like 'Dexter' came out, 'Breaking Bad'... There are so many sophisticated dramas now with comic elements to them.

I loved the book [The Adderall Diaries] I optioned it, I think some years ago. But there's a lot of different threads in the book. It starts off as one thing, where he's trying to cover this murder trial, and then his own life starts to impinge on that, so it becomes something else. I found that fascinating.

Theatre is simply what cannot be expressed by any other means; a complexity of words, movements, gestures that convey a vision of the world inexpressible in any other way.

In our show you have to pay attention and know what happened before. I think it's very intelligent entertainment. It makes demands of viewers that a lot of shows don't.

The kinds of movies I make are not easy to get made.

I think a lot of people misunderstand what I'm doing, because my films are not easy sometimes. They do deserve a second viewing. I think they get misunderstood easily.

Babylon 5 is probably the biggest, most ambitious television science fiction series ever made. It's one big novel told over five years with 110 different stories told within it.

[on BBC's Sherlock] It's a rare challenge, both for the audience and an actor, to take part in something with this level of intelligence and wit. You have to really enjoy it. It's a form of mental and physical gymnastics.

Kenny Lonergan, as a filmmaker, doesn't tell stories so much as he observes them, which is to say, his films don't come pre-digested. You have to bring your own enzymes. It's a more gripping and challenging experience.

In a very complex way, things have improved in the dramatic field. Before you had the good and the bad and you couldn't mingle them. Now it's more ambiguous.

If you're going to have a complicated story you must work to a map; otherwise you'll never make a map of it afterwards.

I think Brad [Furman] crafted an amazing film [The Infiltrator]. It's so complex, it's incredibly thrilling, incredibly touching and it's what people have been trying to do for years in Hollywood, is to try to capture what it's like to be undercover, what is that duality of life? And I think that Brad really caught that.

Every time you play one old-time picture along with today's kind of work, and they throw in the computers and the guns and the this and the that and the God-almighty, it gets to be a hassle and you wonder who the hell's doing what!

I don't have this crazy dream about going to Hollywood, because I really love to watch movies and do movies that are complicated, and I want more strange things and complicated things.

There are a number of writers who believe it is their duty to throw as many curve balls at the reader as possible. To twist and twist again. These are the Chubby Checkers of crime fiction and, while I admire the craft, I think that it can actually work against genuine suspense.