Content Over Form Quotes

Composition is a side issue. Its role in my selection of photographs is a negative one at best. By which I mean that the fascination of a photograph is not in its eccentric composition but in what it has to say: its information content. And, on the other hand, composition always also has its own fortuitous rightness.

Did I express my personality? I think that's quite unimportant because it's not people's selves but what they have to say about life that's important.

The first few films I made didn't look good at all, and I wasn't trying to make them look good. People dig 'em because they like the content.

To me, length is an artificial and arbitrary factor in a film.

It is the tale, not he who tells it.

. . . you [film critics] always overstress the value of images. You judge films in the first place by their visual impact instead of looking for content. This is a great disservice to the cinema. It is like judging a novel only by the quality of its prose. I was guilty of the same sin when I first started writing for the cinema. . . . Now I feel that only the literary mind can help the movies out of that cul de sac into which they have been driven by mere technicians and artificers.

I don’t mind citing a bad author if the line is good.

Monks are not expected to speak about themselves; the message is important, not the person.

Poetry is the most mistaught subject in any school because we teach poetry by form and not by content.

In the library of the world men have hitherto been ranged according to the form, and the binding; the time is coming when they will take rank and order according to their contents and intrinsic merits.

You put up with your voice and speak with it because you haven't any choice. But it's what you say that counts.

The medium is as unimportant as I myself. Essential is only the forming.

I can't complain about anything. It's like saying, "I don't like talkies." Time marches on and I don't care how people watch my movies as long as they see them. I don't care if they're on their phone. Believe me, if you ever want to watch my early films they would look a lot better on your phone than they would on a movie screen. The smaller the better.

The medium is secondary to the stories.

For me it's always been about the stories, not what medium. The medium is secondary to the stories.

Substance should outweigh perfection.

We have seen so many exhibits in recent years where the exhibition design was aesthetically beautiful. In this case, if someone wants to get something out of the exhibit, they must neglect the aesthetics and look at my pictures.