Film Identity Quotes

I don't really look like I do in any of my films.

Of course I know what works for me and what kind of tone I want my films to have.

First of all, Sam Fuller left a group of extraordinary movies that are unique, that are "Fuller-esque," as one might say, which makes them stand apart from any other director's films.

When you do a film as unique and original as 'Napoleon Dynamite,' it's hard then try to repeat what audiences loved the first time.

The people I met for the first time in the period when I was making films like 'Tum Bin,' 'Ra.One,' 'Dus,' 'Cash' would often remark that I was very unlike the person who had made those films. This is not the best thing for a film-maker to hear because your film should reflect your personality, thinking, philosophy and character.

'Piku' is not at all a film in the Bollywood kind of way.

Any genre as it's called, I think can be quite reductive in terms of what a film is, because I think there is an eagerness to put in any film, in anybody's work, to give it a genre title and I think as a consequence of that, the film starts to obey the rules of the genre.

I always find another version of myself in each of my films.

I am becoming the 'war lord' actor, be it in 'Baahubali' or 'Ghazi' or 'Madai Thiranthu.' I am proud to be a part of these films.

You see a Clint Eastwood movie, and you might not know if it's from Universal or Warner Bros. or another studio. He has affiliations with so many studios now, but there was a time when you'd just look at a movie and think, 'Oh, that's a Warner Bros. film.'

An Ingmar Bergman film would probably owe a sizeable bulk of its import and its direction and its quality to the directorial end and to the director because it's uniquely a Bergman film. But that again is not the general - no, that's much more the exception than the rule.

Here I was, having done a thriller and a horror movie - why did I have the audacity to make a romantic fantasy? How can I continue to make genre films? Well, maybe I don't want to continue to make genre films.

I'd like to think that my films are personal enough to exist without hearkening back to their respective novels.

I like filmmakers where, if their film comes on and you step in halfway through it, you can recognize that, hey, this is a Coen Brothers film. Or, hey, this is a Stanley Kubrick movie. You can recognize some filmmakers. Like, if you put on a Sam Raimi movie, you can tell that it's a Sam Raimi movie pretty quickly. I like a signature style that people can recognize and relate to, and connect with. I think that is part of why we seek out certain directors. We want to see how they view the world.

I loved movies as a teenager and saw as much American cinema as I could, but I hated the English films of the early '60s and had absolutely no point of identification with them.

When I started making films, it was never that I had this great ambition to only do gay-themed material.

You don't go make 'Schizopolis' if you're trying to protect some idea of yourself as a filmmaker.

The idea is to be different with every film, and I'm glad my mother and my brother, who were sitting besides me during the screening of 'Ek Villain,' forget it was me on screen after the first 15 minutes.

I just want to make films that are personal, but interesting to an audience.

I want all my films to look distinctly different, like some other directors I admire. But in a way, I can't really take myself completely out of the movies I make.

After 'Mulk,' I figured it's your voice that people are connecting with. So then my voice became of prime importance to me for my films.

I didn't want to be part of that tradition of French cinema that wasn't really watched by the people of my age. I didn't really care to be in the last André Téchiné or Claude Chabrol movie, even though some of them are really interesting. For me, it was much more important to work with Mathieu Kassovitz or Gaspar Noé. It was for me a question of identity.

I'd like to do a number of films. Westerns. Genre pieces. Maybe another film about Italian Americans where they're not gangsters, just to prove that not all Italians are gangsters.

When you're young, you want to make every kind of film: musicals, Westerns, horror. Slowly you begin to hear your own voice. I hope people receive what I do as small, personal films that are somewhat contrarian about their main characters.

Most times, I'm playing myself in films, like 'Rocky' or 'Creed.'