Meta-Narrative Quotes

Basic Instinct 2' is an uneasy experience because, although it is hyper-reflexive to the point where it is hard to think of one character, one scene, one plot twist that isn't a reference or an echo, there is nothing knowing about it. No matter how absurd the film gets, it refuses to raise its eyebrows.

Until then I had thought each book spoke of the things, human or divine, that lie outside books. Now I realized that not infrequently books speak of books: it is as if they spoke among themselves. In the light of this reflection, the library seemed all the more disturbing to me. It was then the place of a long, centuries-old murmuring, an imperceptible dialogue between one parchment and another, a living thing, a receptacle of powers not to be ruled by a human mind, a treausre of secrets emanated by many minds, surviving the death of those who had produced them or had been their conveyors.

Big media are all about the angle, the spin. Look to the overarching theme that runs through each and every news story. Be hip to the meta-narrative peddled.

'Goon' is very much an action - it's got a lot of heart, it's got a lot of comedy, it's got a lot of similarities to what I think was successful in 'Deadpool,' and so I think it's not a stretch to compare those two things and say the world is a little more ready than they used to be for this kind of material.

Here's the thing about 'Cabin in the Woods.' I did virtually no research on this movie.

Simplifying to the extreme, I define postmodern as incredulity toward metanarratives.

The postmodern reply to the modern consists of recognizing that the past, since it cannot really be destroyed, because its destruction leads to silence, must be revisited: but with irony, not innocently. I think of the postmodern attitude as that of a man who loves a very cultivated woman and knows he cannot say to her, I love you madly, because he knows that she knows (and that she knows that he knows) that these words have already been written by Barbara Cartland. Still, there is a solution. He can say, As Barbara Cartland would put it, I love you madly.

Within the structure of 'Scream 4,' there is the film within a film, but that's been part of the 'Scream' franchise since 'Scream 2,' when you had the 'Stab' franchise.

I always wanted to make a film that had this sort of Chinese-box effect, in which you keep opening it up and opening it up, and finally at the end you're at the beginning.

I grew up in the heat of '70s postmodern fiction and post-Godard films, and there was this idea that what mattered was the theory or meta in art.

Comedy is the one absolutely self-aware art form. Actually, hip-hop's another one, I suppose. Because in your songs you're talking about how good a hip-hop artist you are. It's like a painter painting a panting of himself painting a painting.

I'm an old storyteller. I tell the story. It's about the story.

What good is a character who's always winking at the audience to let them in on the secret?

There's always something at least a little smug about self-reference - magazine articles about idealistic journalists, TV shows about TV actors, ironic films within ironic-er films: all this meta-media populated by thinly disguised characters making oblique inside jokes.

There are only so many stories in the world... Duplication of plots is bound to happen because most writers have read very extensively in their genre and have become aware they are adding an extra layer to the meta-narrative, finding a new spin on the original.

You get all these French directors who have all these pretty, vacuous stars of their movies - from Jean Seberg on - who have become iconic but were never really good actors.

'Pierrot le Fou' is something I keep coming back to. It's so surreal but still really engaging - it proves narratives within narratives are a landscape that can be pursued well.

'Apocalypse Now' does not alienate us or deconstruct itself. In fact, it welcomes us in.

When you hide another story in a story, that’s the story I am telling the children.

Dan Harmon has this idea that characters on TV are allowed to talk about their favorite movies and TV shows and songs.

That was one of the key things - when you asked the story about the writing of the story - one of the things we wanted to make sure was that it grew out of.

Meta-fiction doesn't depend on the illusion that you're reading about real people.

I love breaking the fourth wall, and being given permission to play with the audience!

Scream was great for what it was. For a horror film, it was intelligent, it was funny, it took a laugh at itself.

Well, I suppose I'm interested in ways of storytelling and in stories that are about storytelling.