Unconventional Storytelling Quotes

Over the years, I would go to my agents, my manager, and I would say, 'Hey, there's this amazing true story about this gay English mathematician who committed suicide in the 1950s.' And they would be like, 'Please don't ever write that script. That is an unmakeable film.'

There's something very cool about that indie spirit that I try to hang on to even now with the bigger films that I'm working on.

I'm not precious about anything. The effort it took to get something means nothing to me in post.And it means nothing to the audience. I'll chop limbs off. I'll put an arm where a leg should be. I'll do anything.

I think with Blair Witch and The Sixth Sense, people are much more open to something that is different.

I love the energy of an independent film set. No one is there for the money. Everyone is there 'cause they really want to be there. It makes all the difference in the world. It's without ego and agenda, other than just wanting to fulfill a creative dream.

I don't want to create any particular kind of image; I just want to do different types of films.

Mostly I do films that mainstream Hollywood wouldn't touch.

I've always worked on the fringe of the British press establishment, carving out this niche for myself.

I really enjoy those characters like 'Profit.' With those elements that are shady and dark, you're not responsible for being a likable character. Like some of Jack Nicholson's characters, you remember them for so long.

Lars Von Trier is a genius. Every film he makes is so honest and powerful.

I think movies are overdeveloped in Hollywood. There's a big benefit to not overdeveloping and not being so precious about what you're doing. I think you lose a kind of vitality if you develop something into the ground.

When I made 'Vicky Donor,' people said it's not a family drama, it is for youngsters. But families also went and watched the film. Same happened with 'Piku' and 'October.'

Sometimes miraculous films come into being, made by people you've never heard of, starring unknown faces, blindsiding you with creative genius.

What good is a book that does not even transport us beyond all books?

Nothing can ever be a rule in drama, because then you're saying certain things won't ever happen, and that would be very boring.

Then there was Clark Ashton Smith, who wrote for Weird Tales and who had a wild imagination. He wasn't a very talented writer, but his imagination was wonderful.

I'm not the most famous guy in the world; my work is spread out across different mediums, and I never write the same kind of story and rarely even do the same character from one year to the next.

Sometimes I write from the point of view of characters whom I would dislike as people, not as a perverse exercise, but because this cracks the story open and makes me see it in a way I would not see it naturally.

I always feel that a viewer has an expectation about every moment of the film and where it's going, so if I act against that, I've created a twist. In fact, it becomes a kind of game with the expectations of the viewer. This is the superficial appearance. In the layer beneath, there is a hidden theme.

It's kind of like Silence of the lambs meets Boogey Nights.

I am not a fan of referencing your own work when it's in a different universe than what you're doing. That, to me, is a wink at the audience, and winking isn't actually cool when you're not, like, 10.

Sometimes I make films about scenes other filmmakers would leave out, so I just make the film out of all the things they wouldn't put in. Poetry allows you to do this more than prose, for example.

When I make movies, I don't ever go out there to please anyone other than myself. I never try to make a film for the masses. I just try to tell my story.

There's a kind of a fundamental irresponsibility in playwriting, and the strength of playwriting comes from that irresponsibility.

When I was making 'Satya', many people said that nobody would like to watch such dirty people. But, when the film worked, the same people said it was so real that they could actually smell it!