Directing Film Quotes:

Human beings share the same common problems. A film can only be understood if it depicts these properly.

- Akira Kurosawa

source: Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

topic: Common, Problem, Film, Film Directors, Directing Film

A film is never really good unless the camera is an eye in the head of a poet.

- Orson Welles

source: 1958 'Un ruban de reves' in L'Express, 5 Jun. Reprinted in English in International Film Annual, no.2.

topic: Movie, Eye, Cameras, Directing Film, Film Directing

The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder.

- Alfred Hitchcock

topic: Movie, Funny Life, Gambling, Directing Movies, Film Directors

Cinema is a matter of what's in the frame and what's out.

- Martin Scorsese

source: FaceBook post by Martin Scorsese from Jul 08, 2013

topic: Movie, Gambling, Cinema, Directing Film, Movie Director

In feature films the director is God; in documentary films God is the director.

- Alfred Hitchcock

source: "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

topic: Film Directing, Directors, Documentary Films, Film Directors, Directing Film

A film is - or should be - more like music than like fiction. It should be a progression of moods and feelings. The theme, what's behind the emotion, the meaning, all that comes later.

- Stanley Kubrick

source: Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

topic: Movie, Feelings, Fiction, Independent Filmmaking, Film Directors

Drama is life with the dull bits cut out.

- Alfred Hitchcock

topic: Drama, Writing, Life Is Short, Film Directors, Camera Angles

If it can be written, or thought, it can be filmed.

- Stanley Kubrick

source: Quoted in Halliwell's Filmgoer's and Video Viewer's Companion (1999).

topic: Film Directors, Directing Film, Film Directing

A Director Makes Only One Movie in His Life. Then He Breaks It Into Pieces and Makes It Again.

- Jean Renoir

source: Quoted in Leslie Halliwell, Halliwell's Filmgoer's Companion (1993)

topic: Directors, Pieces, Break, Film Directors, Directing Film

Film as dream, film as music. No art passes our conscience in the way film does, and goes directly to our feelings, deep down into the dark rooms of our souls.

- Ingmar Bergman

source: "Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye". "Sight & Sound" Magazine, June 1991.

topic: Dream, Art, Dark, Film Directors, Dark Room

People have forgotten how to tell a story. Stories don't have a middle or an end any more. They usually have a beginning that never stops beginning.

- Steven Spielberg

source: "Science Fiction in Steven Spielberg's Suburbia". Interview with Chris Hodenfield, www.rollingstone.com. January 26, 1978.

topic: Movie, Inspiring, Positivity, Film Directors, Movie Industry

A team effort is a lot of people doing what I say.

- Michael Winner

source: Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

topic: Teamwork, People, Effort, Directing Film, Dilbert

A director must be a policeman, a midwife, a psychoanalyst, a sycophant and a bastard.

- Billy Wilder

topic: Sycophants, Directors, Midwife, Directing Film, Film Directing

Shoot a few scenes out of focus. I want to win the foreign film award.

- Billy Wilder

topic: Movie, Winning, Awards, Directing Film, Film Directing

You have many years ahead of you to create the dreams that we can't even imagine dreaming. You have done more for the collective unconscious of this planet than you will ever know.

- Steven Spielberg

topic: Dream, Years, Done, Collective Unconscious, Film Directors

The more successful the villain, the more successful the picture.

- Alfred Hitchcock

source: Quoted in Francois Truffaut Hitchcock (1968).

topic: Successful, Directors, Villain, Film Directors, Directing Film

Dialogue should simply be a sound among other sounds, just something that comes out of the mouths of people whose eyes tell the story in visual terms.

- Alfred Hitchcock

source: Francois Truffaut, Alfred Hitchcock, Helen G. Scott (1985). “Hitchcock”, p.222, Simon and Schuster

topic: Eye, Film Directing, People, Film Directors, Directing Film

A good film is when the price of the dinner, the theatre admission and the babysitter were worth it.

- Alfred Hitchcock

topic: Movie, Art, Gambling, Movie Theatre, Admission

I was always looking for a career that could combine my creative interests with my technical side, and it ends up directing films is the perfect combination.

- Joseph Kosinski

topic: Careers, Perfect, Creative, Directing Film, Perfect Combination

It's not easy to strap yourself down to a desk and bash on a keyboard when you know you can direct lots of films, because directing films is fun and interactive and gregarious. Writing isn't.

- Guy Ritchie

source: "Revolver - Guy Ritchie interview" compiled by Jack Foley, www.indielondon.co.uk.

topic: Fun, Writing, Keyboards, Gregarious, Directing Film

I really, really love directing films.

- John Frankenheimer

topic: Film, Directing Film

I'm not retired, I will continue directing films and doing fight choreography. I won't stop.

- Yuen Woo-ping

topic: Fighting, Film, Choreography, Directing Film

There is an established tradition of actors directing films that have a particular, personal meaning for them - Warren Beatty, Clint Eastwood, Kevin Costner, and most recently George Clooney to name a few. Remarkably, their films share an unusually high percentage of being very good.

- Steven Van Zandt

topic: Names, Kevin, Actors, Directing Film

I don't rehearse films as much as opera or theatre. When I began directing films I thought a long rehearsal was a good idea. Experience showed me that the best performance was often left in a rehearsal room.

- Bruce Beresford

topic: Ideas, Long, Theatre, Directing Film

The difference between directing film and directing television is so stark simply because TV is a living breathing organism already when you direct an episode.

- Jon Hamm

source: "Jon Hamm Gets By With Help From His 'Friends'". Interview with Jarett Wieselman, www.etonline.com. July 17, 2012.

topic: Breathing, Differences, Television, Directing Film