“Life has more imagination than we do.”
– François Truffaut
“I would say that there is no art form that has so much in common with film as music. Both affect our emotions directly, not via the intellect. And film is mainly rhythm; it is inhalation and exhalation in continuous sequence.”
– Ingmar Bergman
“The writer, when he is also an artist, is someone who admits what others don’t dare reveal.”
– Elia Kazan
“In drama, the characters should determine the story. In melodrama, the story determines the characters.”
– Sidney Lumet
“With more time I like to see the actors find something of their own places, so I can get their own ideas before I put mine in. Given they have a better idea more often enough.”
– Peter Weir
“A movie can be like a storm, Sturm und Drang, which enters your existence for about an hour and a half, or a couple of hours. It may leave you with a sunny feeling of hope or with a sense of darkness, a sense of brooding in the soul.
A movie can be like a journey into your deepest fears, fears which you do not dare face in real life, but it attracts you in a parallel universe, where you know you are safe, which can go beyond your imagination and surprise you.
A movie can just be pure entertainment, a distraction from the real world. It can carry you away to a world of laughter and joy for a bit, to a million thoughts far away from your problems, providing an escape from reality.
A movie always has the power to tell a story, and stories can leave a strong mark, like an incision in a rock, which withstands the wind, the rain, and the passing of the time.
A movie can live on in your memory forever.
A movie can become part of who you are.
A movie can move you. A movie can change you. A movie can make you a better person.
A movie can inspire you to great actions. The movies came to me a little later. Before them, it was the theater. I have loved the theater since I was a child. My mother used to bring me there and made me passionate about the comedies of Carlo Goldoni, as well as the dramas of William Shakespeare, Luigi Pirandello, Rosso di San Secondo, Samuel Beckett, Henrik Ibsen, Arthur Miller, and the intense stories of Tennessee Williams. Then, the scope of my passions expanded to include the movies.
A movie can inspire your childhood. I have loved movies since I was a child. As an only child growing up among adults, I used to spend a lot of time alone watching movies and nurturing my fervid imagination. I was amazed by the films of Italian Neorealism, by French movies and, especially, by some American movies from the ’20s, ’50s, and ’60s. That got me started on dreaming about New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles…
A movie can be the past, the present, and the future. I have always adored old movies, and I still do. Some people find them amateurish; as you can see, there are clearly no special effects. However, I have always loved imperfect things; perfection is boring to me. Old movies have a certain nostalgia which makes them so precious to me. They are like memories of the past, bearers of something which used to be and is not anymore. Therefore, they evoke feelings of melancholy and romanticism, which are so beautiful.
A movie tells a story, but it is fiction, even if the lines between fiction and reality blur. Sometimes, a movie is inspired by real facts or real people.
A documentary is the mirror of reality. ‘Documentaries are going to be the new form of journalism to tell stories,’ Robert Redford once said. For me, documentaries have something special because of their ability to reflect reality, for the awareness they can create, and for their reporting power. Yet, sometimes, they just tell a story, tracing the portrait of an artist or an average human being, leaving a sketch of history and memories, at times becoming pure poetry.”
