Top 7 Quotes & Sayings by Thom Andersen

In teaching, I like being able to present clips from movies on VHS or DVD and then talk about them. That's what this movie is.

People say that you can't change people's minds with a movie or book, but how do they get formed in the first place? They get formed by what we see and read. In a certain way, movies are ahead of their times. People make them and don't really know if the audience will respond to them. Once in a while, they do.

How do popular attitudes get formed? Do the movies just reflect it or inform it? Where does this particular idea come from? I don't know if I can say anything too illuminating.

I earn my living by teaching film, mostly filmmaking but also teaching courses on current cinema. I'm interested in movies. I hope that's not all I'm interested in. In that sense, it's maybe a little misleading. I don't expect to make another movie about films, but I may continue to write about them.

For me, the main point is that reality is rich. We can respond to it more immediately and directly, in ways where there's less displacement between representation and reality.

When I was young, it was easier to make films. It wasn't as expensive, there was more support. I found that I couldn't get the money to make films.

It also happens that I don't actually teach about the stuff I make things about. I'm not a film history teacher. In that way, it's also a release. But the ideas that I talk about in the movie are the same I talk about in school.