A Quote by Alexander Payne

I always wanted 'Sideways' to be like a great 1960s Italian film. — © Alexander Payne
I always wanted 'Sideways' to be like a great 1960s Italian film.
I'm not trying to be self-serving, but you know, you get to Hollywood, and if you want to make something big and loud and dumb, it's pretty easy. It's very hard to go down there and make a film like 'Sideways,' which I thought was a great film. They don't want to make films like that anymore, even though that film was very successful.
In 1993, my first documentary was about the civil war in Algeria. That was in French and in Arabic. Another short film I did was silent. What I'm trying to say is that, yes, I'm Italian, and yes, I make films with Italian money, but personally, I've always been invested in the broader world of film-making.
I always wanted to go into film. I love film. I loved growing up in the theatre, but I always wanted to do film all along. But, I still pursue music separately.
Always the light fixtures I love are Italian, from the '50s and '60s. I'm like, 'What's that? I want it!' And it's always $40,000 vintage Italian.
I wanted to go to Rome. I got an offer to do an Italian film and I went.
I am still around too many Italian people to start speaking like a guy from London. I live in Italy for six months of the year, all the people in my restaurants are Italian and it means that when I speak, it is always with an Italian accent in my head.
With The Exorcist we said what we wanted to say. Neither one of us view it as a horror film. We view it as a film about the mysteries of faith. It's easier for people to call it a horror film. Or a great horror film. Or the greatest horror film ever made. Whenever I see that, I feel a great distance from it.
I'm going to do an adaptation of the Italian film, Bread and Tulips. I really like that film.
I'd always wanted to do a film than TV show because film is always where my heart has been. I like diving into the character for a few months, and then leaving it behind. I love the idea of that.
Every film is a remake of a previous film, or a remake of a television series that everyone loved in the 1960s, or a remake of a television series that everyone hated in the 1960s. Or it's a theme park ride; it will soon come to breakfast cereal mascots.
In the 1960s, my father chose to introduce Italian-style clothing into a world that was filled with boxy Brooks Brothers suits. So if you were dressing in his clothes in New York or California, you were breaking a rule. And my mother, Risha, who is still living, has always been an activist. I don't think my mom has met a cause she doesn't like.
We were raised in an Italian-American household, although we didn't speak Italian in the house. We were very proud of being Italian, and had Italian music, ate Italian food.
I really had wanted to learn Italian for a long time. I think ever since - or even maybe even before I had read Dante. And I just sort of had this idea that I wanted to read Dante in Italian. And then in my office, we actually had a class - an Italian class.
The first thing that inspires me is my mood, but I take inspiration from a lot of things: a rock song, a romantic movie or a specific lifestyle, like 1960s London and, of course, Italian 'dolce vita!'
I've always believed that if you want to really try and make a great film, not a good film, but a great film, you have to take a lot of risks.
I never wanted to change the world. Norman Mailer wanted to, he set himself the task of changing the consciousness of our age. And I think he came pretty close, in the 1960s, to actually managing to do it. But me? No, no, I never wanted anything like that. I'm not Maileresque.
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