A Quote by Anthony Minghella
[Abbas Kiarostami] is a great artist and a poet. I sometimes think that if Samuel Beckett made films, he'd make them like Kiarostami makes them.
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Film begins with DW Griffith and ends with Abbas Kiarostami.
He [Samuel Beckett] is great, a very great writer. Any modern writer is bound to be influenced by [James] Joyce. Of course, by Beckett as well.
To live within limits. To want one thing. Or a few things very much and love them dearly. Cling to them, survey them from every angle. Become one with them - that is what makes the poet, the artist, the human being.
It's hard to predict and to say what goes on inside the minds of an artist, but that's what makes them an artist. That sense of creativity. That thing that makes them tick is probably the very thing that pushes them to the extremes that sometimes can cause, you know, fatalities and things that, you know, that end up not being good.
We try to make films for people [that are] the films that we'd like to see. They're not easy to get made. They're hard to get made. You have to keep the budget low to get them made. But at the end of the day, I don't really worry about competition, because I don't really think of it that way. I don't feel like I'm in a race with anybody.
I'm drawn to a lot of first-time directors. One of the great common denominators in these small independent films is that there's a person, or two people, who have an absolutely monomaniacal passion to get these films made. That's what makes them happen. Sometimes, it takes years and years to finally get it done, but by never backing down, by never giving up, they get these films to the screen by hook or by crook.
The thing I'm obsessed with is really great bad paintings. I have a storage locker full of them and I want to give them their own museum. You don't even know who these artists are - you can buy them at garage sales, antique stores and places like that. They're brilliant because they were done with the intention of being great, but the artist sort of made a wrong turn. Some of them are hilarious and I can't get enough of them.
I would say recently I've gotten back to perusing [Samuel] Beckett's novels. Listening to the way Donald Trump speaks without saying anything has made me think about language.
I don't think there's been any writer like Samuel Beckett. He's unique. He was a most charming man and I used to send him my plays.
Even today, I'm not sure why I make films or what makes me want films. I think it's other people's films. Whenever I see a really great film, I think, 'I want to make a film like that.' And then I never do.
At the end of the day, what difference does it make if you made 10 films or 18 films? You made 10 films, but you had a great relationship with your kids, or at least you did your best not to screw them up irrevocably, or you made 18, and they don't return your phone calls.
It's hard being a woman in this industry, period. A lot of the time, guys make you feel like you need to hook up with them - especially as an artist - producers and other artists trying to collaborate with them, they make you kinda feel sometimes you need to hook up with them or flirt with them just to make a song.
Hollywood is no longer the top. I love going to the cinema. I've always adored the idea of being in great, epic films. But they just don't really exist anymore. It's a real shame. There's great auteurs that create small movies, but it's really hard for anyone to see them, and for them to make any sort of money, or for them even to be made in the first place.
It's hard for me to judge my own films as an artist sometimes. But as an artist, I did feel a fulfillment working on them, you know?
Just because I make films doesn't mean I think they're great. I just make them and then when I'm done with them I'm just a filmgoer like I always am. They're all lessons. I'm still in film school, honestly. And this one is just a dry run for whatever the next one is.
I've been able to make some wonderful films, but sometimes you make films with great passion - great belief - and these films slightly don't work at the box office, and they become your favorite films.
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