A Quote by Claire Denis

I think a film noir demands a beginning and an end.

Claire Denis

Quote Topics

Beginning Demands End Film Film Noir Noir Think

Quote Author

Claire Denis
French - Director

I think there are specific times where film noir is a natural concomitant of the mood. When there's insecurity, collapse of financial systems - that's where film noir always hits fertile ground.

Werner Herzog

Film noir is not a genre. It is not defined, as are the western and gangster genres, by conventions of setting and conflict, but rather by the more subtle qualities of tone and mood. It is a film 'noir', as opposed to the possible variants of film gray or film off-white.

Paul Schrader

Is there something in druggy subjects that encourages directors to make imitation film noir? Film noir itself becomes an addiction.

Pauline Kael

There are specific times where film noir is a natural concomitant of the mood. When there's insecurity, collapse of financial systems - that's where film noir always hits fertile ground.

Werner Herzog

I think the original Matrix was really incredible. It was so original and it did so many innovative things with film. It was a much bigger film. Bound was just a smaller film. It was kind of like an old noir film.

Gina Gershon

You use elements of noir, but you don't want it to be too noir-ish. You don't want it to be advertised as though you're asking people to go and watch an updated noir. I don't think they'll go do that. They want to see a modern story.

Danny Boyle

One difference between film noir and more straightforward crime pictures is that noir is more open to human flaws and likes to embed them in twisty plot lines.

Roger Ebert

Film is so much to do with perfection and how differently you can feel about someone at the beginning of the film and the end of the film.

Emma Thompson

The end of 'The End' is the best place to begin 'The End', because if you read 'The End' from the beginning of the beginning of 'The End' to the end of the end of 'The End', you will arrive at the end.

Daniel Handler

I think the great unspoken theme in noir fiction is male self-pity. It pervades noir movies.

James Ellroy

In narrative cinema, a certain terminology has already been established: 'film noir,' 'Western,' even 'Spaghetti Western.' When we say 'film noir' we know what we are talking about. But in non-narrative cinema, we are a little bit lost. So sometimes, the only way to make us understand what we are talking about is to use the term 'avant-garde.'

Jonas Mekas

I'd love to do a noir. I think Steve McQueen is so cool. But a classic film is a classic film, and perhaps the fantasy of being those characters should be left alone. You're treading on very thin ice.

Benedict Cumberbatch

When I was making these damned pictures, I never knew about film noir. If you had asked me about it then, I probably would have pointed to something like Bill Wellman's The Ox Bow Incident, the best Western I ever saw and very much in the style of film noir I don't care if it's a mystery story, a Western, or the story of Julius Caesar. To me it's the emotion, the lies, the double-cross that defines what kind of drama it is.