A Quote by Paul Haggis
You don't make a film because the audience is ready for it. You make a film because you have questions that are in your gut.
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There is always pressure. If you make a flop film then you are under pressure to make a hit film. If you make a hit film then you are under pressure to surpass your own standard or at least deliver another hit because the audience also has expectations.
My best film is always my next film. I couldn't make Chungking Express now, because of the way I live and drink I've forgotten how I did it. I don't believe in film school or film theory. Just try and get in there and make the bloody film, do good work and be with people you love.
As I talk to film students now especially, I say, "The easiest job you'll ever get is to try to make your first film." That's the easy one to get, is the first film because nobody knows whether you can make a film or not.
I don't make movies. I don't feel that I have to have artistic control. Part of this comes from the fact that the book lives on no matter what Hollywood does to your novel in terms of a film. Now, you try to be careful who you allow to do your film because nobody wants their novel to become a turkey movie. But, on the other hand, it is a crapshot anyway, because even the best people can make a bad film.
Oh my God, I love UCLA so much. Their film school is great because it's unstructured, so there's a freedom to fail in there and just tell your story, and everybody makes a film. It's so important to have that freedom in film school because that's what you're there for: to learn and make a film.
A film like 'Good Night And Good Luck,' you make that for $7 million because you know it's a black-and-white film, and it's not an easy sell. If you make it for $7 million, then everybody can have a chance to make a little bit of money, and you get to make the film you want to make.
I believe thrillers work if the story is good. It is not easy to make a thriller because the audience is making their own story in their minds as they watch the film. You have to break that expectation and still make them like the film.
I can understand that an audience, buying a ticket to see a picture of mine, wants to see something funny because they feel confident that at least I have a fighting chance to make a funny film when I make a film, whereas if I make a dramatic film there's one chance in a thousand that it's really going to come out great, so I understand how they feel about that and they're completely right.
The one mistake you must never make is to agree to make a film or sign on to film that you don't believe in. Most importantly because it's unfair on that. It's not about you; it's just not fair on that project because you're doing it a profound disservice because you're not serving it - you're uncommitted, ultimately.
If you make a film, that magic is not there, because you were there while shooting it. After writing a film and shooting it and being in the editing room every day, you can never see it clearly. I think other people's perception of your film is more valid than your own, because they have that ability to see it for the first time.
The actors make the film. They're the ones that take this theoretical movie that's in your head and make it real. The success of a film is entirely on their shoulders. I admire them, because acting is such a difficult thing to do, and I personally can't understand it.
For me, as a film goer, I like nothing more than to sit in the cinema, have the lights go down and not know what I'm about to see or unfold on-screen. Every time we go to make a film, we do everything we can to try to systematise things so we're able to make the film in private, so that when it's finished it's up to the audience to make of it what they will.
If the overall quality of your film depends on what you shot it on, you aren't ready to make a film.
The reason why I always wanted to make an American film was because of the Western genre. It is something that I would very much like to make in the future, because it's very uniquely American, and I can't make a Western film in Korean.
That's the greatest sin a director can commit; to make a film simply because he wants to make a film.
Theater is such a different ballgame than film. And that's really why I stayed in film, because I really love the reality of connecting with your own feelings, and really putting that across in a realistic way. In film, the smallest muscular movements in your face, that are produced just by sheer feelings, you're not controlling them in anyway, can be seen by people in the audience because your face is sometimes, frighteningly, 40 feet wide!
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