A Quote by Roger Ebert
Sometimes miraculous films come into being, made by people you've never heard of, starring unknown faces, blindsiding you with creative genius.
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I think about a Richard Avedon photo series, the kind of faces he gets of real people, which I find so captivating. Fellini was also great in filling his films with this ambiance, this environment, sometimes chaotic and carnival-like, but people's faces were always amazing.
People are certainly impressed by the aura of creative power which a writer may wear, but can easily demolish it with a few well-chosen questions. Bob Shaw has observed that the deadliest questions usually come as a pair: "Have you published anything?" - loosely translated as: I've never heard of you - and "What name do you write under?" - loosely translatable as: I've definitely never heard of you.
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.
Society cannot contribute anything to the breeding and growing of ingenious men. A creative genius cannot be trained. There are no schools for creativeness. A genius is precisely a man who defies all schools and rules, who deviates from the traditional roads of routine and opens up new paths through land inaccessible before. A genius is always a teacher, never a pupil; he is always self-made.
I feel incredibly lucky to have grown up with creative parents and around creative people, many of whom live with anxiety. My mum would sometimes say that it was a beautiful thing, and that it would come in handy when making music - and it's made me a more empathetic person.
I put myself on tape and the cool thing was that Martin Scorsese had never heard of me. He had never seen [Everybody Loves Raymond]. I was just an unknown actor to him. I don't want to sound conceited, like he has to know who I am, but that seemed a little odd. He's a film genius. He doesn't watch sitcoms.
The best minds come from the most unexpected faces and places. There is no image for intelligence or genius. Genius is something that cannot be seen. It cannot be produced or manufactured. It is something that even the true genius thinks is unattainable. The genius recognizes he’s just a small pea in a sea of infinite atoms. Knowledge is as infinite as the universe. The man who claims to know all, only reveals to all that he really knows nothing.
The difference between Talent and Genius is that Talent says things which he has never heard but once, and Genius things which he has never heard.
I think Berry Gordy is a genius, I really do, and it's not a word I throw around lightly. But with all that comes the idiosyncratic behavior of a self-made, talented, creative person, and that's not easy to come up against.
Here's to the drunken Marine
With beer in his canteen!
You've heard of the Unknown Soldier
But, never an unknown Marine!
I've never heard anyone say the really deep lessons of life have come in times of ease and comfort. But, I have heard many saints say every significant advance I've ever made in grasping in the depth of God's love and growing deep with Him, have come through suffering.
People like me and Ozu get films made by hard work, but Shimizu is a genius.
If we didn't have any stress, we'd never grow and you'd probably wouldn't test your mettle and you'd probably wouldn't come up with a lot of creative stuff that people come up with by being somewhat on the edge.
When we made 'North Hills,' I had never heard Warren Zevon, and I never heard the Grateful Dead. I had never heard of Jackson Browne.
The spark of a genius exists in the brain of the truly creative man from the hour of his birth. True genius is always inborn and never cultivated, let alone learned.
I could never be Charlie Chaplin. But the films that were made by people like him, or Gene Wilder, or John Candy, the people that inspired me so much were the people that were able to combine humor with heartbreak so beautifully and fluidly. Those films I think were what inspired me to want to come to L.A. and audition for movies.
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