A Quote by Whit Stillman

I feel that if you want to make films, you have to be willing to make it without a fee. You get a deferment, I guess. — © Whit Stillman
I feel that if you want to make films, you have to be willing to make it without a fee. You get a deferment, I guess.
I want to try not to repeat myself. But then I seem to do it continuously in my films. It's not something I make any effort to do. I just want to make films that are personal, but interesting to an audience. I feel I get criticized for style over substance, and for details that get in the way of the characters. But every decision I make is how to bring those characters forward.
I'm a filmmaker; I want to make films. I don't want to sit in a hotel room waiting to make films, and I can control my thing in Denmark; I can make the film I want to make... of course, I have to write a good script, all that, but if I do my job, it will happen.
I know how to make films and now I'm able to make films with the resources and the tools that match my imagination, and what filmmaker doesn't want to do that? I feel very fortunate to have that. I don't take it for granted.
I didn't want to make teenage comedies, and I didn't want to make really trashy films. I wanted to make films that were a bit challenging.
The Vietnam War was causing people to get drafted; I had received a deferment to finish my undergraduate education, and in order to continue to get a deferment, you had to go to graduate school.
It's always hard when you make a movie that's fundamentally about kids for adults. How do you make people aware of who the adult cast is without making them feel that the adults are the center of it? You don't want to make it misleading, but at the same time you want to make it appealing.
You can't make flivers without steel - and you can't make tragedies without social instability. The world's stable now. People are happy; they get what they want, and they never want what they can't get. They're well off; they're safe; they're never ill; they're not afraid of death; they're blissfully ignorant of passion and old age; they're plagued with no mothers or fathers; they've got no wives, or children, or lovers to feel strongly about; they're so conditioned that they pratically can't help behaving as they ought to behave.
What I want to do is make films that astonish people, that astound people, and I hope you want to do that too. It's easy to make money. It's easy to make films like everybody else. But to make films that explode like grenades in people's heads and leave shrapnel for the rest of their lives is a very important thing. That's what the great filmmakers did for me. I've got images from Fellini, from Bergman, from Kurowsawa, from Bunuel, all stuck in my brain.
I want to do movies, but I want to do something that's good. I don't want to make any more films until I feel that I'm ready for it. I want to have good work, and a very elegant life. I believe you get what you want.
One of the head guys at Disney categorically said to me, 'We don't want to make children's films any more. We want to make films that are going to appeal to all quadrants.' Hence you have films like 'Shrek' and all the Pixar stuff, which is designed to suit everybody.
I don't want to make music alone in a dark studio and make me feel awful and depressed. I want to make music and feel happy and get to share it with people.
There's very few people who want to just make beautiful films that make money when they can make films that make huge money.
There's very few people who want to just make beautiful films that make money, when they can make films that make huge money.
Some filmmakers make films to please themselves and a handful of critics, so they get 5-star reviews but their films don't run at the box office. I make films for the masses.
I don't feel despair because I am able to make the films I want to make, and that gives me hope.
I like to work with people who want to make films because they are passionate about films and not because they want to sell films and make money. I am not for people who get the most saleable actor and then the most saleable director and sell the film.
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