Art Of Film Quotes

#1. So much of the art of film is to do less. To aspire to do less.

Francis Ford Coppola

#2. Focus should be on the art of film, not on the business of film.

Winona Ryder

#3. MANY MANAGE TO SEPARATE THEIR LIFE FROM THEIR FILMS. THEY LIVE ONE WAY AND EXPRESS OTHER IDEAS IN THEIR WORKS. THEY ARE ABLE TO SPLIT THEIR CONSCIENCE. I CAN'T. TO ME CINEMA IS NOT JUST MY JOB: IT'S MY LIFE, AND EACH FILM IS AN ACT OF MY LIFE.

Andrei Tarkovsky

#4. It is an example of what films can do, how they can slip past your defenses and really break your heart.

David Gilmour

#5. I'VE NOTICED, FROM MY EXPERIENCE, IF THE EXTERNAL, EMOTIONAL CONSTRUCTION OF IMAGES IN A FILM ARE BASED ON THE FILMMAKER'S OWN MEMORY, ON THE KINSHIP OF ONE'S PERSONAL EXPERIENCE WITH THE FABRIC OF THE FILM, THEN THE FILM WILL HAVE THE POWER TO AFFECT THOSE WHO SEE IT.

Andrei Tarkovsky

#6. Of course, it's wonderful to film any period piece - but especially 'Foyle's War' because the art direction is so imaginative and yet at the same time so real. You can open a drawer on set, and even though the camera never sees what's inside, it'll be filled with genuine 1940s documents.

Honeysuckle Weeks

#7. Three films a day, three books a week and records of great music would be enough to make me happy to the day I die.

Francois Truffaut

#8. No form of art repeats or imitates successfully all that can be said by another; the writer conveys his experience of life along a channel of communication closed to painter, mathematician, musician, film-maker.

Storm Jameson

#9. Like all art forms, film is a media as powerful as weapons of mass destruction; the only difference is that war destroys and film inspires.

Nicolas Winding Refn

#10. I think that is what film and art and music do; they can work as a map of sorts for your feelings.

Bruce Springsteen

#11. If you're someone who's making film or TV or music, or any kind of art form now, there's a billion outlets and they all have an opinion.

Andy Samberg

#12. Over the years, I have been subjected to many indignities, all for the sake of Art. If I ever catch him, I'm going to kill the guy.

Bob Hope

#13. Usually in France we prefer to say bad things about the Nouvelle Vague, but I'm always impressed with its freedom and the fact of not making a film to give your opinion but just as a piece of art, which to me means the Nouvelle Vague.

Arnaud Desplechin

#14. As I've gotten less righteous, less pedagogic, I have become more loving of the artificiality, the art form, the imitation of life in film.

Ira Sachs

#15. For me, acting is about the art of it and it's about being on a film set and doing your thing, painting a blank canvas.

Shailene Woodley

#16. Independent film is almost nonexistent right now, because all the distributers that used to love to put out these little art films are all out of business right now, because it costs so much to open a movie.

Ron Perlman

#17. We had forgotten the art of using silence to convey emotions in our films and that's what you seem to have mastered. You've used silence to great advantage in the film. It's brilliant.

Amitabh Bachchan

#18. I like connecting with people, and that's what good art is: a point of connection. There's nothing better, on stage or on film.

Ruth Negga

#19. I'm a people person, very approachable. I go out every night, tons of functions. I love all facets of this industry ... Music, film, TV, books, art. I love being around creative people.

Guy Oseary

#20. All art, be it writing, painting, film, dance, whatever, is a manipulation of time and space. It's an interpretation and a recreation of the facts, using various artifacts that point us in the direction of our personal truths.

Elisa Lorello

#21. First of all, what in this world does not revolve around money? But money is a big part of film, unlike a lot of other art forms.

Spike Lee

#22. Academia is the death of cinema. It is the very opposite of passion. Film is not the art of scholars, but of illiterates.

Werner Herzog

#23. The prime motivation in making almost any film is success, because film is the art form of the 20th century.

Charlton Heston

#24. Most great products have been made over the dead bodies of experts.

David Brown

#25. Appropriation is the idea that ate the art world. Go to any Chelsea gallery or international biennial and you'll find it. It's there in paintings of photographs, photographs of advertising, sculpture with ready-made objects, videos using already-existing film.

Jerry Saltz

#26. When I did '21 Jump Street,' I felt like I was a part of something great, but on a very large scale. Working with people that genuinely want to make good art or good work or a good film, that's what keeps me going.

Spencer Boldman

#27. One of the core reasons for creating 'Station to Station' was to provide a space for exploration and cultural friction between different mediums. It should be natural for mediums like music, film and art to cross over, and we wanted to empower that process.

Doug Aitken

#28. The demarcation between an art house film and an entertainer has blurred, only because a larger section of the audience has accepted such realistic films.

Arjun Rampal

#29. Completing a piece of art and using all of the elements of making a film, was satisfying, for sure.

Robert Stromberg

#30. I think whatever art form you're in, whether TV, film or theater, you should know the history of who came before you and how the art form has changed or not changed and to learn from the greats.

Kevin Chamberlin

#31. We all have an aggressive dedication to the narrative arts - comics, film, electronic gaming, and more. We spend much of our time and effort exploring those forms and have an enormous investment in the arts. We're all part of the same brotherhood as far as I'm concerned.

Jim Steranko

#32. Film is the ultimate canvas, the elixir of art, and the magic of life.

A.D. Posey

#33. There is no sense in making a film that no-one will go and see, just to create a perfect, but useless, work of art.

Carlo Ponti

#34. Without art, a film is pure wastage of time and resources.

Abhijit Naskar

#35. I started the film [Hostel Part II]with the girls in an art class and there's a nude male model. People think that women are objectified, well here you go! Here's a man being objectivized but now it's under the guise of art.

Eli Roth

#36. There's always the influence of music, film, art and the other things that drive me. I'm usually inspired by my environment and whatever is making me happy or mad.

Adam Jones

#37. Film is an incredible way to express yourself and your vision, as is fashion, but you have to make sure [to] be confident and honest and true to yourself and say something that means something, because that is really the point of any art.

Tom Ford

#38. I did this Super-8 film at art school called 'Tissues,' this black comedy about a family whose father has been arrested for child molestation. I was absolutely thrilled by every inch of it, and would throw my projector in the back of my car and show it to anybody who would watch it.

Jane Campion

#39. A film which followed the code of the Hays Office to the strictest letter might succeed in being a great work of art, but not in a world in which a Hays Office exists.

Theodor W. Adorno

#40. The whole aspect of cinema and film festivals should be a moment to come together and celebrate art and humanity. It would be a shame if there was such a divide.

Keanu Reeves

#41. There's always been an incredible amount of junk music, and junk everything. Marshall McLuhan said that a medium surrounds a previous medium, and turns the previous medium into an art form. So, what was once a junk culture, like film, television surrounded it and turned it into an art form.

T Bone Burnett

#42. I've always believed film is most close to music of all the other arts.

Stan Brakhage

#43. The timing of comedy is so difficult. You've got to leave room for a laugh, you don't want to kill the laugh, but on film, you can't just suddenly stop for a laugh and then carry on. So, I think it's a real art form, comedy on film.

Helen Mirren

#44. I think of horror films as art, as films of confrontation. Films that make you confront aspects of your own life that are difficult to face. Just because you're making a horror film doesn't mean you can't make an artful film.

David Cronenberg

#45. I love to bring humour into my work. Because comedy is not a huge part of the art world. And big-business film takes itself very seriously.

James Franco

#46. The worst thing you can do is make a cult movie. That means you got three great reviews and nobody went. An art film means it got a lot of good reviews and nobody went. There is no such thing as a counter culture now. What used to be considered that is commercial now.

John Waters

#47. I don't believe in very many things, but art is definitely one of them. And at the top of that list, film and art influence our world's culture much more than many of us understand and fully respect.

Megan Ellison

#48. All movies are pure process. A commercial movie isn't less process than an art movie. You can't make your decisions about a film on the basis of, 'Is it important enough? Is it serious enough?' It's either alive or it's not for me. If it's alive, I want to do it.

Mike Nichols

#49. There is something particularly fascinating about seeing places you know in a piece of art - be that in a film, or a photograph, or a painting.

Sara Sheridan

#50. There's good art and there's bad art. A lot of action films are bad art, but Paul Greengrass showed us with the Bourne films that it's possible to make an action film with a political, social conscience.

Joe Wright

#51. Film is not analysis, it is the agitation of mind; cinema comes from the country fair and the circus, not from art and academicism.

Werner Herzog

#52. I began to exercise a lot of cinematic muscle with the precepts I had learned in the New York art world. Film was intriguing. I began to think of art as elitist; film was not.

Kathryn Bigelow

#53. Fashion intersects a lot with art and film and music, and that was appealing to me. I read a bunch of fashion blogs and wanted to be part of the community.

Tavi Gevinson

#54. Blue jeans have gone around the world. But that's a product. We market blue jeans better, just as we market film better. But you can't tell me that if America didn't exist, the culture of movies wouldn't exist. It's not a distinctly American art form.

David Simon

#55. A picture was a motionless record of motion. An arrested representation of life. A picture was the kiss of death pretending to possess immutability.

Ivan Klima

#56. I've had the good fortune of studying the 17th-century art of Amsterdam in preparation for a film.

Jack O'Connell

#57. I lived through being pooh-poohed by fine art galleries, saying, "Digital is going to destroy the meaning behind photos." The motion side, the moment all of the cameras come alive with that motion, it was like a dream come true. It enables people to economically experiment with film.

Russell James

#58. Film as dream, film as music. No art passes our conscience in the way film does, and goes directly to our feelings, deep down into the dark rooms of our souls.

Ingmar Bergman

#59. I think there's escapist moviemaking, and we want to be captivated and taken away. If it's done right, you can craft an incredible film. There have been superhero films that I think are brilliant pieces of art.

Ryan Reynolds

#60. But I reckon that this realm of higher needs, of something more than just forgetting about everyday life, of mere recreation, this realm of needs has been clearly neglected by us.

Krzysztof Kieslowski

#61. Creating music, visual art, producing music and film are always at the forefront of my life.

Matt Sorum

#62. Filmmaking is not the work of the weak-minded. It may not be rocket science, but it requires ten times more strength of the mind than that.

Abhijit Naskar

#63. One of the main reasons I am so drawn to Hitchcock is that he planned his shots way in advance on story-boards, which he designed like classic paintings (he was an art connoisseur). It's why he found shooting on set boring - because he had already composed the film in his head.

Camille Paglia

#64. When you're actually making a film, it's just people on your back all the time wanting stuff and you're constantly having to it deal with them. It's probably the most time consuming of all the arts, but I do love it because it is a great mix of visual art and music and writing.

Taika Waititi

#65. Toy Soldiers was my introduction to film. I certainly didn't think I was doing art by any stretch of the imagination.

Tim Robbins

#66. I don't believe in misconceptions in art and films. There are always so many different ways to relate to or understand a film. I love films that give a great amount of space to the audience to explore or be active with what the film is saying.

Claudia Llosa

#67. The art of making a film and its content are far more interesting to me than the result or impact.

Robert Redford

#68. A book is one kind of an art form and a film is a different art form. I think as a writer you just have to say, well the book is one thing, and the film is a completely different one.

Lisa See

#69. I'm not a film snob at all. I much prefer a really good Hollywood blockbuster than a thought-provoking art house movie because entertainment is sort of where it's at.

Ricky Gervais

#70. Film is probably the medium best suited to reach the most people - the visual, the aural, the limbic, the intellectual: it captures all these parts of our mind and soul. No other art form comes close.

Peter Landesman

#71. The art of making films is a collaborative art. As a composer, you're always working with the cinematographer because he's so much the heart of the world they've created on film.

Howard Shore

#72. I wanted to study film at an art school - I loved the idea of being surrounded by designers and artists. We were encouraged to be experimental.

Asif Kapadia

#73. I have never been sorry to see my sets being struck, provided they are well photographed. They're not works of art but part of making a film.

Ken Adam

#74. All art becomes history as soon as it is made, so it is inevitably part of a tradition. It doesn't matter a toss if it is in paint or in film; it is all art.

Gary Hume

#75. Norway is a small country, about half the size of Sweden, but it has a very good film climate because they have municipal cinemas, so even in the smallest towns you have a cinema that shows art house films from all over the world.

Stellan Skarsgard

#76. I'm not a craftsman of graphics or art or film. I'm more of an idea generator and manufacturer.

Mike Mills

#77. The film is the first art form capable of demonstrating how matter plays tricks on man.

Walter Benjamin

#78. Until film is just as easily accessible as a pen or pencil, then it's not completely an art form. In painting you can just pick up a piece of chalk, a stick or whatever. In sculpture you can get a rock. Writing you just need a pencil and paper.

Forest Whitaker

#79. There are always forces at work in a society, which are really forces of censorship - either religious bodies or zealots who are always putting pressure on things, whether it's books or art or film.

John Boorman

#80. The influence of cinema on all contemporary writers is undeniable. Because film is such a powerful and popular art form, we prose writers think cinematically.

Hector Tobar

#81. One of my favorite films is 'Late Spring' by Yasujiro Ozu. To me, it represents film as art.

Michael Arndt

#82. Kurosawa was one of film's true greats ... His ability to transform a vision into a powerful work of art is unparalleled. So it seemed appropriate to name the new digital studio for him.

George Lucas

#83. Unlike all the other art forms, film is able to seize and render the passage of time, to stop it, almost to possess it in infinity. I'd say that film is the sculpting of time.

Andrei Tarkovsky

#84. The dean of the American Film Institute has written that I'm one of the very few auteurs in America. I've had freedom for 40 years to create art that is totally personal and is what I believe in.

Lloyd Kaufman

#85. I'm lucky enough to be able to make films and so I don't need a psychiatrist. I can sort out my fears and all those things with my work. That's an enormous privilege. That's the privilege of all artists, to be able to sort out their unhappiness and their neuroses in order to create something.

Michael Haneke

#86. The Woodstock Film festival is among the finest of a dying breed: a festival that isn't trying to sell you anything, but simply and beautifully celebrating the art & craft of filmmaking.

Ethan Hawke

#87. I would trade many an art-film classic for the final exchange between Redford and Streisand in front of the Plaza.

Molly Haskell

#88. It was very hard breaking into the film industry in Britain. I had been to art school, and I was painting and doing commercials. And I did some of the very first rock videos.

Tony Scott

#89. If Wagner lived today, he would probably work with film instead of music. He already knew back then that the Great Art Form would include a sort of fourth dimension; it was really film he was talking about.

Harmony Korine

#90. Filmmaking, like any other art, is a very profound means of human communication; beyond the professional pleasure of succeeding or the pain of failing, you do want your film to be seen, to communicate itself to other people.

Kenneth Lonergan

#91. I always tell younger filmmakers, it's not just about the acting or the art itself. It's about how big of an audience watches your film.

Donnie Yen

#92. I think that when a film does its job, it poses questions rather than gives answers. It should act as a frustrating counselor who, at your bidding for advice, says, 'What do you think?' I think that's some of what the culture critic Greg Tate meant by art leaving a 'metaphysical stain.'

Aunjanue Ellis

#93. Like all art, nonfiction film should invite, seduce, or force us to confront the most difficult, frightening or mysterious aspects of what it means to be human.

Joshua Oppenheimer

#94. Film has become a marketed commodity, and the opportunities and audiences for art cinema have grown smaller. There is a general downturn in cultural literacy, perhaps because of television.

Roger Ebert

#95. I do feel like animated films really combine a lot of different of art forms: film-making and writing and drawing and painting - to a certain extent, even sculpting. It's a wonderful medium to work with as a craftsman because it's such so rich and so varied and so expressive.

John Musker

#96. The dichotomy between art and industry is totally dysfunctional in terms of film.

Ann Macbeth

#97. Movies are brand new. Film is less than 150 years old. It's brand new, compared to any other art form, all of which are thousands of years old.

John Landis

#98. Whenever I think about movies, I always look at that art process as having the best of a lot of worlds. Because if you watch a great film, you have a musical element to it, not just on the scoring, but in the way that the shots are edited - that has music and rhythm and time.

Frank Ocean

#99. I didn't grow up thinking of movies as film, or art, but as movies, something to do on a Saturday afternoon.

Sydney Pollack

#100. The lasting and ultimately most important reputation of a film is not based on reviews, but on what, if anything, people say about it over the years, and on how much affection for it they have.

Stanley Kubrick