Words matter. These are the best Michel Hazanavicius Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
I watched a lot of silent movies. It’s a very specific way of writing, which is more of a challenge than the directing. You have to describe images. It’s easier to shoot them.
I always loved silent movies. I was not a specialist, but I loved them. And when I started directing, I became really fascinated by the format – how it works, the device of the silent movie. It’s not the same form of expression as a talkie. The lack of sounds makes you participate in the storytelling.
Sure, I watched a lot of Hollywood movies. Maybe I’ve seen more Hollywood movies than French movies.
With silent films, you’re better off avoiding irony, because the spectator is your accomplice. It’s this pact that leads to emotion being created.
‘Avatar’ is a great movie. I really love it.
To work with kids is difficult. To work with non-actors is difficult.
My life is OK. I live in France. It’s a very cool country to make films.
Here in France, what we love is Life. And all the pleasures that go with it.
I try to respect the rules of the silent movies and I tried to make signification to make sense, and also the crew were very good and the fact that we shot in LA in the real Hollywood, studios and houses. We shot in the bed of Mary Pickford, and you cannot be any more accurate than that, so that helped a lot.
It’s a dream for a director, at least to try a studio movie.
It’s about storytelling. The story is told through images. So with the cast, I had to make sure that the emotions were readable without sound… I know some great actors, if you turn off the sound, you don’t really know what they’re saying.
Actually, I met a lot of directors and most of them have that fantasy to make a silent movie because for directors it’s the purest way to tell a story. It’s about creating images that tell a story and you don’t need dialogue for that.
I always loved silent movies. I was not a specialist, but I loved them. And when I started directing, I became really fascinated by the format – how it works, the device of the silent movie.
Silence is a universal language. It’s like music or painting.
I made a movie in Morocco. I made a movie in Brazil. I’ve made commercials all over the world. Every set looks like another set.
When you look at the early-’30s movies, like King Kong, the codes of acting are very similar to those of silent movies. In some of the silent movies – the good ones, the ones done by the best directors – the acting is very, very natural.
You – as a director, you have to do your job, you have to show things, and you don’t have to ask the actors to do it, or the dialogue.
Sometimes when an actor says something almost perfect, but you know you have to edit it, if you tell them to change something immediately, it will come out great.
I think we are at the very beginning of high changes, not only in terms of digital film, but in the way the movies will be screened, whether they’ll be screened on phones, on computers – on everything.
Even if I make fun of him, I try to portray him as a human being. Sometimes because he’s the great Jean-Luc Godard, we see him as a concept.
But sometimes I think you have to try to do things that people don’t think are doable.
What I love is to create a show and for people to enjoy it and be aware that’s what it is: a show.
In France, it’s really different the way you live. It’s a non-religious country. The public space is not religious; religion is a private thing.
I’ve always been against the idea of dividing films between festival titles and popular movies. I think you can make films that are both.
The fact that I made a special movie with an old-fashioned style – even if it’s a mix between with modern and old-fashioned things – must mean I feel both ways about change. In a way I’m resisting, but in a way adapting myself to the times.
When you speak of silent movies, everyone thinks of Charlie Chaplin first.
Maybe I’ve seen more Hollywood movies than French movies.
When you write a script that you’ve felt in your soul for a long time, you can’t ask the actors to go through the same emotions. You have to do part of the job to make things as easy as possible for them.
An idea is something you work on to make it work and a desire is much deeper in a way.
French people are strange about America, I think.