I am an emotional and fragile person. I observe life, I am perceptive and can read a person’s body language. I have a strong journalistic streak in me, and had I not been a filmmaker, I would have become a film journalist. I have combined my perceptive and journalistic traits to create my own brand of cinema.
When I am shooting, I am inside the theatre, when I am in the editing room, I am inside the theatre. I always try to feel what they will feel. I see a film, not as a director, but as the audience. If I am entertained, they will be, too.
In addition to needed gun control reforms, America urgently needs a stronger protest movement dedicated to reducing the glorification of violence in our culture – in music, film, television, video games, and even the Internet.
I grew up idolising Madhuri Dixit, though I wasn’t a Hindi film buff. I had an academic upbringing, and movies were a rarity. I looked up to Madhuri because I loved dancing, and she’s a fantastic dancer.
When I was a little kid, all I wanted to do was to escape what I thought was the country and get to a city. Probably film and television had influenced me so much, I really thought the key to happiness was living a very artificial life in a penthouse in New York with martini glasses.
Independent film is film that has thought in it. There’s no independent thought in studio films. It’s collective thought.
With ‘Louis Wain,’ it’s a very eccentric film and we had an incredible time. I never thought that me, Sharon Rooney, Andrea Riseborough and Aimee Lou Wood would get to be in the same family. None of us are cat people though, which when you have 20 cats on set is hilarious.
You get so lost in the making of a film, and you get so fixed on just, like, every tiny detail. If something doesn’t hit the bullseye in the way you wanted, you become obsessed with that, and you get so just lost in that maze of neurotic thinking.
Being on a film set, you are always around such fantastic people. And I feel like I’ve been lucky. I feel like I’ve worked with the best of the best.
I believe that every single person attached to a film is a character and nothing more. I don’t categorize them as hero, heroine, etc.
I’ve always said that the more ethnic you become, the more international your film becomes.
I don’t understand this concept of women-oriented films or stories based on women, because nobody uses the term, a ‘man-oriented’ film. Why do you have to separate girls from boys?
Film has to reflect the real world.
The suffragettes were quite strategic about documenting their events, and there were some good photos. And we developed a roll of film that had never been developed before!
You never compete with the people in your crew; you have your own team. Competition is only with those people whose film is releasing alongside on Friday and never with one’s own team.
We shot ‘Party Girl’ on film, and I remember being told, ‘We need to get this in two takes because we don’t have a lot of film in the mag right now!’
Riskin went into directing and made a film with Cary Grant which applied to the letter all the ideas which had made his comedies famous. It had everything except that little something – and the film was a failure.
There are certainly laws and elements that make a film more accessible to mainstream audiences. If you’ve got Tom Cruise as a strongman, I’m sure it would have larger audiences, but it wouldn’t have the same substance.
I am not in every picture I post, and my social media is not only for film promotions. I don’t feel comfortable with that. Yes, I’ll post something promotional now and then, but rest of the time, it is like any other social media account.
When I was young, I wanted, most of all, to be a writer of films and film music. But Middlesbrough in 1968 wasn’t the place to be if you wanted to do movie scores.
Writing, of course, is writing, acting comes from the theater, and cinematography comes from photography. Editing is unique to film. You can see something from different points of view almost simultaneously, and it creates a new experience.
Jammu and Kashmir has a scenic beauty and I feel that the film industry rather than going abroad in countries like Switzerland and Australia, should visit Kashmir – which is the only Heaven on Earth for the shoots.
On a big film, there’s almost no way you can meet everyone. On an indie, there are 30 people and no trailers to duck into.
‘Heartbeats’ is a film on people magnifying and subliming reality when they’re in love. Hence the overstylized look, the aesthetics, the robes, the dresses, the vintage, hipster-ish look: All of this is voluntary. I’m not a hipster. I’m not!
I have met Jackie Chan about 6 times up ’til now… and even though many people think we are natural enemies, I personally think he is a cool bloke and would honestly love to work with him in a film one time – that would a well brilliant movie!
When you make your first film at 47 and anybody but your mother goes to see it, to me, that’s a miracle.
Music is the only passion I shamelessly indulge in. However, for recreation I enjoy watching movies. ‘Wizard of Oz’ was the first film I ever saw, followed by the ‘Bond’ movies. I also watch a lot of World cinema through DVDs mostly brought by one of my best friends who’s now based in Toronto.
You shouldn’t dream your film, you should make it!
Director Jai Krishna is an optimist who has a never-say-die attitude. He has impressed me thoroughly with his faith in the industry. Not many are aware of the fact that this man had to wait for almost 30 years in this industry to direct ‘Vanmam,’ his first film.
As an actor, you have many tools – your body, your voice, your emotions, mentally. In film, you have your eyes because they communicate your thought process. In fact, generally in film, what you don’t say is more important than what you say. That’s not so much the case for stage.
Anyone who has ever been privileged to direct a film also knows that, although it can be like trying to write ‘War and Peace’ in a bumper car in an amusement park, when you finally get it right, there are not many joys in life that can equal the feeling.
As a newcomer, I am eager to try every genre of film making.
A film is never really good unless the camera is an eye in the head of a poet.
Whether you’re making a million dollar film or a $100 million film there is never enough money, there’s never enough time.
A very receptive state of mind… not unlike a sheet of film itself – seemingly inert, yet so sensitive that a fraction of a second’s exposure conceives a life in it.
For me, I can’t watch violence when it’s too grotesque, and it’s just like, that’s revolting to watch. I don’t enjoy it. But when it’s a Tarantino film, I’m lining up outside the door to see it, and I’m expecting to see something really crazy, a lot of blood, and for it to be funny.
I would be in Italy working on a film, longing for something simple – like, God, I would just kill to be sitting at a barbecue having a beer right now.
I really liked doing a number of the projects and directors, and etc., etc., I knew about half-way through that I would never be doing that again. It’s just not me. I really am happy as a part-time film composer, not a full-time film composer.
I think India is very passionate about films. It’s almost a second religion back home. Due to that, I think film stars are – are really held in great esteem. Not that we’re complaining, but I think with that comes a lot of responsibility.
‘Eureka’ was very bad timing. The early 1980s: Reagan and Thatcher were in, greed was good, and here was a film about the richest man in the world who still couldn’t be happy. Politically and sociologically, it was out of step.
I think I need to film something tropical on a beach in a bar.
I saw ‘Joy Luck Club’ when it came out, so that was early mid-’90s, and I remember seeing it with my long-time collaborator, Mina Shum. We’d just done ‘Double Happiness,’ and we saw this movie, and we were weeping. Like, shuddering weeping. Weeping more than really the film deserved.
Women have a certain sexuality, and I think their bodies are beautiful, and I’m not embarrassed to explore that in a film. But there are things you get offered that are vulgar and violent – just like there’s a side of me that’s vulgar and violent.
Writing a film is like giving birth to a baby and then giving it up for adoption.
Many times when you make a movie, it feels like your biggest mistake. But even if a film isn’t a hit, you shouldn’t view it as a mistake.
There are so many elements that make a good film. You need a great director who’s driving it.
George Clooney and Brad Pitt, with those ‘Oceans’ films they do, they get to work together, make a whole lot of money, and make a major film statement. Imagine if once a year, myself, Denzel Washington, Laurence Fishburne, James Earl Jones, we did some relevant film together to make a statement.
One of my favorite films is ‘Late Spring’ by Yasujiro Ozu. To me, it represents film as art.
Nothing can be better than playing a Maharashtrian character in a Rohit Shetty film.
I feel like I’ve never been in a film that people have liked before.
The profession of film director can and should be such a high and precious one; that no man aspiring to it can disregard any knowledge that will make him a better film director or human being.
