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- “You can’t be on top all the time. It isn’t natural.” — Olivia de Havilland
- “If I don’t feel it, I can’t play it.” — James Cotton
- “I don’t have to be an imitation of a white woman that Hollywood sort of hoped I’d become. I’m me, and I’m like nobody else.” — Lena Horne
- “But man has always succeeded in rising again.” — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
- June 28, 1914: “But if ever a man went anywhere of his own free will, Franz Ferdinand went to Sarajevo.”
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Category Archives: Directors
“The films that I love are very straightforward stories, like really old-fashioned stuff.” — Paul Thomas Anderson
There are many good contemporary film-makers doing fascinating bold work but Paul Thomas Anderson is what you might call “touched”. What other filmmaker now would even dare to make something like Magnolia? Who could even think that up? How was … Continue reading
A Personal Memory: or: What Dog Day Afternoon Means to Me
For Sidney Lumet’s birthday. Update to the below: I got the opporunity to discuss all this on What About Al?, Mark Searby’s podcast dedicated to the career of Al Pacino. When I was 12 or 13, I saw Dog Day … Continue reading
Posted in Directors, Movies, On This Day
Tagged Al Pacino, Dog Day Afternoon, Sidney Lumet, Stanley Kramer
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“The energy doesn’t end at the hands. I want such intensity that it feels like light is streaming from every finger.” — Bob Fosse
It’s his birthday today. His work as a director – in films as diverse as Cabaret, Lenny, All That Jazz, and Star 80 is getting a lot of chatter from film critics, and of course that makes sense. I love … Continue reading
“You don’t want to see ‘plots’. You want to see stories develop.” — Billy Wilder
Billy and Audrey Wilder It’s his birthday today. I love him for his humor, his cynical pessimistic view of human beings – which, honestly, just feels realistic, his versatility with material (noirs, melodramas, war movies, comedies). Sunset Boulevard, Stalag 17, … Continue reading
“Cinema seats make people lazy. They expect to be given all the information. But for me, question marks are the punctuation of life.” — Abbas Kiarostami
It’s the birthday today of the great Iranian filmmaking master. Paying tribute to him – and the country from which he sprung – feels right, albeit sad, in this terrible disgraceful week. When Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami died at the … Continue reading
Posted in Directors, Movies, On This Day
Tagged Abbas Kiarostami, Certified Copy, Iran, Iranian film, Jafar Panahi, Juliette Binoche
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“When people ask me if I am a feminist film maker, I reply I am a woman and I also make films.” — Chantal Akerman
It’s her birthday today. The news of the death of pioneering Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman in 2015 came as a shock. She was young. 65 years old. Even worse, it was reported as a potential suicide. Either way, it was … Continue reading
“I don’t want to show things, but to give people the desire to see.” — Agnès Varda
It’s the birthday of Belgian filmmaker Agnès Varda, a pioneering force in the development of the French New Wave – she was French New Wave before it was even named “French New Wave.” When she died at the age of … Continue reading
Posted in Directors, Movies, On This Day
Tagged Agnes Varda, Belgium, France, Sandrine Bonnaire, women directors
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“Boredom is very important in life. It helps you feel when something is wrong.” — John Strasberg
It’s John Strasberg’s birthday today. I told this story before on here years ago, when I used to write like this on here, on occasion. Figured I’d re-post it. He is very very important to me. Back in the late … Continue reading
“It’s an absolute miracle that I’m still around.” — Dennis Hopper
It’s his birthday today. I’m so glad I used one of my columns at Film Comment -now on hiatus – to sing the praises of Dennis Hopper’s wild and nihilistic Out of the Blue, starring Linda Manz and Hopper. Of … Continue reading
Posted in Actors, Art/Photography, Directors, Movies, On This Day
Tagged Actors Studio, Croatia, Dennis Hopper, Out of the Blue, photography
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