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[david Lean's] Images Stay With Me Forever. But What Makes Them Memorable Isn't Necessarily Their Beauty. That's Just Good Photography. It's The Emotion Behind Those Images That's Meant The Most To Me Over The Years. It's The Way David Lean Can Put Feeling On Film. The Way He Shows A Whole Landscape Of The Spirit. For Me, That's The Real Geography Of David Lean Country. And That's Why, In A David Lean Movie, There's No Such Thing As An Empty Landscape.

-Martin Scorsese

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[david Lean's] Images Stay

Martin Scorsese

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[david Lean's] Images Stay With Me Forever. But What Makes Them Memorable Isn't Necessarily Their Beauty. That's Just Good Photography. It's The Emotion Behind Those Images That's Meant The Most To Me Over The Years. It's The Way David Lean Can Put Feeling On Film. The Way He Shows A Whole Landscape Of The Spirit. For Me, That's The Real Geography Of David Lean Country. And That's Why, In A David Lean Movie, There's No Such Thing As An Empty Landscape.

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My Working-class Italian-american Parents Didn't Go To School, There Were No Books In The House.

Cinema Is A Matter Of What's In The Frame And What's Out.

I Don't Really See A Conflict Between The Church And The Movies, The Sacred And The Profane...there Are Major Differences, But I Could Also See Great Similarities...both Are Places For People To Come Together And Share.

Young Film Makers Should Learn How To Deal With The Money And Learn How To Deal With The Power Structure. Because It Is Like A Battle.

I Go Through Periods, Usually When I'm Editing And Shooting, Of Seeing Only Old Films.

We Cannot Burn Mick Jagger. We Want The Effect, But We Can't Burn Him.

I Remember The Korean War Very Well. And I Remember The Soldiers Who Were Pows Who Supposedly Were "brainwashed," Quote, Unquote, Who Gave In, So To Speak. And When They Came Back, They Were Treated Like Pariahs And Traitors.

As A Kid I Watched The Academy Awards On Television And Always Wanted One - Or Several - Like One Of My Favorite Directions, John Ford. He Won Six. On The Other Hand, Orson Welles, Who's On The Top Of My List, Didn't Win Any. Alfred Hitchcock Didn't Win Any. Howard Hawks Didn't Win Any.

Being Independent... Is Being Innovative Out Of Inspiration As Well As Necessity.

It’s Also True That I Might Have Never Made Taxi Driver [1976] Were It Not For The Success Of Alice [doesn’t Live Here Anymore, 1974]. The Question Of Commercialism Is A Source Of Worry. Must One Make A Choice, Must It Be A Matter Of Either Setting Your Sights On Winning An Academy Award And Becoming A Millionaire, Or Making Only The Movies You Want To Make And Starving To Death?

Sometimes When You're Heavy Into The Shooting Or Editing Of A Picture, You Get To The Point Where You Don't Know If You Could Ever Do It Again.

You Gotta Understand, When Moving Images First Started, People Wanted Sound, Color, Big Screen And Depth.

I Was Rather Shaken By All The Green Trees. I Always Am. It Gets Me. I Don't Want To Be Funny About It But I Am. I Loved Seeing All The Westerns, But I Had Asthma And Couldn't Go Anywhere, But I Loved Watching Them In Technicolor And Seeing The Cowboys And The Landscapes Of Monument Valley And You'd See The Forests Of The Anthony Mann Films And Think, 'wow, That's Fantastic', But I Could Never Go There!

I Think When You're Young And Have That First Burst Of Energy And Make Five Or Six Pictures In A Row That Tell The Stories Of All The Things In Life You Want To Say... Well, Maybe Those Are The Films That Should Have Won Me The Oscar.

Basically, You Make Another Movie, And Another, And Hopefully You Feel Good About Every Picture You Make. And You Say, 'my Name Is On That. I Did That. It's Ok.' But Don't Get Me Wrong, I Still Get Excited By It All. That, I Hope, Will Never Disappear.

My Whole Life Has Been Movies And Religion. That's It. Nothing Else.

I'm Often Asked By Younger Filmmakers, 'why Do I Need To Look At Old Movies?' I've Made A Number Of Pictures In The Last 20 Years And The Response I Have To Give Them Is That I Still Consider Myself A Student. The More Pictures I've Made In 20 Years, The More I Realize I Really Don't Know. And I'm Always Looking For Something Or Someone That I Could Learn From. I Tell The Younger Filmmakers, And The Young Students, That Do It Like Painters Used To Do—that Painters Do—study The Old Masters, Enrich Your Palette, Expand The Canvas. There's Always So Much More To Learn.

The Only Thing I Really Wanted Was The Freedom To Be Able To Get What I Want On Film. I’ve Dealt With The Mpaa Since 1973, So I Know How To Renegotiate And Rework.

Michael Jackson Was Extraordinary. When We Worked Together On 'bad,' I Was In Awe Of His Absolute Mastery Of Movement On The One Hand, And Of The Music On The Other. Every Step He Took Was Absolutely Precise And Fluid At The Same Time. It Was Like Watching Quicksilver In Motion. He Was Wonderful To Work With, An Absolute Professional At All Times, And It Really Goes Without Saying... A True Artist. It Will Be A While Before I Can Get Used To The Idea That He's No Longer With Us.

You Don't Make Pictures For Oscars.

I'm Trying To Find Out What The Hell We - Who We Are.

I Still Dislike Phones, Yeah!

There Are Times When You Have To Face Your Enemies, Sit Down And Deal With It.

Days That I'll Remember Is A Lovingly Assembled And Beautifully Written Collection Of Conversations, Observations, And Memories Of Music, Friendship, And Days Gone By. It's Good To Be Back Again With John Lennon, His Beloved Yoko Ono, And His Trusted Chronicler And Friend Jonathan Cott.

I'm Trying Not To Let The Anger And The Violence That Erupt Take Over My Life. I Guess It Comes With The Growing Process, I Don't Know. A Little Mellowing.

Our World Is So Glutted With Useless Information, Images, Useless Images, Sounds, All This Sort Of Thing. It's A Cacophony, It's Like A Madness I Think That's Been Happening In The Past Twenty-five Years. And I Think Anything That Can Help A Person Sit In A Room Alone And Not Worry About It Is Good.

I Always Say That I've Been In A Bad Mood For Maybe 35 Years Now. I Try To Lighten It Up, But That's What Comes Out When You Get Me On Camera.

Well, I Think In My Own Work The Subject Matter Usually Deals With Characters I Know, Aspects Of Myself, Friends Of Mine - That Sort Of Thing.

I Think If You Think Of Yourself As Religious And If You're Given A Gift, Some May Not Think It's That Great A Gift - Some Critics. But Others Might, You Know. So You Say, Look - Whether It's Good, Bad Or Indifferent, This Is What I Do.

One Of The Things Is That The Good Intentions Of Prohibition, From Reading Over The Years And From Becoming Obsessed With The Research Of Gangs In New York City, Seems To Have Allowed Crime Figures At The Time, Like Luciano, Capone, Torrio And Rothstein, To Organize To Become More Powerful, Which Pulled All The Way Through Until The '70s.

Always Stay Open To Surprise.

Food Tells You Everything About The Way People Live And Who They Are.

I Can't Really Envision A Time When I'm Not Shooting Something.

I'm Obsessed With New York. I Just Find It So Remarkable. You Really Treasure This City When You Go To Different Countries And You See That There Is No Mix. When You Get Back To The City, It's Such An Exciting Place.

Watching A Kubrick Film Is Like Gazing Up At A Mountaintop. You Look Up And Wonder, How Could Anyone Have Climbed That High?

For Me, The Key Image Is The Boat Coming Through The Fog At The Beginning. It's Something I Imagined And Liked And I Guess There Are Other References In Other Films I Make - The Similar Type Of Image. But I Think It's Interesting, It's Breaking Through The Mystery, Or Maybe It Stays In The Fog... We Don't Really Know. Where Is He At The Beginning Of The Film, Who Is He?

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There's No Such Thing As Simple. Simple Is Hard.

There's A Way That The Force Of Disappointment Can Be Alchemized Into Something That Will Paradoxically Renew You.

There Must Be People Who Remember World War Ii And The Holocaust Who Can Help Us Get Out Of This Rut.

If You Don’t Like The Films Of Samuel Fuller , Then You Just Don’t Like Cinema.

I Think What Happened There Was Just The Budget Would Be Too Big To Build These Sets Because Nothing Really Exists Here In New York Of That Period; You Have To Build It All.

Death Comes In A Flash, And That's The Truth Of It, The Person's Gone In Less Than 24 Frames Of Film.

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If I'm Not Complaining, I'm Not Having A Good Time, Hah Hah!

Having A Good Time

The Real Truth, I Thought, In Terms Of What Faith Is And What Christianity Is.

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I Don't Think There's A Subject Matter That Can't Absorb 3-d; That Can't Tolerate The Addition Of Depth As A Storytelling Technique.

I’m Not Interested In A Realistic Look, Not At All, Not Ever. Every Film Should Look The Way I Feel.

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I Grew Up Within Italian-american Neighborhoods, Everybody Was Coming Into The House All The Time, Kids Running Around, That Sort Of Stuff, So When I Finally Got Into My Own Area, So To Speak, To Make Films, I Still Carried On.

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I Didn't Realize There Are Generations Who Do Not Know About The Origins Of Film.

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You Don't Make Up For Your Sins In Church. You Do It In The Streets. You Do It At Home. The Rest Is Bullshit And You Know It.

The First Element That I Connected With Was The Emotion. Sorry, That's How It Goes.

The Term 'giant' Is Used Too Often To Describe Artists. But In The Case Of Akira Kurosawa, We Have One Of The Rare Instances Where The Term Fits.

Very Often I've Known People Who Wouldn't Say A Word To Each Other, But They'd Go To See Movies Together And Experience Life That Way.

You've Got To Love Something Enough To Kill It.

People Say You Should Do It This Way, Someone Else Suggests That, Yes, There's Financing, But Maybe You Should Use This Actor. And There Are The Threats, At The End - If You Don't Do It This Way, You'll Lose Your Box Office; If You Don't Do It That Way, You'll Never Get Financed Again... 35, 40 Years Of This, You Get Beat Up.

There Was Always A Part Of Me That Wanted To Be An Old-time Director. But I Couldn't Do That. I'm Not A Pro.

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I Love Studying Ancient History And Seeing How Empires Rise And Fall, Sowing The Seeds Of Their Own Destruction.

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During Prohibition, Atlantic City Created The Idea Of The Speakeasy, Which Turned Into Nightclubs And That Extraordinary Political Complexity And Corruption Coming Out Of New Jersey At The Time. The Long Hand That They Had-and Maybe Still Do-even Had To Do With Presidential Elections.

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I Wish I Could Play Music. I Think I Get As Closeas Possible With The Editing Of The Films. Over The Years Musichas Been An Even More Important Influence Than-or As Important As-film.there's No Doubt About It. Painting, Movement, Dance, Sculpture-it'sall In Cinema.

More Personal Films, You Could Make Them, But Your Budgets Would Be Cut Down.

Well The Thing Is That The New York Of 1846 To 1862 Was Very Different From Downtown New York Now. Really Nothing From That Period Still Exists In New York.

The Most Important Thing Is, How Can I Move Forward Towards Something That I Can't Articulate, That Is New In Storytelling With Moving Images And Sound?

I Was Born In 1942, So I Was Mainly Aware Of Howard Hughes' Name On Rko Radio Pictures.

You Have To Remain Strong. That's The Kind Of Filmmaker I Want To Encourage. Orson Welles Was The One Who Said, You Know, You Can Learn Anything You Need To Know About Filmmaking- That's Camera, Sound, Celluloid, Video At This Point- In Four Hours. It Has Nothing To Do With Anything. It Has Nothing To Do With It... It Has To Do With What You Want To Say. If You Feel You Have Something To Say, You'll Find That Way To Get It Said, On Film, And Not Let Anyone Or Anything Chip Away At That Or Tarnish It, Because It's Something Special And Precious.

Now More Than Ever We Need To Talk To Each Other, To Listen To Each Other And Understand How We See The World, And Cinema Is The Best Medium For Doing This.

People Want To Classify And Say, 'ok, This Is A Gangster Film.' 'this Is A Western.' 'this Is A... ' You Know? It's Easy To Classify And It Makes People Feel Comfortable, But It Doesn't Matter, It Doesn't Really Matter.

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Pursuit Of Happiness

A Panoramic Vision Of Bob Dylan, His Music, His Shifting Place In American Culture, From Multiple Angles. In Fact, Reading Sean Wilentz's Bob Dylan In America Is As Thrilling And Surprising As Listening To A Great Dylan Song.

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I'm Not A Hollywood Director. I'm An In Spite Of Hollywood Director.

I Have A Desire To Tell Stories. And I'm Never Quite Satisfied.

I Certainly Wasn't Able To Get It When I Was A Kid Growing Up On The Lower East Side; It Was Very Hard At That Time For Me To Balance What I Really Believed Was The Right Way To Live With The Violence I Saw All Around Me - I Saw Too Much Of It Among The People I Knew.

Sometimes God Picks You Up And Tells You, "you've Been Messing Around Now. You're Going To Have To Stop This, Stop That, But I'll Give You Another Chance." And You Wonder Why You're Given Another Chance. It Must Be For Something; It Must Be To Celebrate Life.

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I've Been Thrown Out Of Schools And Fired From Jobs. I Don't Want To Work. I Can Honestly Say I Haven't Done An Honest Day's Work In My Life.

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I Accept All Awards. I Like Them.

I've Been To North Africa Many Times.

You Can Be Born-again And Believe In Jesus, Believe In Jesus' Ideas And Try To Live Them Out, Without Becoming Totally Intolerant Of Other People.

People Have To Start Talking To Know More About Other Cultures And To Understand Each Other.

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Film In The 20th Century, It's The American Art Form, Like Jazz.

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It Is Not The Most Brilliant That Excel In Film, But The Most Patient!

I Grew Up In The Lower East Side, An Italian American - More Sicilian, Actually.

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Orson Welles Was A Force Of Nature, Who Just Came In And Wiped The Slate Clean. And Citizen Kane Is The Greatest Risk-taking Of All Time In Film. I Don’t Think Anything Had Even Seen Anything Quite Like It. The Photography Was Also Unlike Anything We’d Seen. The Odd Coldness Of The Filmmaker Towards The Character Reflects His Own Egomania And Power, And Yet A Powerful Empathy For All Of Them--it’s Very Interesting. It Still Holds Up, And It’s Still Shocking. It Takes Storytelling And Throws It Up In The Air.

I'm Very Phobic About Flying, But I'm Also Drawn To It.

If Your Mother Cooks Italian Food, Why Should You Go To A Restaurant?

More Than Ninety Percent Of Directing A Picture Is The Right Casting

The Most Important Thing Is The Script.

Zombies, What Are You Going To Do With Them? Just Keep Chopping Them Up, Shooting At Them, Shooting At Them.

I'm Going To Be 60, And I'm Almost Used To Myself.

I Prefer People Who Don't Get Caught, And If They Do Get Caught, I Prefer People Who Don't Give In.

I Don't Agree With Everything He Did In His Life, But We're Dealing With This Howard Hughes, At This Point. And Also Ultimately The Flaw In Howard Hughes, The Curse So To Speak.

You've Got To Protect Whatever Creative Talent You Have Left.

I'd Like To Do A Number Of Films. Westerns. Genre Pieces. Maybe Another Film About Italian Americans Where They're Not Gangsters, Just To Prove That Not All Italians Are Gangsters.

Because Of The Movies I Make, People Get Nervous. They Think Of Me As Difficult And Angry. I Am Difficult And Angry, But They Don't Expect A Sense Of Humor. And The Only Thing That Gets Me Through Is A Sense Of Humor.

It’s Often Overlooked. It’s Labor. That’s At The Heart Of #‎ Collaboration .

As You Grow Older, You Change.

I Do Prefer Doing More Takes. There's Something Very Organic That Comes From The First Take, But Certain Things Come Out. More Details Come Out, In The Way Another Actor Says Something. It's Always This Investigative Process. You Come Further And Further To The Truth, The More You Escalate. I Like To Do A Lot Of Takes. I Have A Hunger For It. I Like To See What There Is To Discover In A Scene, That Hasn't Been Thought Of.

Every Scene Is A Lesson. Every Shot Is A School. Let The Learning Continue.

You Have To Put Yourself In A Situation, A Lifestyle, That Makes You Do The Work. Even If It's A Monastery.

Popular Music Formed The Soundtrack Of My Life.

I Would Ask: Given The Nature Of Free-market Capitalism - Where The Rule Is To Rise To The Top At All Costs - Is It Possible To Have A Financial Industry Hero? And By The Way, This Is Not A Pop-culture Trend We're Talking About. There Aren't Many Financial Heroes In Literature, Theater Or Cinema.

Always Get To The Set Or The Location Early, So That You Can Be All Alone And Draw Your Inspiration For The Blocking And The Setups In Private And Quiet. In One Sense, It's About Protecting Yourself; In Another Sense, It's About Always Being Open To Surprise, Even From The Set, Because There May Be Some Detail That You Hadn't Noticed. I Think This Is Crucial. There Are Many Pictures That Seem Good In So Many Ways Except One: They Lack A Sense Of Surprise, They've Never Left The Page.

An Interviewer Once Asked Me To Discuss My Collaboration With Elmer Bernstein, And Precisely Why I Chose To Work With Him. My First Thought Was: How Could I Not Work With Elmer, When I Had The Chance? Simply Put, He's The Best There Is-the Very Best.

Alcohol Decimated The Working Class And So Many People.

The Vampire Thing Always Works For Some Reason. Always Works.

I Just - I Kind Of See It That Way. I Find The Higher Angles Down. I Do - Look, You Can Go Back To The Staircase Shots In "third Man" Or The Staircase In "la Dolce Vita." So I Just Find That Visual Construction In A Frame.

I Just Wanted To Be An Ordinary Parish Priest.

I'm In A Different Chapter Of My Life. As Time Goes By And I Grow Older, I Find That I Need To Just Be Quiet And Think. There Have Been Periods When I've Locked Myself Away For Days, But Now It's Different - I'm Married And We Have A Daughter Who Is In My Office The Whole Time.

When I'm Making A Film, I'm The Audience.

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I Wouldn't Presume To Be God's Point Of View.

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The More You See, Especially Being Young, The More You See The Past, The More You Can Draw Upon That And The More You Can Make The Present And The Future. It's How You Process The Past And At Oftentimes In The Picture, There Are References To Certain Imagery From Certain Pictures, And Certain Novels.

Working With Hbo Was An Opportunity To Experience Creative Freedom And 'long-form Development' That Filmmakers Didn't Have A Chance To Do Before The Emergence Of Shows Like 'the Sopranos.'

If Everything Moves Along And There Are No Major Catastrophes We're Basically Headed Towards Holograms.

I Always Wanted To Make A Film That Had This Sort Of Chinese-box Effect, In Which You Keep Opening It Up And Opening It Up, And Finally At The End You're At The Beginning.

I've Seen Many, Many Movies Over The Years, And There Are Only A Few That Suddenly Inspire You So Much That You Want To Continue To Make Films.

My Father Had This Mythological Sense Of The Old New York, And He Used To Tell Me Stories About These Old Gangs, Particularly The Forty Thieves In The Fourth Ward.

Actually, I Was Rock Climbing On This Film At 7 In The Morning. It Was Quite Unique! But In Any Event, The Colour Of The Leaves Disturbed Me So We Had To Work On That. On The Other Hand, I Didn't Want To Drench It In A Kind Of Depressing Tone.

If You’re Looking For The Origins Of Film Culture In America, Look No Further Than Amos Vogel.

It's Interesting That These Themes Of Crime And Political Corruption Are Always Relevant.

Vic Armstrong Is, Of Course, A Legend

A Lot Of What I'm Obsessed With Is The Relationship And The Dynamics Between People And The Family, Particularly Brothers And Their Father.

Any Film, Or To Me Any Creative Endeavour, No Matter Who You're Working With, Is, In Many Cases, A Wonderful Experience.

I'm Not Videotaping My Life, But In A Way I Am Trying To Put Certain Things About Myself On Canvas.

Rock & Roll Seemed To Just Come To Us, On The Radio And In The Record Stores. It Became Our Music. . . But Then We Uncovered Another, Deeper Level, The History Behind Rock And R&b, The Music Behind Our Music. All Roads Led To The Source, Which Was The Blues.

I Know That I Come From Mid-20th Century America, Urban, Specifically Downtown New York, Specifically An Italian-american Area, Roman Catholic - That's Who I Am. And A Part Of What I Know Is There's A Decency To People Who Tried To Make A Living In The Kind Of World That Was Around Us And Also The Skid Row Area Of The Bowery; It Impressed Me.

The Storyboard For Me Is The Way To Visualise The Entire Movie In Advance.

When Everything Is Added Up, The Frequent Blows Weighted Against The Sporadic Triumphs, This Is I Have To Say Not Just A Vocation, It's A Great Gift. But You Also Know This, For Your Work, For Your Passion, Every Day Is A Rededication. Painters, Dancers, Actors, Writers, Filmmakers. It's The Same For All Of You, All Of Us. Every Step Is A First Step. Every Brush Stroke Is A Test. Every Scene Is A Lesson. Every Shot Is A School. So, Let The Learning Continue.

If We Just Sit And Exist, And Understand That, I Think It Will Be Helpful In A World That Seems Like A Record That's Going Faster And Faster, We're Spinning Off The Edge Of The Universe.

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