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Life Isn't Black And White. It's A Million Gray Areas, Don't You Find?

-Ridley Scott

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Life Isn't Black And

Ridley Scott

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Life Isn't Black And White. It's A Million Gray Areas, Don't You Find?

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Black And White

More From Ridley Scott

Same Thing With Film, By The Time You've Finished Shooting And You've Really Been Into Everything, You've Touched Up Everything In The Editing Room. You've Gone In There And Taken Little Bits From Everything.

Mpc, Moving Picture Company, They're Really Excellent, They Did The Majority Of The Effects.

I Think One Of The Successes Of Gladiator Is How We Manage To Turn On A Dime The Character From One Thing To Another Where You Believe He Is One Thing And He Is Something Very Different.

As I'm Getting Older, I Want To Make Sure Every Film I Do Really Counts.

I Think I Was Really Bored At School. I Was Quietly Clock Watching For Years. I Went To 10 Schools Because My Dad Was In The Army And We Moved Around A Lot.

I'm A Moviemaker, Not A Documentarian. I Try To Hit The Truth.

If We Had Written Tristan In The True Vernacular The Audience Would Have Been Very Small. It Wouldn't Have Even Been Shakespearean. It Would Have Been So Celtic You Wouldn't Understand What Was Going On.

I Think Moviemakers Are Dramatists.

Harrison Is Very Much Part Of This One, But Really It’s About Finding Him; He Comes In In The Third Act.

My Career Seems To Be A Career Of Non-specific Subjects Which Are All Over The Place.

I Think Movies Are Getting Dumber, Actually. Where It Used To Be 50/50, Now It`s 3% Good, 97% Stupid.

I Don't Ever Blink, Honestly.

I Was Always Amazed About How Much I Could Finally Squeeze Into A Thirty Second Commercial.

And Anyway, It's Only Movies. To Stop Me I Think They'll Ahve To Shoot Me In The Head.

I Think Going Into Space Would Be Like Going Deep Into The Ocean, Like 5,000 Meters Down. When You Go Down That Far, It's Just Awfully Black. There's Not Much There Except Mud And Some Particles. I Imagine Space Would Be A Similar Thing. The Only Difference Is You're Hoping To Bump Into Some Sort Of Intelligent Extraterritorial Being.

I Love Different Themes, Different Venues, Different Movies. I Love To Jump About And Tackle Different Subjects. I Have No Intellectual Master Plan.

I Like My Wine And Vodka, But That Doesn't Mean I Fall About Drunk. I Know My Limits.

I Knew Exactly What To Do On Alien, It Was Funny.

That's Part Of The Policy: To Keep Switching Gears.

Once You Crack The Script, Everything Else Follows.

Scaring Someone's The Hardest Thing To Do, And That's Why Most Of Scary Movies Are Not Scary. They're Sick, But Not Scary. There's A Lot Of Sickness Out There, Of People Who Then Sit There And Watch It, Which I Think Is Absolutely Dismaying.

Never Be Put Off By Anything Because Failure Teaches You Something.

Films Like Harry Potter And Narnia, I'm Sure They'll Do Another One. The Biggest Audience Of Course Is The Youngsters.

The Time It Would Take Me To Write A Screenplay It Would Take Me The Time To Make Two Films. I Would Rather Make The Movies And I'm A Better Moviemaker Than I A Would Be Writer.

And I Maintain Good Relationships With All The Studios So I've Never Been Bullied Into Any Cut, Frankly.

Good Relationship

There's Great Wine From Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Chile And, Of Course, California. But There's Nothing Like A Really Great French Wine, They're So Well Balanced. The Better The Wine, The Less You Feel The Effects I Think.

Yes, Obviously, There's This Degree Of Wanting People To Accept Other People Faiths And Philosophies.

Politics Is Very Interesting And Always Leads To Conflict.

It Doesn't Matter How Much Faith You Have Or Don't Have [in Aliens]. I Just Don't Buy The Idea That We're Alone. There's Got To Be Some Form Of Life Out There.

I Watched Someone To Watch Over Me The Other Night. I Thought It Was A Really Good Movie. It's A Great Movie.

Usually, When Special Effects Get In The Way, It's Because The Story Isn't Strong Enough. If You Don't Start With A Strong Screenplay, It's Easy To Fall Back On Special Effects, Thinking It's Going To Carry You. But It Never Works. It's Just Tiresome.

Some People Like To Do Everything Always The Same Thing. That's Another Way: To Do The Same Thing.

Life Isn't Black And White. It's A Million Gray Areas, Don't You Find?

Black And White

A Good Year For Me Is When Me And My Family Are In Good Health. I'm Just Lucky To Have Good Years Doing Something I Like To Do.

It Goes Back A Long Way. I Wanted To Make Tristan + Isolde As My Second Movie. My First Movie Was The Duellists. And I Was Standing In A Very Romantic Part Of France Looking Around Me Thinking, "my God, This Would Be Perfect For Tristan," And To Cut A Long Story Short It Never Happened Because I Did Alien Instead.

Everyone Sniggered Because I Was Going To Do A Sandal And Toga Movie. But I Knew Exactly How To Do It And I Know How To Make Robin Hood.

That's A Heavy Word, But Picking Up A Newspaper Every Day, How Can You Not Despair At What's Happening In The World, And How We're Represented As Human Beings? The Disappointments And Corruption Are Dismaying At Every Level. And The Biggest Source Of Evil Is Of Course Religion... Everyone Are Tearing Each Other Apart In The Name Of Their Personal God. And The Irony Is, By Definition, They're Probably Worshipping The Same God.

You Don't Really Know What You're Going To Get Until You're Actually In Abbey Road. That's Where I Did All The Music, In The Beatles' Place.

When You're Doing A Big Movie, You're Gone For 10 Months To A Year.

I Went To Art College And During The Summer I Made A Movie With My Brother. I Got Hold Of A Little Camera, Wrote A Script And Dragged My Brother, Tony, Out Of Bed To Help Me (which He Did Not Like), So That We Could Shoot A Film Every Day For Six Weeks. It Was Made For £65 And It Was Called Boy On A Bicycle.

Well, Not Totally Because Over The Years I've Probably Done 2,700 Commercials. So, I'm Always Ticking. And In A Way That Was A Huge Advantage Because I Was Able To Take My Time Choosing My Film Subjects Because I Wasn't Relying On The Fear Of Not Being Able To Work.

I'm Not Criticizing Hollywood Because I Work There, I Partly Live There. But I'm Saying This Is The Way It Is, Commerce Is Taking Over Art. Commerce Has Become The Most Important Thing In The Film Industry. Hollywood Is An Industry, It's Not An Art Form, Therefore They Have To Address The Bottom Line. But In A Way It's Sad When You Get A Remake, Isn't It?

Some Actors - You Work With Them Once And Don't Even Think About Working With Them Again.

Blade Runner Appears Regularly, Two Or Three Times A Year In Various Shapes And Forms Of Science Fiction. It Set The Pace For What Is Essentially Urban Science Fiction, Urban Future And It's Why I've Never Re-visited That Area Because I Feel I've Done It.

It's Everything And I Always Make Decisions About The Cast.

You've Got To Be Able To Know Someone Really Well To Be Able To Have A Row And Then Also Walk Away From It And Not Have It Matter, Especially In This Business. That Doesn't Mean To Say We Have Many Rows But I Think The Nearest Thing To A Row Would Be Just Flatly Disagreeing With Something .

People Say I Pay Too Much Attention To The Look Of A Movie But For God's Sake, I'm Not Producing A Radio 4 Play For Today, I'm Making A Movie That People Are Going To Look At.

I Want To Make Films About The Human Condition, What We're Doing To The World Or Ourselves.

How Can You Look At The Galaxy And Not Feel Insignificant?

I Always Say To People When I'm Trying To Get Something Going, Bringing On Other Producers Or Other Directors, "you Can Think Of 95 Reasons Why Not To Make A Movie. You've Got To Address Why You Want To Make The Movie And Get It Done. Just Do It." I Tend To Live By That Rule.

I Do Like To Make Films With A Political Theme, But Sometimes It's Nice Simply To Make People Laugh. That's The Hardest Thing To Do In Fact.

It's The Best Of The Best. No Film Can Hope To Top It(kubrick's 2001).

Best Of The Best

I Was A Very Earnest, Hard Working Boy At School, But My Parents Were Distressed Because I Was Always Bottom Of The Class. But I Wasn't Dilatory, I Worked Like Crazy.

There's Nothing Really Original. Alien Was A B-movie. Five Directors Passed On It Before Me. Because I Was Into Heavy Metal, I Read It, And Thought, "wow, I Want To Do This." I Was On A Plane To Hollywood In 22 Hours. It Was A B-movie And Was Elevated To An A-plus Movie By Sheer Good Taste.

I Think There's Nothing Worse Than Inertia. You Can Inert And Study Your Navel And Gradually You'll Fall Off The Chair. I Think The Key Is To Keep Flying.

Nowadays, Everything's Evolved Into Superheroes And It's Boring. If I See One More Superhero Movie I'm Going To Shoot Myself.

Digital Is A Different World Because You Are Sitting At Home And A Hi Tech Piece Of Equipment Today Is Within Reach Of Most People, So They Are Watching A Pretty Hi Tech Version Of Whatever You've Done.

There's A Little Thing On Your Shoulder Called Intuition And It Whispers In Your Ear. Everyone Has That, There Is A Voice Telling You To Do Something. Most People Ignore It - But You Must Listen To It. I Do It Every Day, All Day.

I Get So Used To Working With Writers That My Prime Occupation Is Development.

If I Have To, I'll Go And Direct Theater And Talk Till The Cows Come Home.

What You Do, Is You Gradually Become More And More Experienced, And More And More Realistic About Dramatic Tolerance, I.e. About How Long The Play Should Be.

I Think If I'm Going To Do A Science Fiction, I'm Going To Go Down A New Path That I Want To Do.

Yeah, We're Working On Blade Runner 2 Right Now - That Will Happen Sooner Or Later.

Good Fbi Officers Are Not Noticeable. You Would Never Look At Them.

I Also Love Australian Movies. I Love Muriel's Wedding - I've Seen In Six Times. Baz Luhrmann's Best Movie Is Strictly Ballroom... Without Question.

But Gladiator Is One Of My Favourite Adventures Because I Really Loved Going Into The World. I Loved Creating The World To The Degree Where You Could Almost Smell It.

I Do A Pretty Good Job At Casting Actually.

There Is An Access To... People Can Now Afford Very High Quality Technology, Where You Can Have A Very Good Reproduction Of A Large Picture On A Large Screen At Home. People Go Out Less. There's All Kinds Of Reasons. I Don't Know That It's Going To Stay That Way But, I Think Also, We've Got To Start Making Better Movies.

The Whole Process Of Making Movies And Writing Screenplays Is Visceral And Intuitive.

A Hit For Me Is If I Enjoy The Movie, If I Personally Enjoy The Movie.

I'm Very Competitive. I Just Go With What Engages Or Fascinates Me In My Work And That's It. I Have No Definition; I Just Love To Do It.

I Believe All Of Us Only Use One Tenth Of Our Brain. I Know People Who Use One Per Cent Only!

Blade Runner Was The Godfather Of All These Fantastic Movies That Occur Today. What's Frustrating Is That We're Short Of Really Great Writing And Great Ideas. Blade Runner Was Full Of Them.

Audiences Are Less Intrigued, Honestly, By Battle. They're More Intrigued By Human Relations. If You're Making A Film About The Trappings Of The Period, And You're Forgetting That Human Relationships Are The Most Engaging Part Of The Storytelling Process, Then You're In Trouble.

I'm Just Trying To Think What Other Sequels There Were. There Was The James Bond Movies And Not Many. I Think Sequels Have Become A Recent Idea Of Franchising.

I Spend A Lot Of My Time Just Developing Material; Or The Company Does. That Material Can Come From A Book, Can Come From A Newspaper, Can Come From A Discussion And Sometimes It Can Come From A Script That Got Passed Over And Is Floating Around.

In My View, The Only Way To See A Film Remains The Way The Filmmaker Intended: Inside A Large Movie Theater With Great Sound And Pristine Picture.

You Step Forward And Make It Real For A Start. You Choose A Sensible Moment In History. Funnily Enough, England Was Bankrupt And The Moment Is The Death Of Richard The Lionheart... Richard Takes An Arrow In The Neck Collecting A Small Debt From A Small Castle On His Way Home From The Crusades Because He's Penniless.

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