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Making A Movie Is Like Chipping Away At A Stone. You Take A Piece Off Here, You Take A Piece Off There And When You're Finished, You Have A Sculpture. You Know That There's Something In There, But You're Not Sure Exactly What It Is Until You Find It.

-Robert Altman

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Making A Movie Is

Robert Altman

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Making A Movie Is Like Chipping Away At A Stone. You Take A Piece Off Here, You Take A Piece Off There And When You're Finished, You Have A Sculpture. You Know That There's Something In There, But You're Not Sure Exactly What It Is Until You Find It.

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Making A Movie Is Like Chipping Away At A Stone. You Take A Piece Off Here, You Take A Piece Off There And When You're Finished, You Have A Sculpture. You Know That There's Something In There, But You're Not Sure Exactly What It Is Until You Find It.

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Making A Movie Is Like Chipping Away At A Stone. You Take A Piece Off Here, You Take A Piece Off There And When You're Finished, You Have A Sculpture. You Know That There's Something In There, But You're Not Sure Exactly What It Is Until You Find It.

What Is An Ending? There's No Such Thing. Death Is The Only Ending.

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Every Ad For Every Film Is Exactly The Same.

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If Something Works For You, You Continue To Do It. I Did A Bunch Of Pictures For 20th Century Fox When Alan Ladd Was Over There, But I Set The Budgets So Low That They'd Approve And I'd Deliver The Film. They Would Have No Say In It, Which Is The Kind Of Arrangement I Liked.

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I Want To See Something That I've Never Seen Before, So How Can I Tell That Actor What That Is? I'm Not Trying To Construct A Document Or Situation That Is What I Want, Because What I Want Is Something New To Me.

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Men Make Clothes For The Women They'd Like To Be With Or In Most Cases The Women They'd Like To Be.

I Insist That They Do What They Became Actors To Do. I Want Them To Create Something And Not Just Hit Marks And Say Words. So They All Love That Because They're Playing. It's Called Playacting. Their Contributions Are Not Only Welcomed, But Are Accepted And Used.

Maybe There's A Chance To Get Back To Grown-up Films. Anything That Uses Humor And Dramatic Values To Deal With Human Emotions And Gets Down To What People Are To People.

I Love Fishing. You Put That Line In The Water And You Don't Know What's On The Other End. Your Imagination Is Under There.

All Of My Films Deal With The Same Thing: Striving, Socially And Culturally, To Stay Alive.

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I Like Audiences To Crane Their Necks.

If George W. Bush Is Elected President, I'm Leaving For France.

They'll Never Give Me An Oscar. And I Sincerely, Honestly Don't Care. I Always Turn Up When I'm Nominated And It Would Be Nice To Get One, But To Win One Would Be Bad Luck. It Comes With Too Much Expectation. It Would Be The End.

I Was A Heavy Drinker, But The Alcohol Affected My Heart Rather Than My Liver. So I Stopped. I Smoke Grass Now. I Say That To Everybody, Because Marijuana Should Be Legalized. It's Ridiculous That It Isn't. If At The End Of The Day I Feel Like Smoking A Joint I Do It. It Changes The Perception Of What I've Been Through All Day.

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I Am Not An Expert. That Is Someone Else's Job. If I Were Expert, The Approach Would Be All Wrong. It Would Be From The Inside. I Am A Blunderer. I Usually Don't Know What I Am Going Into At The Start. I Go Into The Fog And Trust Something Will Be There.

I Like Audiences To Crane Their Necks.

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Wisdom And Love Have Nothing To Do With Each Other. Wisdom Is Staying Alive, Survival. You're Wise If You Don't Stick Your Finger In The Light Plug. Love - You'll Stick Your Finger In Anything.

Why Should I Keep Doing Things That I've Done Before?

We Make Too Much Of The Good And Too Much Of The Bad.

I Don't Think Screenplay Writing Is The Same As Writing - I Mean, I Think It's Blueprinting.

Titanic I Thought Was The Most Dreadful Piece Of Work I've Ever Seen In My Entire Life. Another Film That I Think Is Equally Bad Was American Beauty. So Badly Acted And Directed. But People Like That.

You Will Never See'altman's Great Film Of The Seventies: The Director's Cut' Because You Have Never Seen A Film Of Mine That Wasn't The Director's Cut. I Have Never Permitted It.

Your Own Ego Is The Only Trap That I Think You Can Fall Into.

Most Of My Films I Call Arena Films. I Deal With A Confined Area -- An Arena -- And I Try To Cover Every Aspect Of It.

[m*a*s*h] Didn't Get Released By Fox, It Escaped.

We Make Too Much Of The Good And Too Much Of The Bad.

I Was Scared That No One Would Hire Me. At That Time, There Was Still A Stigma Attached To It. A Big Stigma. Actually, I Think I Was Healthier After The Operation Than Some People Who Have Bypass Surgery Because I Was Completely Cured. But When You Mentioned "heart Transplant," You Got A Very Negative Reaction. It Triggered People's Imaginations, And Not In A Good Way.

I Never Knew What I Wanted, Except That It Was Something I Hadn't Seen Before.

There Was Not A Lot Of Dialogue. The Titles Were Just To Keep You Up. It's The Visual Stimulation That Hits The Audience. That's The Reason For Film. Otherwise, We Might As Well Turn The Light Out And Call It Radio.

Retirement? You're Talking About Death, Right?

I Don't Know What "altmanesque" Means, Though I Suppose I'm Flattered By It.

I Make No Apologies For Popeye. Behind M*a*s*h, It's My Biggest Hit. It Got Maligned By The Critics Because It Wasn't Superman. It Wasn't About Special Effects And It Wasn't Made For 14-year-old Boys. The Majority Of Films Are Made For 14-year-old Boys; I Don't Know Where They Get The Eight Bucks To Get In. It's Hush Money From The Parents.

Words Don't Tell You What People Are Thinking. Rarely Do We Use Words To Really Tell. We Use Words To Sell People Or To Convince People Or To Make Them Admire Us. It's All Disguise. It's All Hidden -- A Secret Language.

That Wasn't An Ending. It Was Just A Stopping Point.

Happy Endings Are Absolutely Ludicrous, They're Not True At All. We See The Guy Carry The Girl Across The Threshold And Everybody Lives Happily Ever After -- That's Bullshit. Three Weeks Later He's Beating Her Up And She's Suing For Divorce And He's Got Cancer.

I've Had It-the Agencies, The Winking, The Networks, The Ratings. Anyone Who Thinks Tv Is An Art Medium Is Crazy-it's An Advertising Medium.

Most Of My Films I Call Arena Films. I Deal With A Confined Area -- An Arena -- And I Try To Cover Every Aspect Of It.

I Never Knew What I Wanted, Except That It Was Something I Hadn't Seen Before.

People Have Asked Me Throughout The Years Which Directors Have Influenced Me. I Don't Know Their Names, Because I Was Mostly Influenced When I'd See A Film And Think, "man, I Want To Be Sure To Never Do Anything Like That." So I Never Learned Their Names. It Wasn't A Matter Of Copying Or Emulating Somebody I Admired. It Was Getting Rid Of A Lot Of Stuff.

Chance Is Another Name That We Give To Our Mistakes. And All Of The Best Things In My Films Are Mistakes.

Happy Endings Are Absolutely Ludicrous, They're Not True At All. We See The Guy Carry The Girl Across The Threshold And Everybody Lives Happily Ever After -- That's Bullshit. Three Weeks Later He's Beating Her Up And She's Suing For Divorce And He's Got Cancer.

I'll Give You The Same Advice I Give My Children: Never Take Advice From Anybody.

People Have Asked Me Throughout The Years Which Directors Have Influenced Me. I Don't Know Their Names, Because I Was Mostly Influenced When I'd See A Film And Think, "man, I Want To Be Sure To Never Do Anything Like That." So I Never Learned Their Names. It Wasn't A Matter Of Copying Or Emulating Somebody I Admired. It Was Getting Rid Of A Lot Of Stuff.

That Wasn't An Ending. It Was Just A Stopping Point.

Titanic I Thought Was The Most Dreadful Piece Of Work I've Ever Seen In My Entire Life. Another Film That I Think Is Equally Bad Was American Beauty. So Badly Acted And Directed. But People Like That.

I've Never Had A Big Hit Movie. "mash" Was Probably The Biggest. I Don't Make Those Kind Of Films, And I Never Have. I Wish Each One Of Them Would Just Do Billions Of Dollars Worth Of Ticket Sales, But They Never Do And They Never Will.

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