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The Creation Of The Island, Or The Impression Of The Island, As It Changes In The Mind Of The Character Also Came In To Play... There Was Another Very Important Collaborator, Rob Legato, On Special Visual Effects. And Then Ultimately There's Thelma Schoonmaker, Who Keeps Me Focused During The Editing Of The Picture.

-Martin Scorsese

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The Creation Of The

Martin Scorsese

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The Creation Of The Island, Or The Impression Of The Island, As It Changes In The Mind Of The Character Also Came In To Play... There Was Another Very Important Collaborator, Rob Legato, On Special Visual Effects. And Then Ultimately There's Thelma Schoonmaker, Who Keeps Me Focused During The Editing Of The Picture.

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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.

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

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.

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I Think There's Only One Or Two Films Where I've Had All The Financial Support I Needed. All The Rest, I Wish I'd Had The Money To Shoot Another Ten Days.

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

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.

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.

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

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 Don't Know How Else To Tell The Story Except To Utilise That Vocabulary: The Rain, The Darkness, The Mansions, The Framing, Etc, The Lighting And That Sort Of Thing.

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

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.

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.

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The Cinema Began With A Passionate, Physical Relationship Between Celluloid And The Artists And Craftsmen And Technicians Who Handled It, Manipulated It, And Came To Know It The Way A Lover Comes To Know Every Inch Of The Body Of The Beloved. No Matter Where The Cinema Goes, We Cannot Afford To Lose Sight Of Its Beginnings.

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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.

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

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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.

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

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There Are Two Kinds Of Power You Have To Fight. The First Is The Money, And That's Just Our System. The Other Is The People Close Around You, Knowing When To Accept Their Criticism, Knowing When To Say No.

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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.

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 Look For A Thematic Idea Running Through My Movies And I See That It's The Outsider Struggling For Recognition. I Realize That All My Life I've Been An Outsider, And Above All, Being Lonely But Never Realizing It.

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.

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.

All My Life, I Never Really Felt Comfortable Anywhere In New York, Except Maybe In An Apartment Somewhere.

If Kubrick Had Lived To See The Opening Of His Final Film, He Obviously Would Have Been Disappointed By The Hostile Reactions. But I'm Sure That In The End He Would Have Taken It With A Grain Of Salt And Moved On. That's The Lot Of All True Visionaries, Who Don't See The Use Of Working In The Same Vein As Everyone Else. Artists Like Kubrick Have Minds Expansive And Dynamic Enough To Picture The World In Motion, To Comprehend Not Just Where Its Been, But Where It's Going.

I Love The Look Of Planes And The Idea Of How A Plane Flies. The More I Learn About It The Better I Feel; While I Still May Not Like It, I Have A Sense Of What Is Really Happening.

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.

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

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.

What The Dalai Lama Had To Resolve Was Whether To Stay In Tibet Or Leave. He Wanted To Stay, But Staying Would Have Meant The Total Destruction Of Tibet, Because He Would Have Died And That Would Have Ripped The Heart Out Of His People.

I Do Know That Some Buddhists Are Able To Attain Peace Of Mind.

I Loved The Idea Of Seeing The World Through A Boy's Eyes.

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

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.

I've Been To North Africa Many Times.

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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'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.

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

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

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

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.

On The One Hand, You're The Same Person, But As You Get Older, You Change Somewhat, And You Never Know How It's Going To Affect Your Work.

[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.

Popular Music Formed The Soundtrack Of My Life.

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.

It Seems To Me That Any Sensible Person Must See That Violence Does Not Change The World And If It Does, Then Only Temporarily.

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When I Was Growing Up, I Don't Remember Being Told That America Was Created So That Everyone Could Get Rich. I Remember Being Told It Was About Opportunity And The Pursuit Of Happiness. Not Happiness Itself, But The Pursuit.

Pursuit Of Happiness

Movies Touch Our Hearts, And Awaken Our Vision, And Change The Way We See Things. They Take Us To Other Places. They Open Doors And Minds. Movies Are The Memories Of Our Lifetime. We Need To Keep Them Alive.

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

As You Grow Older, You Change.

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

Vic Armstrong Is, Of Course, A Legend

Hong Kong Cinema Is Something You Can't Duplicate Anyway.

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.

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.

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 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.

It Did Remind Me Of Something Out Of Greek Mythology - The Richest King Who Gets Everything He Wants, But Ultimately His Family Has A Curse On It From The Gods.

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.

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.

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

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

I've Been Extremely Lucky To Work With Elmer Bernstein, Howard Shore Over The Years, But I've Always Imagined Films With My Own Scores, Because I Don't Come From That World Or That Period Of Filmmaking. And So How Could I Make Up My Own Score On A Film Like This Where It Isn't Necessarily Made Up Of Popular Music From The Radio Or The Period; It Isn't Necessarily Classical Music. But What If It's Modern Symphonic Music?

Oh, The Foghorns... Even The Foghorns, They're All Brass. It's Something By Ingrid Marshal Called Fog Tropes. It's Not A Sound Effect. It's An Actual Piece Of Music. If You Listen To What's Going On After He Has A Flashback About His Wife You'll Hear... It Sounds Like The Humpback Whales In A Way. But It's All Music. And We Use It Again Later, Too.

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.

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.

There Are Movies That Change The Whole Way In Which Films Are Made, Like Klute, Where Gordon Willis’s Photography On The Film Is So Textured, And, They Said, Too Dark.

And As I've Gotten Older, I've Had More Of A Tendency To Look For People Who Live By Kindness, Tolerance, Compassion, A Gentler Way Of Looking At Things.

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.

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.

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

Having A Good Time

[kubrick] Was Unique In The Sense That With Each New Film He Redefined The Medium And Its Possibilities. But He Was More Than Just A Technical Innovator. Like All Visionaries, He Spoke The Truth. And No Matter How Comfortable We Think We Are With The Truth, It Always Comes As A Profound Shock When We're Forced To Meet It Face-to-face.

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

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

I Accept All Awards. I Like Them.

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

The Tone Of The Picture And The Atmosphere Was In My Head And In My Blood In A Way Once I'd Decided To Make The Picture. I Had To Find My Way Through That To Choose, Select, Emphasise Certain Visual Elements And Sound.

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

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

I Tried For About Two Semesters In A Preparatory Seminary. But I Was About 15 And Didn't Fully Understand What A Vocation Means.

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

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

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.

[action's] A Western Thing. We Think Of The Hero Going Into Battle, Rebelling Against A Government Or An Oppressor, But [in Kundun] Action Is Nonaction Or What Appears To Be Nonaction. That's A Hard Concept For Western Audiences. . . . We Wanted To Show A Kind Of Moral Action, A Spiritual Action, An Emotional Action. Some People Will Pick Up On It; Some Won't.

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

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.

I Don't Think There Is Any Difference Between Fantasy And Reality In The Way These Should Be Approached In A Film. Of Course If You Live That Way You Are Clinically Insane.

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 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.

I Love Movies - It's My Whole Life, And That's It.

I Was Saying As A Joke The Other Day That I Love Film Editing, I Know How To Cut A Picture, I Think I Know How To Shoot It, But I Don't Know How To Light It. And I Realize It's Because I Didn't Grow Up With Light. I Grew Up In Tenements.

The Problem With Anger Is That It's So Consuming. You've Got To Take It Easy On Yourself At A Certain Point.

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.'

Music And Film Are Inseparable. They Always Have Been And Always Will Be.

I Don't Like Being In Houses Alone.

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.

And So You Try Your Best. Sometimes You Go In With One Thing, With One Desire And Come Out With Something Else. In The Case Of 'the Aviator' It Was To Create A Hollywood Spectacle, But By About The Second Or Third Week Of Shooting You Just Want To Literally Survive It. Because Don't Forget, I Also Go Through The Editing Process Too, And When The Film Is Released I Have To Talk About It. So, I Take All Of That Very Seriously.

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.

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.

Violence Is Not The Answer, It Doesn’t Work Any More. We Are At The End Of The Worst Century In Which The Greatest Atrocities In The History Of The World Have Occurred... The Nature Of Human Beings Must Change. We Must Cultivate Love And Compassion.

I Know There Were Many Good Policemen Who Died Doing Their Duty. Some Of The Cops Were Even Friends Of Ours. But A Cop Can Go Both Ways.

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

Every Year Or So, I Try To Do Something; It Keeps Me Refreshed As To What's Going On In Front Of The Lens, And I Understand What The Actor Is Going Through.

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

The Bottom Line Is, I Tend To Be Going Back To Older And Older Music.

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.

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.

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 Just Wanted To Be An Ordinary Parish Priest.

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

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

All I Can Do Is Try To Do The Best Work I Can. I Need To Work, I Like To Work... Although I Complain About It, But I Do Like It - And I Just Need To Make The Best Film I Can.

I Also Saw The Dalai Lama A Few Times.

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Bernice Johnson Reagon

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