Abbas Kiarostami Quotations | Page 2

It seems that film-makers are being divided between those working in digital and those who are not. I think it's not something predetermined - it all depends on what project we have in mind, and on that basis we choose the medium.

In my opinion the man looks at the relationship in a more bitter fashion and the woman still holds great hopes.

There were years when Hitchcock was like a master to me, but now I think he's so artificial. I can watch films and say how technically beautiful they are, but I'm not impressed by any technicality.

As soon as people enter a theater they must become moron consumers who must be fed information.

I never really learned photography.

I thought that choosing a non-professional was a condition for me, because it would allow Juliette to have a less-professional way of acting. It would challenge her performance as a professional actress.

If we're not going to take full advantage of digital, then 35mm is a better medium. Especially for shooting dramas - I have no problem with 35mm.

Everybody knows that I am not usually patient enough to actually sit down and watch one of my own films from the beginning to the end - I never do.

In my mind, there isn't as much of a distinction between documentary and fiction as there is between a good movie and a bad one.

Despite the great advantages of digital video and the great ease of using the medium, still those who use it have first to understand the sensitivities of how to best use the medium.

What I am trying to say is that it is not without any value. The value of copies is that they can direct us towards the original. I was recently at the Louvre Museum and I was filming people who were viewing the Mona Lisa. I noticed the number of ordinary people, astonished, mouths agape, standing still for long stretches looking at the work, and I wondered, "Where does this come from? Are these people all art connoisseurs?" They are like me; through the years, we've seen this work in our schoolbooks or art history books, but when we stand before the original, we hold our breath.

I think that if you're a digital thinker, you can use a digital camera.

I have somewhat lost my enthusiasm in the last years. Mainly because film students using digital video these days have not really produced anything which is more than superficial or simplistic; so I have my doubts.

I do believe in [Robert] Bresson's method of creation through omission, not through addition.

I think being someone in love is so hard to define, so temporary, because retrospectively we often deny the state in which we were in love.

I wasn't searching for a common denominator - I started wondering about the challenge of working in other cultures. What I reached was the sudden acknowledgment of the universal aspect of filmmaking.

The kind of sleep that I had during my own film [Certified Copy] screening in Cannes is different. It's not because of the specificity of the film. It was because of my relationship as an author to this film. Usually when I take my films to festivals, I feel incredibly anxious about them. I wonder how it will be received, how the audience will react. I feel deeply responsible for them. Whereas this time, I didn't have that responsibility on my shoulders.

I think it was [Jean-Luc] Godard who said that life is nothing but a bad copy of film, but then our ambition must be to make better films and better shapes of forms that are given in life.

Close-Up is a very particular film in my oeuvre. It's a film that was made in a very particular way; mainly because I didn't really have the time to think about how to go about making the film.

It was a film that I knew, that I had seen, that I was familiar with, but I wasn't anxious about it at any point during the screening. I snoozed twice, and this is something I couldn't have imagined that I would feel detached, as I did with this film [Certified Copy].

Cinema gives you the opportunity to be both a grandparent and a grandchild whereas in life you cannot be both at the same time.

I think violence can never be justified.

Not that I ever felt the necessity of proving that all human beings suffer the same way, feel joy the same way, but it happened on my way - when I get close to these people, just by the simple intervention of translation I can actually reach them and ask them something, and their reaction is as I expected. I see that the relationship goes so smoothly, and I realize that cultural languages and specificities are nothing but simple obstacles that you can easily overcome. It's obvious that human beings are the same wherever they are.

I have no advice for anyone on how to live.

When I find the character, I try to spend time with them and get to know them very well. Therefore my notes are not from the character that I had in my mind before, but are instead based on the people I've met in real life.

I didn't just see myself as a film director here [in Life And Nothing More], but also as an observer of people who had been condemned to death.

I spend a lot of time doing carpentry. Sometimes there is nothing that gives me the contentment that sawing a piece of wood does.

The only thing that I can do is hold a mirror in front of men and women, in front of the viewer in the theater, to reflect. There is nothing but reflection that I could intend to offer the viewer of the film.

I would be too selfish if I said everyone should see my movies more than once. To say that would mean I'm just marketing my work!

Good cinema is what we can believe and bad cinema is what we can't believe. What you see and believe in is very much what I'm interested in.

The one-word cinema wasn't possible for me anymore. I'd hit a wall, a dead end. Therefore I thought I'd turn back.

It's not so much a question of whether we've shot it through 35mm or digital video; what is important is whether the audience accepts it as real.

When I'm in the process of making a movie I'm not thinking about the finished result, and whether people have to see it once or more than once, and what the reaction to it will be. I just make it, and then I live with the consequences, some of which may not be as pleasant as I'd like! I know one thing, however. Many viewers may come out of the theater not satisfied, but they won't be able to forget the movie. I know they'll be talking about it during their next dinner. I want them to be a little restless about my movies, and keep trying to find something in them.

Anything I've not experienced I do not look to for a subject. I have to feel it.

A movie is about human beings, about humanity.

All the different nations in the world, despite their differences of appearance and religion and language and way of life, still have one thing in common, and that is what's inside of all of us. If we X-rayed the insides of different human beings, we wouldn't be able to tell from those X-rays what the person's language or background or race is.

I really haven't seen The Report in a long time. I don't have a copy, but I'll have to see it again. I think it would be good to put both these men next to each other.

I prefer the films that put their audience to sleep in the theater. Some films have made me doze off in the theater, but the same films have made me stay up at night, wake up thinking about them in the morning, and keep on thinking about them for weeks.

My car's my best friend. My office. My home. My location. I have a very intimate sense when I am in a car with someone next to me. We're in the most comfortable seats because we're not facing each other, but sitting side by side. We don't look at each other, but instead do so only when we want to. We're allowed to look around without appearing rude. We have a big screen in front of us and side views. Silence doesn't seem heavy or difficult. Nobody serves anybody. And many other aspects. One most important thing is that it transports us from one place to another.

I think I'm no different to my friends who are doctors or businessmen or architects - we all started watching films of the golden age together. But whether I'm making films or writing poetry or doing photography, it's very much rooted in my sense of unease. And that's really where everything goes back to.

I thought that I had been asked every kind of question possible.

When you take a tree that is rooted in the ground, and transfer it from one place to another, the tree will no longer bear fruit. And if it does, the fruit will not be as good as it was in its original place. This is a rule of nature. I think if I had left my country, I would be the same as the tree.

There is violence in real life but I would never impose violence in a film just to attract the audience.

If you catch me coming out of a film, when I'm emotionally involved, I can tell you at that moment why I like it - but to talk about it years later is not logical to me.

I can watch films and say how technically beautiful they are, but I'm not impressed by any technicality.