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The Great Gatsby
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The Great Gatsby
Hamlet

Alexander Payne Quotes

What is filmmaking but groping in the dark?

– Alexander Payne

Life mixes tones all the time.

– Alexander Payne

You just never know when you’re living in a golden age.

– Alexander Payne

Joe E. Lewis said, ‘Money doesn’t buy happiness but it calms the nerves.’ And that is how I feel about a film being well-received.

– Alexander Payne

I want all of my films to belong to me.

– Alexander Payne

I think a badly crafted, great idea for a new film with a ton of spelling mistakes is just 100 times better than a well-crafted stale script.

– Alexander Payne

The biggest fear I have is to die with regrets, and of course that will come true.

– Alexander Payne

Jesuits encourage an intellectual rigor in a way that I like.

– Alexander Payne

I still have energy and some degree of youth, which is what a filmmaker needs.

– Alexander Payne

Hollywood films have become a cesspool of formula and it’s up to us to try to change it… I feel like a preacher! But it’s really true. I feel personally responsible for the future of American cinema. Me personally.

– Alexander Payne

I like voice-over in films, and most of my films have been voice-over films.

– Alexander Payne

But it’s just that the whole country is making generally lousy films these days and has been for quite a while. That’s the big problem that we all have to think about.

– Alexander Payne

I’m hoping one day I can make one really good film.

– Alexander Payne

I think if you watch most of my films with the sound off, you could still tell what’s going on.

– Alexander Payne

A pitfall of making a comedy with a studio-and it’s also an American cultural thing-is that I get tired of being encouraged to go always for laughs.

– Alexander Payne

I like actors who, when you see them on screen, you sense a person, not just an actor.

– Alexander Payne

The kindest thing a director can do is look with open eyes at everything.

– Alexander Payne

There is an audience out there for literate films – slower, more observant, more human films, and they deserve to be made.

– Alexander Payne

I think cynicism lasts. Sentimentality ages, dates quickly.

– Alexander Payne

I’m so not interested in producing, other than doing my own work, producing my own films. I only do it as favors, for other people to get their films made.

– Alexander Payne

The hardest part of this whole movie-making endeavor is finding ideas.

– Alexander Payne

The most heinous shift in American films is that they reinforce good things like ‘couples’ and ‘relationships.’

– Alexander Payne

As the years go by and I make more films, I am increasingly interested in capturing place as a vivid backdrop for my films.

– Alexander Payne

I think that Peter Jennings is the only decent one of the big three.

– Alexander Payne

In a sense, ‘Schmidt’ is the most Omaha of my films. But have I gotten it right? I’m not sure. Did Fellini get Rome right? Did Ozu get Tokyo right?

– Alexander Payne

Well, that’s what life is – this collection of extraordinarily ordinary moments. We just need to pay attention to them all. Wake up and pay attention to how beautiful it all is.

– Alexander Payne

Omaha, like Rome, is built on seven hills.

– Alexander Payne

My flag is always flying. My shingle is always out. I’m always looking for movie ideas.

– Alexander Payne

‘Independent’ means one thing to me: It means that regardless of the source of financing, the director’s voice is extremely present. It’s such a pretentious term, but it’s auteurist cinema. Director-driven, personal, auteurist… Whatever word you want.

– Alexander Payne

You look at how many years you have left, and you start to think: ‘How many more films do I have in me?’

– Alexander Payne

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