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The Great Gatsby
Hamlet

Free Literature Study Guides
The Great Gatsby
Hamlet

Whit Stillman Quotes

Generally, I like people’s trunk projects, the things they were working on before anyone knew who they were. I think when people run out of their trunk items and they start doing stuff just to do a film next year, the quality goes down, the interest goes down. Maybe it feels commercial or something.

– Whit Stillman

So much of artistic creation is just exclusion. It’s not creating things; it’s just excluding things that really aren’t going to be helpful.

– Whit Stillman

My whole career, only one person has stepped up to back me. All these people say they like your films. They say this and they say that, but no one actually does anything.

– Whit Stillman

I think when my parents were together, my family was too prosperous for our psychological health. Not that they were that rich, but I feel that usually inherited wealth causes psychological problems.

– Whit Stillman

The worst thing is the blank page at the start. Then the horrible things written on the blank page. Then deciding whether or not to throw out those horrible things: lame scenes, lame characters, bad ideas.

– Whit Stillman

In Mexico, wealth and poverty live next to each other and are cordial with each other – in my experience.

– Whit Stillman

A lot of people in the film industry are fatalists who think a worthwhile film will always achieve its destiny, and the films that aren’t worthwhile won’t. It’s all sort of pre-determined, etc. And I don’t think that’s true at all.

– Whit Stillman

The dull externals of the screenwriter’s working life are well known: We are the people taking up too much table space at cafes.

– Whit Stillman

One of the downsides of money is if there’s no money, there are very few real jerks who are attached to your project. And if there is money, you do attract some very difficult, unhelpful people.

– Whit Stillman

Oddly, in a sense, I still have more confidence as a director than my ability as a writer. Somehow, directing is just really easy. It’s just about being really honest about how you feel about what you’re seeing.

– Whit Stillman

My theory in the ’90s was that I didn’t want to take a Jane Austen book I loved and reduce it to a 90-minute movie. The Emma Thompson-Ang Lee ‘Sense and Sensibility’ was beautiful, but other ones, I didn’t think justice was being done. It’s not a slam dunk to adapt these books.

– Whit Stillman

The usual key to getting films made seems to be a producer’s terrier-like determination not to let it go. Unfortunately, such producers often seem prone to sinking their claws into mediocre projects.

– Whit Stillman

It’s intimidating for guys to hear women complain about their boyfriends. Guys imagine that girls are thrilled to have them around, and this is what they really talk about.

– Whit Stillman

My family was entirely political, all the time, on the left. The opposite of that is not to be political on the right. It’s trying not to be – politics is not everything. There’s life other than politics. Politics intrudes.

– Whit Stillman

I find it preferable not to have public opinions about anything. It’s good for me to shut up.

– Whit Stillman

I’m the ayatollah of the Jane Austen fan base! I want to lead the fan base, not be attacked and devoured by the fan base.

– Whit Stillman

At the New York Harvard Club, they’ve moved the memorial for those who died in World Wars I and II up to an obscure little hallway; they used to be in the main hall, in the most prominent location. The sacrifice of those young people I always found so stunning and so admirable.

– Whit Stillman

Making a show is such a long process. You go through a TV production house that will commission scripts, and if they like what you’ve written, they take it to a network and sell it to them. It has always felt very far away from something that’s actually real.

– Whit Stillman

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