Bennett Miller
As a filmmaker, one tends to want to evolve evermore towards a place of independence.Collection: Independence
I have a tremendous amount of patience and tolerance when working with people, but if I ever feel the impulse to inhibit myself from doing one more take, or feel a need to apologize to someone for pushing, I know that that relationship isn't gonna last.Collection: Patience
You can write ten versions of a scene, and then, on the day, discover that something in the original scene worked. It's hard on writers. Hard on actors, hard on editors, hard on me, hard on the producers, who require patience and confidence. But I can't get to the end without going through this process.Collection: Patience
If you track something like a political campaign and parcel out what's being communicated in a literal and narrative sense, and what's being communicated by means of emotional and symbolic language, you might find that it's the latter elements that absolutely dominate and move people. It makes me want to take that language and expose it.
Filmmaking requires the participation and cooperation of many people. It's unrealistic to expect that you're not going to be challenged by unforeseeable forces from every direction.
I like to rehearse. We did a lot of rehearsals for 'Moneyball,' but it is really individual to the actor. It's not like, 'Here is my process, everybody. Fit in.'
I am and always have been fascinated with people, and I have a very good time coming up with the narratives of people's lives, exploring how a person thinks and feels.
There is a paradox in politics that what it takes to get elected is not necessarily what it takes to govern, and my feeling is that trying to control things too much feels icky to me.
I think it's fair to ask how truthful a film is as opposed to how factual it is.
If something is to be quietly powerful, it requires more balance than a film that allows for more freneticism.
I know what it's like to be genuinely intrigued and compelled by a story and to have a sense that there's an adventure to be had and a film to be conjured.
One of the biggest turnoffs is being presented with an idea that's already, to a degree, complete. That's not an adventure, and it's not a learning experience. It's more of a chore. Then you become a technician with taste, as opposed to an explorer and an author.
I think Will Ferrell is probably completely evil, the darkest of them all. He is known among comics as the dark knight. An evil, evil man and a dangerous soul.
I'm actually not a big reader.
What I will say - one thing that is attractive about getting a real film made within the studio system is that studio systems, with their marketing and distribution, have real power.
Film as a medium, like a novel as a medium, possesses a unique ability to communicate. Film is capable of communicating in a way that no other medium can, and I would say the same for the novel.
If you find yourself considering a project that seems like a layup, then you're diluted, or that movie's probably not the right movie for you to be making.
You can recognize almost immediately if the film you're watching is the product of some kind of a hive mind or the result of a personal vision and genuine collaborations. 'Manchester by the Sea' reminds us of the potential of the latter and, for that reason, is the kind of work that makes me, as a filmmaker, want to continue. It's inspiring.
Kenny Lonergan, as a filmmaker, doesn't tell stories so much as he observes them, which is to say, his films don't come pre-digested. You have to bring your own enzymes. It's a more gripping and challenging experience.
As a filmmaker, you want people to understand and get what you do, and it's a lot to ask for.
If I had a dozen lives, one of them would involve really getting off the rails in India, heavy into meditation.
I hardly read fiction; I mostly read nonfiction. I like to examine material things.
My nature is to try and look past apparent truths, to pull back layers and understand the psychological motives behind phenomena.
I'm attracted to stories of people who don't belong together, who embark on something and find themselves in places they don't belong.
My films are inquiries. I've chopped down all the signposts, I really resist taking moral positions.
I'm interested in telling stories that add up to more than the entertainment of the story. That's what does it for me.
My entire life can fit into a knapsack.
I feel like what I'm after is not easy for me to find, and to want it to be easy... it would be absurd for me to have that ambition.
I like to have something that I can challenge common-sense notions about, challenge the apparent truths, and really look past the many faces of a thing to see what's behind it.
I think, when I meet a person, in general, it's not my habit to conclude anything about people. Not completely. Even people you know well constantly remain open.
Sometimes the facts can get in the way of the telling of a good story. But they don't get in the way of the truth.
I am attracted to these outsider characters who just don't belong anywhere, and who are operating in worlds they sort of don't fit, coupled with huge ambitions.
Adam Sandler in 'Punch-Drunk Love' is brilliant. Brilliant, brilliant.
I am a tumbleweed. I don't have a company. I don't have a staff. I don't own anything - I've never owned a car or an apartment.
I think baseball represents something closer to our experience. There's no clock in baseball; it's not over until it's over. It's like life in that there are prolonged periods of boredom and monotony, punctuated by intense moments of excitement and sometimes terror.
You make a movie and you'd like it to be appreciated, respected, embraced.
I think I am missing a gene that most people have to enable them to feel happiness about success and these kind of things.
I think I approach things with an outsider's perspective.
I don't believe in God in the way I often see described by religion.
For me, personally, the value of a film is not determined by a review, but the health of the film is.
A film cannot make it into the culture without the support of critics.
I want to work with performers who really are ready to lose their minds, you know? People who are established and have talent, but who are ready to break new ground and really be cracked open in a new way.
People are attracted to entertainment, for sure, or jokes, excitement and romantically heightened stories that might be false, but are still attractive fantasies.
It's great making a film and having it embraced and seen. I really enjoy that.
Every relationship probably has, at its inception, a hundred things that you could pick on and divert you from it, but the feeling is there. You figure out a way to make it work.
Honestly, my smartest business decision was to never do anything that I didn't love doing.
My business life is really simple. It's like, get check. Put check in bank. Pay rent. I've never bought a stock in my life. I never got caught up in that trip. And the truth is, I don't obsess about money ever.
I think the mind has a way of getting to where it needs to get to. If you are persistent.
I am attracted to anything that does not feel derivative.
I like going into a scene knowing that the script isn't quite finished, that there's something that isn't really going to reveal itself until something spontaneously occurs.