Reality shows are all the rage on TV at the moment, but that's not reality, it's just another aesthetic form of fiction.
Steven Soderbergh
One of the reasons why I think virtual reality, as a narrative format, is never going to go beyond the short-form immersion space is because the bedrock of visual storytelling is the reverse angle. If you can't look into the eyes of the protagonist, you cannot hold people's attention for more than 15 minutes.
It's pretty clear to me that working as a director for hire agrees with me. I like it. The films that have come out of that, I personally like better than the ones that didn't.
I don't consider myself to be particularly gifted in the way that other filmmakers are gifted.
I guess I didn't feel confident enough to be searching in a big public way. I was very content at the time to toil in obscurity on things that I thought might point me in certain directions or teach me certain things - not knowing what that would be.
You don't go make 'Schizopolis' if you're trying to protect some idea of yourself as a filmmaker.
Making a film that's supposed to be fun to watch is really hard - that's the weird irony of it.
Cinema is not about format, and it's not about venue. Cinema is an approach. Cinema is a state of mind on the part of the filmmaker. I've seen commercials that have cinema in them, and I've seen Oscar-winning movies that don't. I'm fine with this.
To me the director's job is to leave it in better shape than you found it, literally.
It's really easy to make a movie that five people understand. It's really hard to make something that a lot of people understand and yet is not obvious, still has subtlety and ambiguity, and leaves you with something to do as a viewer.
If you can find interesting ways to be clear, you're really onto something.
Lying is like alcoholism. You are always recovering.
There are three major social issues that this country is struggling with: education, poverty, and drugs. Two of them we talk about, and one of them we don't.
The key is, if you're not monkeying around with the script, then everything usually goes pretty well.
I'm very comfortable with failure. I'm very comfortable being the guy who disappoints people.
I love caper films.
I think I'm good at amplifying an actor's strengths, and minimizing their weaknesses. And they all have strengths and weaknesses.
I'm a big believer in volume. If I made three times as many movies as Stanley Kubrick, that must mean I'm three times as good.
The key to making good movies is to pay attention to the transition between scenes.
I look at other filmmakers and see skills in them that I wish I had but I know that I don't. I feel like I have to work really hard to keep myself afloat, doing what I do. But I find it pleasurable.
I like to make all kinds of movies. I'd do 'Ocean's Thirteen' with the right script.
When a film like Chris Nolan's Memento cannot get picked up, to me independent film is over. It's dead.
I'm of the minority opinion that presidents should be given more power for less time.
A movie that costs only $1.6 million doesn't have to be a cultural event to turn a profit.
Another thing that really excites me: I'd like to do multiple versions of the same film.
But my sense in talking to people when I travel is that the film business is not that dissimilar from a lot of other businesses.
I guess why the Ocean's films are hard for me is because on the one hand you have to make sure the performances are there, but on the other hand it's a film that demands, to my mind, a very layered and complex visual scheme. That takes a lot of time to figure out.
I had more fun making Traffic than either of the Ocean's films.
I just produced Criminal, this remake of Nine Queens, and one of the things that appealed to me about Nine Queens is that it was a performance piece, and that's the most fun.
I know why we can't have a frank discussion with our policymakers - if you're in the government or in law enforcement you cannot acknowledge that drugs are anything but inherently evil and morally wrong.
I'm in the process of working out an arrangement to make some very, very, very small films in the midst of all these films and maybe that will help. But you get tired of talking. You just want to do it.
In Full Frontal and K Street, I learned to take advantage of the mobility that digital provides.
Maybe I'll paint, do photography, just something else. I can see that.
The great thing about the business is how Darwinian it is. We have to swim or die - if you are found wanting over a period of time, you've either got to change what you're doing or find something else to do.
The ought to be a worldwide cultural taskforce that just stops you when you have ideas like combining The Red Desert with an armored car heist movie.
Traffic is about drugs. As detailed a portrait as I can muster about what is happening in the drug world, from top to bottom, from policy to how things move on the street.
Warner Bros. has talked about going out with low-cost DVDs simultaneously in China because piracy is so huge there. It will be a while before bigger movies go out in all formats; in five years, everything will.
Well, it's 15 years since Sex, Lies And Videotape, and if you hang around long enough you're having the same arguments with just a new set of people every few years and it gets boring.
When things go right it's hard to figure out why, but when things go wrong it's really easy.
When you're sent something and read it, either you can see it while you read it, or you can't.
I'm sure some people will say, 'Why do this?' And my response is, 'Why wouldn't you?' The film business in general is using a model that is outdated and, worse than that, inefficient.
After making a lot more films, I realized that the movie and TV business is, for all its inefficiencies, one of the best-run big businesses we have.
I watch a lot of true crime on TV.
All I care about is the story and telling the story. I don't care how people ingest it.
I try to focus on the stuff that I can control and let go of the other stuff.
There's something really fun about watching people really good at something.
'Logan Lucky' is an experiment. The problem that I think needs to be addressed is, what has happened to movies for grown-ups made by people who are still interested in the idea of cinema?
A lot of people get very misty-eyed about celluloid. When I think of the time that's wasted in sending it back to the lab and having it developed and brought back, it would make me insane. I love getting my hands on the stuff immediately. That doesn't work for everybody. It just works for me.
I'm trying to develop an approach to putting out a movie in wide release that makes some kind of economic sense for the filmmakers and the people that have a participation in the movie.
Getting upset about Netflix, to me, is like getting upset about the weather. It's just something that's happening, and we have to decide what we feel about it.
