It's the story that counts.
Vincente Minnelli
Fortunately, John Houseman is a marvelous writer and he sat in on so many story conferences. He worked with Welles, you know, and he's a marvelous man.
I seem to be drawn to things that actually happen.
No, I only like whether I like the story or not, essentially see something in it that isn't completely there.
If anybody reads a story in a magazine or book, different pictures compete in their minds.
I use colors to bring fine points of story and character.
Nowadays the audience has changed. No one can anticipate the audience.
It's always the story that interests me.
The Pirate is surrealism and so, in a curious way, is Father of the Bride.
I always liked the Van Gogh story because I was terribly involved in that.
I always have coffee without sugar, you know. Just cream.
Designing Woman was written for the screen.
I allow an area for improvisation because the chemical things actors bring to stories make it not work.
But surrealism is present in most of my pictures.
In the Thirties, when I was in New York, I did the first surrealistic ballet in a show of mine.
Dali was the great painter then and surrealism was a way of life.
Cedric Gibbons was the grand cardinal of the art department.
I learn new things all the time.
But I went down to Venezuela and spend a few weeks going through jungles. It's fantastic looking.
We shot that in all the real places where Van Gogh worked.
Color can do anything that black-and-white can.
I've worked with an awful lot of people. Katy Hepburn, Spencer Tracy.
I made three films with Douglas, two with Charles Boyer.
I started out to be a painter and was born into the theater.
I had given up the theater and everything propelled me into entertainment. And I didn't resist it.
American films are terribly popular all over the world and American movie stars are terribly important. I don't know why.
I see wonderful films by Bertolucci, Visconti, and Fellini.
But I think musicals are going to have to deal with important subjects.
West Side Story was terribly important because of the style of the dancing and the gangs of New York.
That's what I think musicals will come to. No backstage stories, nothing of that sort.
