Roman Polanski Quotes

Roman Polanski's reflections feel candid and sharp, mixing film, life and ethics in a raw, personal tone.

31 quotes

1. It's easy to direct while acting-there's one less person to argue with.

2. If you have a great passion it seems that the logical thing is to see the fruit of it, and the fruit are children.

3. It's already getting more and more difficult to make an ambitious and original film. There are less and less independent producers or independent companies and an increasing number of corporations who are more interested in balance sheets than in artistic achievement. They want to make a killing each time they produce a film. They're only interested in the lowest common denominator because they're trying to reach the widest audience. And you got some kind of entropy. That's the danger; they look more alike, those films. The style is all melting and it all looks the same. Even young directors- for most of them, their only standard of achievement is how well their films do on the first weekend or whatever. It worries me. But then, from time to time, you have a film like The Usual Suspects or.... I'm trying to think of something American with some kind of originality... Pulp Fiction.

4. You know, whenever you do something new and original, people run to see it because it's different. Then, if it happens to be successful, the studios rush to imitate it. It becomes commonplace right away. But it's been like that before, I think. Now, the stakes are so gigantic that they cut each other's throats. So if most of the films are failures, then those that succeed so spectacularly, so commercially, become the norm. It's like a roulette for the studios. The problem with it is that it becomes more and more of a committee. Before, you dealt with the studio. It had one or two persons and now you have masses of executives who have to justify their existence and write so-called 'creative notes' and have creative meetings. They obsess about the word creative probably because they aren't.

5. Berlin was great. It's a new generation. If you continue to hate, you are entering into the same philosophy that began the war. You have to look forward at people and new times.

6. Cinema should make you forget you are sitting in a theater.

7. I can only say that whatever my life and work have been, I'm not envious of anyone- and this is my biggest satisfaction.

8. I don't really know what is shocking. When you tell the story of a man who is beheaded, you have to show how they cut off his head. If you don't, it's like telling a dirty joke and leaving out the punch line.

9. I never made a film which fully satisfied me.

10. I see Macbeth as a young, open-faced warrior, who is gradually sucked into a whirpool of events because of his ambition. When he meets the weird sisters and hears their prophecy, he's like the man who hopes to win a million-a gamble for high stakes.

11. I want people to go to the movies. I am the man of the spectacle. I'm playing.

12. In Paris, one is always reminded of being a foreigner. If you park your car wrong, it is not the fact that it's on the sidewalk that matters, but the fact that you speak with an accent.

13. My films are the expression of momentary desires. I follow my instincts, but in a disciplined way.

14. Nothing is too shocking for me.

15. People like Truffaut, Lelouch and Godard are like little kids playing at being revolutionaries. I've passed through this stage. I lived in a country where these things happened seriously.

16. Whenever I get happy, I always have a terrible feeling.

17. You have to show violence the way it is. If you don't show it realistically, then that's immoral and harmful. If you don't upset people, then that's obscenity.

18. I know that atmosphere of the Parisian apartment building, with the twin menaces of the concierge on the ground floor and the landlord upstairs.

19. When I really love a movie, I don't want to spoil it by too frequent visits. But I like to come back to certain films, which I admire.

20. The whole showmanship is NOT to answer every question.

21. With each film, i need an artistic challenge so I don't get bored! I like to tackle challenges.

22. Happy endings make me puke.

23. It's very important to set your place in a concrete environment. I think Chekhov said that the important thing when you have a play or any kind of novel is to set the roots in a concrete place.

24. The best films are because of nobody but the director.

25. If I had killed somebody, it wouldn't have had so much appeal to the press, you see? But f-ing, you see, and the young girls. Judges want to f- young girls. Juries want to f- young girls. Everyone wants to f- young girls!

26. Some experience is helpful. "The Pianist" was a film that I could make with my eyes closed because I had lived it and everything was still alive in me.

27. I would love to make a film about aging that would take place before the war. It would follow the stages in the life of a woman who would not have at her disposal the resources of today like cosmetic surgery, creams and pills.

28. I admire actors for their infinite patience. That's why they need all those trailers and all their crowd of people who pamper them. But it is a drag to get up sometimes at 4:30 in the morning and get into makeup, and wait forever until they call you onto the set.

29. I don't know anyone who is not using drugs for the reason that they're illegal.

30. I consider myself more a craftsman than an artist.

31. I simply think there's life after movies. I have to adhere to this philosophy, and therefore I like other things, and I have other passions. None are as big as movie-making, but they exist.