Alexander Payne Thinking Quotations

I think cynicism lasts. Sentimentality ages, dates quickly.

I think a badly crafted, great idea for a new film with a ton of spelling mistakes is just 100 times better than a well-crafted stale script.

I think if you watch most of my films with the sound off, you could still tell what's going on.

I think that Peter Jennings is the only decent one of the big three.

I like to think of film-making not just as an act of personal self-aggrandisement but rather as an act of public service.

I don't think so much about verbal comedy. I always think about visual comedy. I was raised watching silents, and I'm always thinking about how to make cinema, not good talking - although I want good talking. I'm much more interested in framing, composition, and orchestration of bodies in space, and so forth. My goal is always what Chuck Jones wanted his Warner Brothers cartoons to be, which was if you turn down the sound, you could still tell what's going on. I think if you watch most of my films with the sound off, you could still tell what's going on.

But it's just that the whole country is making generally lousy films these days and has been for quite a while. That's the big problem that we all have to think about.

If you have your movies so that everyone understands everything, I think that's probably not a very good movie.

If you're not making epic, archetypal films on some level, I think you're wasting a great potential of cinema.

Acting is a lot easier than people think it is.