What they said about cinema, films, directors, actors and actresses.
Selection, Organization and Editing: Marco Aurélio Lucchetti
Charles Chaplin: The purpose of cinema is to transport us to the realm of beauty.
BRigite Bardot: Making films is a stupid job.
René Clair: It is false to claim that film images are permanent. Films age and fade.
Peter Bogdanovich: All the good movies have already been made.
T. G. Novais: There are countless good films that were complete box office failures.
AAlfred Hitchcock: Why do we go to the movies? Certainly, to see life reflected on the screen. But what kind of life? The kind of life that isn't ours, of course.
OAnderson Welles: A film is never a report on life. A film is a dream.
GArcía Escudero: I defend escapist films because they are needed. Because escapism is what the public wants and has the right to want. What, in the end, do we all seek in cinema? To escape the world we live in, to take refuge in an imaginary world, to flee for a few hours from the weariness or aridity of our existence.
AAlfred Hitchcock: The essential thing is to move the audience. And emotion arises from the way the story is told, from the way the sequences are juxtaposed.
JJean Epstein: Film grammar is specific to cinema.
PPaulo FrancisWatching Hitchcock's films, I'm almost convinced that cinematic language exists.
ALiza Adar: It's easier to win in war than in the world of cinema.
Ashlyn GereWhen I started working in mainstream films, I was led to believe a lot of things, most of them empty, pure seduction. And many of them were said and done behind my back. So, in a way, I think working in erotic videos is much more transparent. You arrive at the cast meeting, and they say: “"Have sex this way or that way. This is the script.” It's quite clear there what kind of work you'll be doing, after negotiating the fee and possibly giving your opinion on who your scene partner will be.
MAryyn Monroe: From the age of five, I wanted to be an actress. I loved performing. The people who adopted me, when I was still little, made me go to the movies. They didn't want me getting in the way at home. I would sit in the front row and spend the whole day and a good part of the night in front of the huge screen. How I loved that! I loved all those actors and actresses!
Marilyn Monroe.
Alfred Hitchcock: In my opinion, an actor in a film should be very flexible and, in fact, shouldn't do absolutely anything. They should have a calm and natural attitude. Which, incidentally, isn't so simple.
CAmeron Diaz: I am an actress completely dedicated to the director. I do whatever he asks of me, without question.
CHanson's hurtis: All the directors are egocentric.
OAnderson Welles: The great mistake of film intellectuals is not giving actors their due credit. They believe that films are made solely by the director. And, in ninety percent of cases, when a film pleases the audience, it is the director who receives the praise. There is a profound injustice in this.
RUssell Crowe: You don't have to like the actor you're working with. You don't have to like the director. But it's better if you do.
APacino: Directors are people who can place you inside a story.
Al Pacino, in a scene from Serpico (idem, 1973), tape directed by Sidney Lumet (1924-2011).
Liv Tyler: Every actor dreams of creating an atmosphere of seduction so that the audience believes in them.
KEvin Spacey: I begin to outline the character's profile by asking myself what he wants from life.
AAngelina Jolie: I think an actor shouldn't accept a role they don't identify with. I think we should play characters that are close to us.
Liv Tyler: I want a lot of different roles so I can find my way.
Hether Graham: It's difficult to get invitations for the roles you really want.
SAaron Stone: There aren't an abundance of great roles for women. If there are more or less of them, you can already consider yourself lucky.
CLint Eastwood: Many of the characters I play are outsiders. I instinctively seek out that type of character.
AAshley Judd: I once read that Jodie Foster knows her characters well. I spent days trying to define the type of character I play. I came to the conclusion that I play wounded women.
JOdie Foster: You don't need intelligence to be an actor.
Kin Basinger: It takes a long time to learn how to act. And many years to build a love affair with the camera.
JJulia Roberts: If you have to wake up early every day to go to work, you can't act in a movie to please others. You must please yourself first and foremost.
BRigite Bardot: I made a lot of mistakes in choosing the films I worked on. I chose some out of laziness, others because my group of friends was part of the cast. I shouldn't have appeared in at least half of those films. But I never had any ambitions, and cinema for me was always just a hobby.
AAlberto Moravia: To what extent will cinema allow for full expression? The camera is a less complete instrument of expression than the pen, even in the hands of an Eisenstein. It will never be able to express everything that, say, Proust was capable of doing. Never! Working for cinema is exhausting. And a writer can be nothing more than a man of ideas. – A subordinate, really. Cinema offers him little satisfaction, apart from his pay. His name doesn't even appear on the posters. For a writer, it's a bitter task. And films are an impure art, at the mercy of a tangle of mechanisms – gimmicks (tricks(As I believe, they say in English. There's almost no spontaneity. One's inspiration almost becomes stale when working in film. And, what's even worse, one's mind becomes forever accustomed to looking for tricks and, in doing so, ends up ruining itself, destroying itself. I don't like working in film at all.).
WHO'S WHO.
AAlberto Moravia (pseudonym of Alberto Pincherle, 1907-1990) – Italian writer and journalist.
AAlfred Hitchcock (sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock (1899-1980) – English filmmaker.
ALiza Adar – actress and model born in Morocco and naturalized Italian.
APacino (born Alfredo James Pacino) – American actor.
AAngelina Jolie (born Angelina Jolie Voight) – American actress, filmmaker, and humanitarian activist.
AAshley Judd (pseudonym of Ashley Tyler Ciminella) – American actress.
Ashlyn Gere (pseudonym of Kimberly Ashlyn McKamy) – American pornographic actress.
BRigite Bardot (Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot) – French actress, model and activist.
CAmeron Diaz (Cameron Michelle Diaz) – American actress and model.
CCharles Chaplin (sir Charles Spencer Chaplin (1889-1977) – English filmmaker, actor, and composer.
CLint Eastwood (Clinton Eastwood Jr.) – American actor and filmmaker.
CHanson's (Curtis Lee Hanson, 1945-2016) – American filmmaker.
Garcia Escudero (José María García Escudero, 1916-2002) – Spanish journalist, writer, and film historian.
Hether Graham (Heather Joan Graham) – American actress.
JJean Epstein (1897-1953) – French filmmaker of Polish origin.
JOdie Foster (pseudonym of Alicia Christian Foster) – American actress and filmmaker.
JJulia Roberts (Julia Fiona Roberts) – American actress.
Kevin Spacey (Kevin Spacey Fowler) – American actor, producer, and director.
Kin Basinger (Kimila Ann Basinger) – American actress and model.
Liv Tyler (Liv Rundgren Tyler) – American actress and model.
MMarilyn Monroe (pseudonym of Norma Jean Baker, 1926-1962) – American model and actress.
OAnderson Welles (George Orson Welles, 1915-1985) – American actor and filmmaker.
PPaulo Francis (pseudonym of Franz Paul Trannin da Matta Heilborn, 1930-1997) – Brazilian journalist, critic and writer.
Peter Bogdanovich (1939-2022) – American filmmaker.
René Clair (born René Lucien Chomette, 1898–1981) – French filmmaker.
RUssell Crowe (Russell Ira Crowe) – film actor born in New Zealand.
SAaron Stone (Sharon Vonne Stone) – American actress and model.
T. G. Novais (1922-2008) – journalist, writer and translator, probably born in Brazil.
Marco Aurélio Lucchetti is a university professor and researcher of Cinema, Comics and popular books.
Portuguese 
English 
Spanish 
French