Quotes from Michael Cimino

Encountering a real place enhances the performances of actors in subtle ways and changes the spiritual texture of the film.

When I was fifteen, I spent three weeks driving all over Brooklyn with a guy who was following his girlfriend.

It's one of the wonderful things that the Academy does - a talented person comes along like Mira Sorvino, and it elevates them up to stardom.

When the rich kids got together, the most we ever did was cross against a red light.

You couldn't make 'Heaven's Gate' today. Even were you to quadruple the resources to make the movie, you couldn't make it because the people don't exist.

Working-class, blue-collar guys who volunteered for Vietnam were ascribed certain political beliefs. It's time that this was redressed. It had nothing to do with politics. Once these men got to Vietnam, it was a matter of survival.

Would you ask Picasso to explain 'Guernica?' Would you ask Nabokov to explain 'Lolita?' Would you ask Tolstoy about 'War and Peace?' No, you wouldn't dare.

A film reflects who you are as a building reflects the soul of its architect. I think what you feel and what you think and what you are is what the film is. It's not for me to talk about.

I've had enough rejection for 33 years. I don't need more.

Hollywood has always been crazy. It's controlled anarchy. But how can you loathe something that has given you so much?

All one has to do is look at old footage of the firebombing of Dresden during World War II and think of the people beneath those bombs. It's horrific.

Does anyone remember who shot Kubrick's movies? Do you remember who shot David Lean's movies? No one remembers who shot 'Dr. Strangelove' or 'Barry Lyndon.'

'Deer Hunter' is a movie; it is not an attempt to write history.

I cut 'Deer Hunter' myself.

I'm a frustrated would-be architect who stumbled into the would-be business of making movies.

All of those years, I felt like 'Heaven's Gate' was a beautiful, fantastically colored balloon tied to a string fastened to my wrist, so the balloon could never fly.

Anybody who says they're bitter is sick in their soul. They've given up.

Movie-making ain't for sissies.

On a movie, you often work fourteen-, sixteen-hour days, six days a week, for six months. It is so easy to let up because of fatigue.

The Indians believe all things have spirit - even the hail that comes from the sky is spirit. If you believe that, which I implicitly do, everything is alive.

Journalism is not writing.

Writing, by nature, is a fairly solitary occupation.

A film maker's energy and creativity don't have to end when he turns over his film.

It's very important to follow your instincts because, beyond what you know exists or what you're told exists in a given area, your intuition plays a big part in finding something special.