Quotes About Scenes

In a lot of ways, TV writing taught me how to be a good storyteller. I learned about dialogue, scenes, moving the plot forward.

Many of the stranger but most frequently quoted scenes in 'Billy Madison' were unplanned.

And from there the various parties set out on their mission of destruction. Many who witnessed similar scenes in France and Flanders say, that nothing they had experienced was comparable to the punishment meted out to Cork.

That's what I love about those old movies - the music is like a constant companion. Even in scenes that aren't particularly dramatic, like a woman checking her watch, you hear the music as a comment on that action.

I really enjoy the consolation when I'm having to cut loose stuff I love, of saying 'Well, at least it will make it onto DVD.' There's a couple of scenes which I liked very much, but couldn't fit them into the film that are on there.

My favorite way of making films - and what has allowed me to get key scenes in 'Cartel Land' and 'City of Ghosts' - has been when I've been able to operate alone.

Besides, women were better suited to bear sorrow than men. They lived on their emotions. They only thought of their emotions. When they took lovers, it was merely to have some one with whom they could have scenes.

T]he success of every novel -- if it's a novel of action -- depends on the high spots. The thing to do is to say to yourself, What are my big scenes? and then get every drop of juice out of them. (Interview, The Paris Review , Issue 64, Winter 1975)

We see before us a series of events which follow one another and are conditioned by one another. I say 'conditioned' I certainly do not mean conditioned through absolute necessity. The important point is that human freedom makes its appearance everywhere, and the greatest attraction of history lies in the fact that it deals with the scenes of that freedom.

Improvisation has to do with exploring something like two brothers in a room together. You find out things about situations by discovering the things that they aren't saying. It's a way to explore scenes. Sometimes it's more useful than others, but it's always there to see if there's anything that you might improve.

I think good radio often uses the techniques of fiction: characters, scenes, a big urgent emotional question. And as in the best fiction, tone counts for a lot. But a lot of effective and interesting radio is based on one character who reacts to the world.

One day, I read an extremely vague ad looking for someone interested in working in film. Seeing as I loved watching films, I replied, and I found myself working for this guy who did his own personal editing of scenes from Antonioni and Fellini films.

I find it enormously valuable to be sure that that the pacing is what I think it is and that the scenes have the shape I think they have musically and dramatically.

Mostly, when you are shooting for action or intimate scenes, and you need to hold them, it takes away the mood if you both are not in sync. I have faced such situations and I think having a good bond with your co-stars only adds value to the scene.

The stories we sit up late to hear are love stories. It seems that we cannot know enough about this riddle of our lives. We go back and back to the same scenes, the same words, trying to scrape out the meaning. Nothing could be more familiar than love. Nothing else eludes us so completely.

Sometimes you can write a great scene, but when you're actually in a situation and it doesn't work, you have to be flexible enough to make it work for you.

As a filmmaker, you are going to manipulate the character as you need to make the scenes work.

It's hard to top what you see in the film, they were just such a great group of people to work with and we all hung out in between scenes and I got to know everybody a little bit.

Mostly I work really unconsciously, and I think if the scenes are really well written, which they are, and if I just throw myself into it, I don't really think about it.

Well, one of my favorite ones to work on - besides just about any scene from 'Deadwood' - was my scene with Brad Pitt in 'Assassination of Jesse James'. That was just a fun day.

My biggest fear in life is living Nativity scenes. I hide in cars and drive around looking at them. Something about it is really scary to me. What parent would put their child in there with mules and camels and straw?

I have notebooks and sketchbooks for ideas. I also have drawers full of envelopes covered in quick outlines, scenes or scraps of dialogue that I don't want to forget. I tend to grab whatever's to hand and just get the thing down before it's lost. It's not what you would call a streamlined system.

For me, playing music while I write is important. Several of the romantic scenes in 'Paris' were written with Debussy's 'String Quartet,' his 'L'Apres-midi d'une Faune,' or Canteloube's 'Songs of the Auvergne' playing in the background.

'The Levanter' features some of the strongest action scenes to be found in Ambler - who can, in some of his fiction, stay in one place for a whole novel.