Quotes About Realism

Being just a little cynical will make you a much safer optimist.

We shot that in all the real places where Van Gogh worked.

America to me is so varied and exciting. I always feel nostalgia for the place I'm not in, and then I get there and find myself in a traffic jam going into the Lincoln Tunnel, and I think, 'God, why was I romanticizing this part of the country?' I think it has to do with the romantic, unrealistic temperament.

Domestic realism has dominated the American marketplace for decades now. It leeches into literary fiction, and I don't think it's that rich a vein.

A realist, in Venice, would become a romantic by mere faithfulness to what he saw before him.

I guess maybe I try to make movies that are closer to real life than are many Hollywood movies. But I still try to stay within a commercial narrative, a contemporary American vernacular.

I think sex is very interesting for most people, but I'm interested in sex as a way of communication, I'm not that interested in the fantasy version of a sex scene.

But of course, Robert could not allow me to feel any real happiness. "Oh, for Christ's sake," he said. "This isn't fucking Shakespeare, sweetheart. This isn't your goddamn thee-ate-ter. This is the real world. This is a fucking wacko, psycho, out-of-his-skull asshole who likes to bite your tits off, and playing Neighborhood Playhouse acting games in your head isn't going to catch him.

I start with very short pieces, usually no more than a handwritten page. I try to focus on something specific: a person, a moment, a place. I do what I ask my student to do when I teach creative writing. I explain to them that such fragments are the first steps to take before constructing a story. I think a writer should observe the real world before imagining a nonexistent one.

The Arnolfini Marriage by van Eyck

I am forever a romantic. I try to bring that into my work. I try not to be fooled by romance. Or work.

I want my fiction to feel real most of the time, so it makes sense to pay attention to life and to how people work.

I always considered Ray Harryhausen's work so fine that it was way out of my league: in terms of realism and naturalism, in terms of animal movement.

It makes sense to work towards a better world, but it doesn't make any sense to have illusions about what the real world is.

Don't hope more than you're willing to work.

The more shaded, flawed characters that are struggling, I think there's something very relatable about that.

What attracts me to Bourne's world is that is a real world, and I think I'm most comfortable there. But I come to a Bourne movie to have fun as a filmmaker, to strut my stuff, and that's part of the fun of franchise filmmaking.

I studied realism when I was in art school.

Being an actress wasn't realistic. I knew that I was going to have to do it in a way that would speak to my parents. So I went to NYU Tisch School of the Arts for theater, and I studied at the conservatory.

I kind of connected the dots, like, 'Oh, we're just saying stuff. We're just saying things that make sense, so let's just say them like you say them in real life.' It was my first and one of my only acting lessons 'cause I never really studied acting.

The identity of Studio Ghibli movies are how the characters move. They move like live, real people.

It's the little added bonus of realism that makes the difference between an adequately done stunt and a really convincing one.

I try to do as many stunts as they'll let me do. I think it's important for an audience to feel that the actor's really doing it.

I'm optimistic but I'm also not stupid.