Joe E. Lewis said, Money doesnt buy happiness but it calms the nerves. And that is how I feel about a film being well-received. – Alexander Payne
Anytime you cast a movie and you need someone famous in the lead part, youre a prisoner of whoever happens to be famous in the six-month window in which youre trying to get a film financed. – Alexander Payne
Marketing has supplanted story as the primary force behind the worthiness of making a film, and thats a very sad thing. Its film only as a function of consumerism rather than as an important component of our culture, and thats everywhere around the world. – Alexander Payne
The novel succeeds on terms exclusive to literature. A good film succeeds on terms exclusive to the cinema. Thats why so many bad novels can become good movies, like Jaws or The Godfather. – Alexander Payne
My biography of Frank Sinatra is not paean to his music but rather an illumination of the man behind the music, who once described himself as an 18-karat manic-depressive who lived a life of violent emotional contradictions with an over-acute capacity for sadness as well as happiness. – Kitty Kelley