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
I get asked, How can you have such failures in your films? Well, what else is life about? Theres some sense of constant failure in something. Humor gives you a distance from it. – Alexander Payne
When youre a houseguest and you leave, its nice to straighten something up or send your hosts a useful gift. And when you leave the planet, its nice to have made a positive contribution. – Alexander Payne
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. – Alexander Payne
My desire to curtail undue freedom of speech extends only to such public areas as restaurants, airports, streets, hotel lobbies, parks, and department stores. Verbal exchanges between consenting adults in private are as of little interest to me as they probably are to them. – Fran Lebowitz