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
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
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
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
Its been such a deep and amazing journey for me, getting close to John Keats, and also I love Shelley and Byron. I mean, the thing about the Romantic poets is that theyve got the epitaph of romantic posthumously. They all died really young, and Keats, the youngest of them all. – Jane Campion