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Alexander Payne Biography

Alexander Payne

Alexander Payne (born Constantine Alexander Payne; February 10, 1961) is an American film director, screenwriter, and producer, known for the films Election (1999), About Schmidt (2002), Sideways (2004), The Descendants (2011), and Nebraska (2013). His films are noted for their dark humor and satirical depictions of contemporary American society. Payne is a two-time winner of the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, and a three-time nominee of the Academy Award for Best Director.

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Alexander Payne Quotes

If you have your movies so that everyone understands everything, I think that's probably not a very good movie.

Everything, Good Movie, Probably, Thinking, Understands, Very Good

In the moment of making films, I want to share my observations of life, not of other films.

Film, Films, Making, Moments, Share, Want

I want all of my films to belong to me.

Belong, Film, Films, Want

That's how I like to do it with actors, have them really go for it and I'll tell them when it's too much. It's always easier to bring it back then to push it further.

Actors, Back, Bring, Easier, Too Much

I want studios to be financing director-driven, auteurist cinema, as they did in the '70s. I think it's starting to happen now. Plus, because of how our world has changed politically, I think audiences are demanding more realism. We need to have more stuff in our culture about what is really going on right now.

Audiences, Cinema, Culture, Politically, Thinking, World

Comedy is a wonderful device for distance that allows us to look at what we're talking about with some degree of distance and hopefully with a bit more perspective and honesty. With many exceptions, a movie with no jokes is far less appealing to me.

Distance, Honesty, Hopefully, Movie, Perspective, Talking

I think a badly crafted, great idea for a new film with a ton of spelling mistakes is just 100 times better than a well-crafted stale script.

Badly, Idea, Ideas, Mistake, Thinking, Times

Somewhat dramatic things happen, and you don't even always notice them — that's what life is.

Dramatic, Happens, Life, Life Is, Somewhat, Things

Cinema really lends itself well to big, archetypal stories, you know, classic old stories and you need kind of a weird, big terrain like the Japanese plains for Samurai movies or the West. You need that for these giants to walk around.

Cinema, Giants, Movies, Needs, Old, Terrain

A lot of documentaries have been made very quickly, but I think they're like frogs in an ecosystem: They're harbingers. Film is always two or three years behind, because it takes so long to write a script, get financing, and get it made. It just takes a while. But I think it's coming. It has to.

Financing, Long, Script, Thinking, Writing

I love comedies. I take comedy very seriously as a form. It's a serious form, involving a certain way of looking at life, specifically the painful aspects of life. I get asked, "How can you have such failures in your films?" Well, what else is life about? There's some sense of constant failure in something. Humor gives you a distance from it.

Certain, Constant, Distance, Giving, Serious, Seriously

I never wanted money worries to slow me down or make me take a job I didn't want.

Down, Jobs, Make, Take, Want, Worry

In a general sense, to convert any short story, novel, play, or opera into a movie, you have to re-rig it. Even though they're all narratives over time, they're very different forms.

Different, Forms, Narratives, Novel, Short Story, Story

The best cinema is about ethics.

Cinema, Ethics

If you were falling in love and you could go back in time and relive a day and see the banal things you did that you'd forgotten about, you'd weep, looking at that day.

Day, Falling In Love, Forgotten, Go Back In Time, See, Weep

I like actors who, when you see them on screen, you sense a person, not just an actor.

Actors, Person, Persons, Screens, Sense

I definitely in filmmaking more and more find writing and directing a means to harvest material for editing. It's all about editing.

Editing, Harvest, Material, Mean, Movie, Writing

Acting is a lot easier than people think it is.

Acting, Easier, People, Thinking

My editor and I remain very disciplined. It's just sometimes when you're making a film, you get into the cutting room and you see a scene that's slowing you down in a certain section, but if you remove that scene then, emotionally or story-wise, another scene a half-hour later won't have the same impact. You just get stuck with it.

Certain, Cutting, Impact, Making, Scene, Wise

The better a novel is, in literary terms, the more you can't be faithful. The novel succeeds on terms exclusive to literature. A good film succeeds on terms exclusive to the cinema. That's why so many bad novels can become good movies.

Cinema, Exclusive, Faithful, Good Movie, Literature

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