Compassion is a two way street.
Everybody who works under any system feels confined. It is a natural reaction. You are confined to a certain extent. You are confined if you work in a bank, if you paint. You are confined, in a sense, to your art - the enclosure of your mind. Everybody should break out.
Film is universal. All the countries of the world are making films. Hollywood is the only major unsubsidized center for films. To my knowledge all others are at least partially subsidized. I'm glad Hollywood isn't.
There are a lot of people who believe that the individual can't make it himself. And that's why people want to join up in various herds - herd formation. So you become part of a herd, a group. Group power of some kind. There's an awful lot of group power people in our country [the USA] - Black power, Chinese power, Indian power, woman power. Everyone is putting in together.
One is never completely satisfied. But I can say that I'm not dissatisfied. I've been very fortunate. I've been given some gifts - to take advantage of the contemporary times when I made movies. Gifts to make audiences laugh.
In these days of wars and rumors of wars - haven't you ever dreamed of a place where there was peace and security, where living was not a struggle but a lasting delight?
Man must be able to recover, to win out, triumph over adversity. And I don't mean just the little adversity like paying his room rent or something. But those deep, deep human adversities because something he has faith in has turned to ashes. Where someone he loves turns out to be just another joke. You get to the point of suicide. But you can bounce back - they can't completely destroy you.
All you can do is learn the skills of movies. Neither colleges nor anyone else can teach you creativity. They can teach you abilities to work with - you know how to use the gifts you've been born with.
I have a feeling that demonstrations don't accomplish anything. That they become fads. I also feel that demonstrations wouldn't go on unless there is a TV camera. That part of it all is performance for the media. I didn't know whether they are completely honest.
When you get to political machines that can control a state, then you're really into organized crime - almost. You're fighting a political mafia.
Do not help the quick moneymakers who have delusions about taking possession of classics by smearing them with paint.
I was the enemy of the major studio. I believed in one man - one film. I believed one man should make the film. And I believed the director should be that one man. One man should do it - I didn't give a damn who. I just couldn't accept art as a committee. I could only accept art as an extension of an individual.
There's music in my films but you seldom hear it. Very early I got the idea that the important things in films were people - the actors. They are the intermediary between the director and the audience. They make direct contact. People to people communication.
Whenever a situation develops to its extreme, it is bound to turn around and become its opposite.
Man's greatest advances are weapon advances. Culture follows from weaponry, we are militant like the animals and birds - defending our homes. No matter how far back you go in history, along with the struggle for existence, along with the survival necessities - kill or be killed, eat or be eaten - there is a hunger for something spiritual. He invents God, prayers, incantations to something above him. Why? This is not brought out - this is not weapon culture.
Capitalism is supposedly free enterprise. Supposedly about the free individual. But capitalism itself is so massive that the guy on the street gets caught in paying rent, taxes, and he doesn't own himself at all.
Any kind of dictatorship, I'm uneasy. I just don't like dictators. I don't like crowds. I don't like hordes, and I don't like other people telling me what to do. This is probably a reaction against people telling me what to do when I was a kid. I won't join any group, espouse a cause against some other people.
In our film profession you may have Gable's looks, Tracy's art, Marlene's legs or Liz's violet eyes, but they don't mean a thing without that swinging thing called courage.
I think the human spirit is a real powerful spirit. It has no limits and it has no ends. And I hate to see it put in any kind of box - pink or green.
Most of ideologies are not based on the individual - no matter what they say. There are these peoples' democracies, nationalism - they're all dictatorships. And I think any kind of dictatorship is bad for the individual.
War to me is the stupidest way of settling anything. The whole damn thing goes to pieces.
I'm a living example of getting into films backwards. Merely by accident. Exposure to films and ideas is the best thing that colleges can do.
Automatic simply means that you can?t repair it yourself.
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