We're living in a world that says that if you engage in mass fraud, you'll be rewarded, but if you go down the street and steal an orange juice, you get arrested.
The job of the writer and the filmmaker is not to impose his vision on the reality, but to be inspired by the reality and create a vision out of that.
Since Hollywood seems to be more interested in people wearing tights and using powers, there seems to be a fertile ground for movies about real human beings.
We're living in a time period where if a kid is on a plastic scooter that's one inch off the ground, mom and dad think he should have a helmet on. I don't think they should have a helmet on. They should break their leg and have an imagination. Otherwise, we're going to have a nation of accountants.
I believe in the utmost importance of one human being's actions toward another. This is actually what I believe in. How we handle one another, that's what makes us feel isolated, feel like outsiders sometimes. These questions are overwhelming. "What do you do in this world?" I believe in that more than anything.
It's hard for me to say you have to accept that the world is meaningless and the landscape is there before and after. That's not something we learn much in our culture growing up.
I like to give the actors the freedom, and they know they have the freedom, to change anything they want at any time.
Sometimes we have dreams, but we just can't make them. That's normal.
I never say "Action" or "Cut." Never. I think that would disturb the life from happening in and around everything.
The people who run the major banks have MBAs and wear suits. And when those people in suits come to the homes of people who don't have a high school diploma, don't even speak English, and offer them a home at zero percent down, that doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense.
I think happy and hope is more hopeful when you acknowledge that there's awful things too.
I like poetry, but honestly, I like dramatic literature more. If I had to pick between Rumi and Dostoevsky, I would pick Dostoevsky without even thinking about it. Ninety-nine out of 100 Iranians would probably pick Rumi. Kiarostami, too, would probably pick Rumi first. I try to have the meaning be in the action of the story, not in the symbolism. I want it to be in the action, and it's dramatic action that creates the meaning.
I'm not going to read reviews like, "I have to do these things." Any good criticism makes you think about your own films and about cinema in general.
You have to let life come and go.
The actors come and you start seeing things happen for real.
Most of the projects aren't that interesting anymore. There used to be a day when the studios made amazing films, and they were about human beings.
So much can be learned by any filmmaker by studying his work, in terms of blocking, staging, editing and sound.
