Robert Altman Quotes
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Maybe there's a chance to get back to grown-up films. Anything that uses humor and dramatic values to deal with human emotions and gets down to what people are to people.
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Filmmaking is a chance to live many lifetimes.
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I make no apologies for Popeye. Behind M*A*S*H, it's my biggest hit. It got maligned by the critics because it wasn't Superman. It wasn't about special effects and it wasn't made for 14-year-old boys. The majority of films are made for 14-year-old boys; I don't know where they get the eight bucks to get in. It's hush money from the parents.
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I'll give you the same advice I give my children: Never take advice from anybody.
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I was scared that no one would hire me. At that time, there was still a stigma attached to it. A big stigma. Actually, I think I was healthier after the operation than some people who have bypass surgery because I was completely cured. But when you mentioned "heart transplant," you got a very negative reaction. It triggered people's imaginations, and not in a good way.
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I don't think screenplay writing is the same as writing - I mean, I think it's blueprinting.
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If you have a child who is seven feet tall, you don't cut off his head or his legs. You buy him a bigger bed and hope he plays basketball.
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[The Player is] not a truthful indictment of Hollywood. It's much uglier than I portrayed it, but nobody would've been interested if I'd shown just how sadistic, cruel and self-orientated it is.
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Making a movie is like chipping away at a stone. You take a piece off here, you take a piece off there and when you're finished, you have a sculpture. You know that there's something in there, but you're not sure exactly what it is until you find it.
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Why should I keep doing things that I've done before?
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It's all just one film to me. Just different chapters.
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Every ad for every film is exactly the same.
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I love fishing. You put that line in the water and you don't know what's on the other end. Your imagination is under there.
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We make too much of the good and too much of the bad.
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Retirement? You're talking about death, right?
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People have asked me throughout the years which directors have influenced me. I don't know their names, because I was mostly influenced when I'd see a film and think, "Man, I want to be sure to never do anything like that." So I never learned their names. It wasn't a matter of copying or emulating somebody I admired. It was getting rid of a lot of stuff.
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I insist that they do what they became actors to do. I want them to create something and not just hit marks and say words. So they all love that because they're playing. It's called playacting. Their contributions are not only welcomed, but are accepted and used.
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Happy endings are absolutely ludicrous, they're not true at all. We see the guy carry the girl across the threshold and everybody lives happily ever after -- that's bullshit. Three weeks later he's beating her up and she's suing for divorce and he's got cancer.
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Words don't tell you what people are thinking. Rarely do we use words to really tell. We use words to sell people or to convince people or to make them admire us. It's all disguise. It's all hidden -- a secret language.
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Most of my films I call arena films. I deal with a confined area -- an arena -- and I try to cover every aspect of it.
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The Oscar for the films, it'd be nice. But I don't make those kind of films, and I don't think that will ever happen.
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I was a heavy drinker, but the alcohol affected my heart rather than my liver. So I stopped. I smoke grass now. I say that to everybody, because marijuana should be legalized. It's ridiculous that it isn't. If at the end of the day I feel like smoking a joint I do it. It changes the perception of what I've been through all day.
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If George W. Bush is elected president, I'm leaving for France.
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I've had it-the agencies, the winking, the networks, the ratings. Anyone who thinks TV is an art medium is crazy-it's an advertising medium.
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They'll never give me an Oscar. And I sincerely, honestly don't care. I always turn up when I'm nominated and it would be nice to get one, but to win one would be bad luck. It comes with too much expectation. It would be the end.
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I don't know what "Altmanesque" means, though I suppose I'm flattered by it.
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I never knew what I wanted, except that it was something I hadn't seen before.
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If something works for you, you continue to do it. I did a bunch of pictures for 20th Century Fox when Alan Ladd was over there, but I set the budgets so low that they'd approve and I'd deliver the film. They would have no say in it, which is the kind of arrangement I liked.
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I've never had a big hit movie. "MASH" was probably the biggest. I don't make those kind of films, and I never have. I wish each one of them would just do billions of dollars worth of ticket sales, but they never do and they never will.
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Jazz has endured because it doesn't have a beginning or an ending. It's a moment.
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