Quotes by Brian Palma

• That's what noir feels like to me. It feels like some kind of recurring dream, with very strong archetypes operating. You know, the guilty girl being pursued, falling, all kinds of stuff that we see in our dreams all the time.
• The biggest mistake in student films is that they are usually cast so badly, with friends and people the directors know. Actually you can cover a lot of bad direction with good acting.
• The real trouble with film school is that the people teaching are so far out of the industry that they don't give the students an idea of what's happening.
• Well, I just think through your career you go through different phases, and I just got sort of uninspired by the whole studio process of making and releasing films.
• Well, like any time you're shooting documentary stuff, you've got to be in the moment, and you've got to be able to be in control enough to capture what's happening.
• When you make a movie outside the system and it's successful critically or a moderate financial success, you usually have to go back into the system and make a big hit.
• Yeah, I had an idea to make a very scary movie, based on a kind of serial murderer that preys on tourists.
• You know it's always amazed me - I think the most startling thing that's happened in the last couple of decades is that there is no sort of objective reporting anymore.
• You know, I listen to contemporary music all the time.
• You know, when people want to get any information, research information, it will all exist on these Web sites.
• You really are as hot as your last movie. And it goes away really quickly.
• So I like to try to go back and develop pure visual storytelling. Because to me, it's one of the most exciting aspects of making movies and almost a lost art at this point.
• I guess what's most surprised me in most of the reviews is that they don't seem to get the noir story in the dream sequence, so they analyze it like a straight noir movie.
• However, I spent most of my time in a Quaker school.
• I've been sort of traveling around the country for ten years talking about independent features.
• I've been obsessed with this kind of visual storytelling for quite a while, and I try to create material that allows me to explore it.
• I'm always looking for a kind of new musical entity to sort of move into a motion picture venue.
• I mean, I don't mind promoting a movie, or talking to the press if it's going to be used in some way.
• And I always had this idea for making a movie about a femme fatale, because I like these characters. They're a lot of fun, they're sexy, they're manipulative, they're dangerous.
• I hadn't done just a straight-out comedy in a long time, just letting an ensemble do really good character acting, having them carry the movie as in my earlier pictures.
• It's always great when you discover someone.
• I don't see scarey films. I certainly wouldn't go see my films.
• I do like directing other people's material.
• But, number one, I think traditional noir doesn't work in contemporary storytelling because we don't live in that world anymore.
• And we've become very doubtful of our information sources, because they're all controlled by these huge multilateral corporations.
• However, ironically, I was baptized Presbyterian, and went to a Quaker school for twelve years.
• It's always great to discover a new star of tomorrow.
• Godard is incredibly brilliant, the things he says. Apparently here in France, the most interesting thing when a new film of his is going to come out are his press conferences, because he's so brilliant.
• I've dropped myself into straightforward character pieces in order to explore that form and reap its values. But you are sort of restricted visually when your first requirement is to tell a fairly straightforward story.