James Gray
James Gray
comedies romantic
Americans have always been excellent at making romantic comedies - but dramatically, we don't really try to do it.
films themes using
There's never really been a tradition of making films about Jewish themes or using Judaism as a constant.
concepts mood narrative personal start
I start with a mood or an idea that comes from a personal place emotionally, and the narrative concepts come much later.
act ego great happen hoping learned love people predict
I've learned that you can never predict what will happen to a film. You can never predict if people will love it, if they'll hate it. It's an act of ego if you're hoping for everyone to love the film and tell you how great you are.
button everybody loves means toward
If everybody loves you, you must be doing something wrong. It means there's no button being pushed... The only way that everybody loves you is toward the end of your career.
almost difference everybody knowing lives misery somebody
If everybody lives in the same way, there's something almost narcotizing about it, but the true misery of economic class difference is knowing that you can't have what somebody else does.
anybody bunch deal drunk guys last night people realized saturday tuesday until white
I don't think anybody realized until last Tuesday that this was a Klan-type outfit, a white supremacist-type outfit, ... Most people thought it was just a bunch of guys getting drunk on Saturday night or a drug deal that went bad.
films hundred million people
I continually marvel at people who can make films that reach five hundred million people. How do you do that? Everybody's different - I don't know how that works.
art began cinema forms music perfect wonderful
I began to see cinema as the perfect combination of so many wonderful art forms - painting, photography, music, dance, theater.
cool great house manhattan miles people rich row
It's difficult because Manhattan is so fantastic, and it's 9 miles away, and all these cool rich people live there and have great lives, and you live in a semi-attached row house in Queens.
work
The closer you can get to being personal, the better the work is, or the more interesting the work is.
art artists films generally grew ironic lasts league love stuff totally
The films I grew up loving, and the art that I love, is not generally the kind of postmodern ironic winking stuff. What lasts is the stuff in which the artists are totally in league with the subject.
knew took
The first movie, I was 23; I thought I knew everything, but my ego soon took an irrevocable blow.
amazing close ending gets head shot sticks
The ending shot of 'Queen Christina' with Greta Garbo is amazing. She's at the head of the ship, and she's been through so much, and the camera gets so close to her face. That really sticks out for me.