John Sayles
John Sayles
John Thomas Saylesis an American independent film director, screenwriter, editor, actor and novelist. He has twice been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Passion Fishand Lone Star. His film Men with Gunshas been nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film. His directorial debut, Return of the Secaucus 7, has been added to the National Film Registry...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth28 September 1950
CountryUnited States of America
But once I discovered that there was such a thing as a screenwriter and a director and all that, it stayed in my head as a possibility.
We just said, 'Okay, you're in the movie. Bring what you would bring for a three-day weekend and I hope you like the way you look in it because once you're on camera, that's your wardrobe.' But it worked; it worked and we were very surprised.
You get to say, 'Here's my philosophical idea about what the costume should like,' and the costume designer comes and gives you choices and sometimes they're all good, and I say, 'What do you think?' and they pick the right thing.
I was trying to think of a title for it, which is a hard thing. Limbo is basically a metaphor, anyway ... it's this place where you're neither here nor there ... and so many people live that kind of life.
I was surprised that it still existed, ... that it hadn't, in fact ... been swallowed up by developers. And I went down, and there it still was, with two condo outfits on either side of this beautiful stretch of beach, but it was like they were moving one foot forward every day, and they were about to get it.
With Roger, it would be: 'On Page 67, we think this is a little quick to have another attack of Piranhas, so could you put it off until Page 69?'
Fahrenheit 9/11 took public domain information that should have been on the news every night and put it in a film that a lot of people went to see. But still Bush has never had to answer those charges.
It's the best of all worlds, ... You never know when the phone rings who it's going to be.
It reminded me how much Florida is a place of parallel communities that don't always intersect and have totally different ways of looking at the world. They might do certain things together, but they don't necessarily mix.
What I often find is it has to do with, is we need somebody who's in one scene to intimidate somebody who's over 5'10' and there I am on the set.
Those are fun, especially if they're going to shoot them in four weeks, because you know they're not going to mess with anything you do, so it can be very imaginative.
You stay with the technology, you stay with the people, you don't rust.
There was a widespread indignation in the American media. They were saying, 'How can you make a movie during an election that's about politics? What are you doing? Are you trying to influence people's lives?' To which my response was, 'Well, I hope so.'
So when I came to making movies, that's the way I wanted to do it. I didn't kind of wanting to just do one part of the process and leave it at that.