Sydney Pollack
Sydney Pollack
Sydney Irwin Pollackwas a United States born film director, producer and actor. Pollack directed more than 21 films and 10 television shows, acted in over 30 films or shows, and produced over 44 films. His 1985 film Out of Africa won him Academy Awards for directing and producing; he was also nominated for Best Director Oscars for They Shoot Horses, Don't They?and Tootsie, in the latter of which he also appeared...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth1 July 1934
CountryUnited States of America
Once I start to do a film, it has inferences. If a guy walks down a street and kicks a dog, you're saying something about that guy. A guy walks down the street and somebody's about to be run over and he shoves him out of his way and gets hit by the car himself, you're saying that guy's a hero. You can't avoid making certain statements.
I'm trying to be morally responsible and no more. I don't have an agenda I'm trying to push. People talk about Three Days of the Condor as being anti-government but the last statement in that movie is the CIA guy saying to Robert Redford, "Ask 'em when they're running out. Ask 'em when there's no heat in their homes and they're cold. Ask 'em when their engines stop. Ask 'em when people who have never known hunger start going hungry. You want to know something? They won't want us to ask 'em. They'll just want us to get it for 'em!"
From my point of view I work just as hard, I care just as much, if the films fail it doesn't make me suddenly disown them, it just doesn't.
On the one hand, the businessman in me understands it. But the lover of movies in me wants desperately to hang on to the movie house as a collective experience with the audience.
I'm hands-on in areas where I can make a difference. There's no sense in me standing on set; the director doesn't need me there.
The director is the teller of the film, the director tells the movie, like you would tell a story, except in this case you're telling a movie.
[Stanley] Kubrick was a fascinating, larger than life guy who had been a friend for many years prior to our working together on that film. I found the best part of working with him to be the long conversations we had between set-ups.
It's always interesting to play people different from yourself, it would be boring for me to play myself.
Obviously its a good feeling to know that something you've done has lasted.
I make films, and I hope that people come to see them. If they don't, I pay a big price. But I can't make decisions where I would change my own standards or my own taste in order to court the public in some way.
You mustn't regret decisions that you make. Because the decisions are made out of your gut in a way and you have to stick with them.
When you work without a script, you are in a sense working in a much more improvisational way than when you are prepared totally.
I have to have a working knowledge of light, and optics, film emulsions and their properties, and lenses, otherwise I can't create the shoots that are the vocabulary of the films. But it is not necessary for me to be a cameraman, I can hire a cameraman.
I'm not a very good predictor in any area of art, particularly my own. I don't know how to evaluate that.