You can never maintain just pure happiness. In my life, I want full emotion. I want equal parts happiness and sadness. Derek Cianfrance More Quotes by Derek Cianfrance More Quotes From Derek Cianfrance There was a time in my early 20s when I would leave a movie theater and just feel so alone and lonely afterwards. I just felt like my life was nothing like those characters up on the screen, so perfect all the time. Why didn't I talk like that? Why don't I look like that? Derek Cianfrance alone my-life time life I think people need fantasy, but I think they also need to know that they're not being lied to. I think sometimes the fantasy can betray people and become more difficult for people's lives than just truth. I can't stand delusion. Delusion makes me sick. Derek Cianfrance me sick truth people After 'Place Beyond the Pines,' honestly, I was sick of myself. Sick of my own ideas. I wanted to do an adaptation, but everything I'd been reading, I just didn't understand it. Derek Cianfrance myself sick reading ideas I ask all my actors to do two things: I ask them to fail for me, and I ask them to surprise me. Derek Cianfrance things me surprise two There's this thing in Hollywood about the sympathetic character and likability. I've never understood that because the people I love most in my life are not likable all the time. My wife is not always likable. I'm certainly not always likable. My dad is not always likable. We're human beings. Derek Cianfrance wife time love life When I cast great actors, I try to make extraordinary people ordinary, dealing with these extremely small intimate details of interpersonal relationships against an epic backdrop. Derek Cianfrance small great details people I think 'GoodFellas' is just a perfect film. From an efficiency of storytelling standpoint, from an entertainment standpoint, from a performance standpoint, from a use of music standpoint, from a cinematography and editing standpoint - to me, it's just a perfect movie. Derek Cianfrance performance think me music I was a member of the VHS generation. I used to study movies as a kid because I had a VCR and could record a movie on HBO and just watch it repeatedly. Derek Cianfrance generation movies kid study We had all these smiley family pictures all over the walls of my house, but I always found those pictures to be odd because we weren't smiling all the time. I don't want to paint the picture of a total dysfunctional house, but there were a lot of arguments in that house. A lot of pain. Derek Cianfrance picture family pain time I love actors that are brave, that are courageous. And courage to me is not the absence of fear, it's the presence of fear, and they go to places that really scare them, because as an audience, that's where you feel danger. Derek Cianfrance me courage fear love I'm trying to be the coach. My actors are my players. They're doing things that I'm too cowardly to do myself. Derek Cianfrance doing things myself trying Lars Ulrich, he was my hero growing up. I wanted to be like him. I played the drums. Derek Cianfrance like up growing-up hero I don't have a life, really. I take my kids to school, and I go home, and I write. Then I go pick my kids up, make them dinner, put them to bed, and write some more. Derek Cianfrance dinner home life school Right now, I think I have time to be three things, in no particular order: a father, a husband, and a filmmaker. That's why I don't go out - I have no space for it. I feel like one of those main things would suffer. Derek Cianfrance feel space time father I've always thought that guns are a cowardly tool in the hands of men and women trying to solve problems with each other. And cowardly in the hands of filmmakers. It's taken so lightly in films. Derek Cianfrance problems women men hands I don't really collect anything. I grew up in a family that collected things, and then they'd get sick, and people die, and then they have their basements full of stuff that goes from one box to the next, so I try not to get sentimental with stuff. I just try to collect memories; I guess that would be it. Derek Cianfrance die family memories people I feel like the job in editing is to let the movie tell you what it is. So again, it's like sculpture. You just start taking away, you add a nose here, you cut off, like, the side of the cheek over here in the crease, and you have a face. But it really reveals to you what it means to be over time, and if you have enough time. Derek Cianfrance face job you time I have kids. I can't hardly watch an afternoon football game with them without having to turn off the TV during the commercials. It's too much. I don't know when violence was deemed such a cinematic thing. Derek Cianfrance game know violence football One of the bad things about being a filmmaker, about being me, is I can hardly read a book anymore because every time I read something, I have a poaching mentality, like, 'Oh, can this be a movie?' Derek Cianfrance bad me time book I think book adaptations, the best one to me is like 'Brokeback Mountain.' Which is a short story, 21 pages, that expands so beautifully into a movie. Derek Cianfrance best me mountain book
