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Wong Kar-wai Quotes
born 1958 China
Wong Kar-wai (born July 17, 1958) is a Hong Kong film director. A pivotal figure of Hong Kong cinema, Wong has had a considerable influence on filmmaking with his trademark personal, unconventional approach.
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10 quotes
Filmmaking is an organic process from start to finish, so there should be many surprises along the way. You never know what film you really have until it is delivered.
We all need stories. What happens in our daily lives changes our stories.
In the last 10 years, a lot of kung-fu films have become over the top. And at a point, audiences start to think that kung-fu films are just a show, or a gimmick.
I never want to make beautiful pictures. I just want to make sure it’s right. Every set up, every shot, represents a choice: what you want to see, and what you don’t want to see.
I like Latin American literature a lot and I’ve always thought Latin American, and Italian people are very close to Chinese, especially the women — jealousies, passion, family values, it’s very close.
As someone once said: ‘Art is a never-ending dance of illusions’. It is impossible for us to dance exactly like we did before. What has really changed is not the films but the man on the floor.
It takes less effort to stream a film at home these days. However, streaming should not fundamentally affect how a film is made, as long as the pleasure of watching films doesn’t change, and we as filmmakers continue to serve that purpose.
You try to cope with the mass audience, but in fact you are not doing something for them—I would be fighting with myself. I thought, I don’t have to make big films, I can make small films that I can be happy with. I can find my own audience.
We always put something in front of the camera because we wanted to create the feeling that the audience was one of the neighbors and was always observing or watching these two people. And the color is so vivid because everything from memory is vivid—it’s beautiful because it’s very close to your mind.
Just make the film. Action is the first word you must learn. And the second is patience. As a filmmaker you must wait for many things. You have to wait for money, the weather, the cast, the release. So you need to have good patience. The process is so long and most of the time it’s frustrating. To be a filmmaker, you must first take action, then have the persistence to pursue it.