Mike Figgis Quotes
"Obviously, I try to make the films work for an audience. That's the main point of making a film, and in retrospect, one can see that certain films, let's say Leaving Las Vegas, demonstrated its own success."
- Mike Figgis
(Related: Success, Work, Film)
"In discussing the process with the actors, I made it clear to them that they could improvise but that the sum total of their improvisation needed to impart certain plot points, and schematic material."
- Mike Figgis
(Related: Actors)
"One of the things I love about cinema is the range."
- Mike Figgis
(Related: Love, Cinema)
"The power of sound to put an audience in a certain psychological state is vastly undervalued. And the more you know about music and harmony, the more you can do with that."
- Mike Figgis
(Related: Music, Power, Harmony, Sound, State)
"It's difficult working with very rich actors, because inevitably they become a little spoilt, and the managers and agents tend to control things more than is healthy."
- Mike Figgis
(Related: Control, Actors, Managers)
"The world is an infinitely fascinating, tragic and humorous place."
- Mike Figgis
(Related: World)
"Then I became interested in drama, and almost by accident, I drifted into film."
- Mike Figgis
(Related: Accident, Drama, Film)
"There's a sadness to the human condition that I think music is good for. It gives a counterpoint to the visual beauty, and adds depth to pictures that they wouldn't have if the music wasn't there."
- Mike Figgis
(Related: Music, Beauty, Sadness)
"There's nothing I've done which I'm ashamed of or I thought was actually bad."
- Mike Figgis
(Related: Thought, Nothing)
"You can do really slow movements with it, like zooming in for a minute and a half. The audience isn't aware that the camera has moved, but there's subconscious tension there."
- Mike Figgis
(Related: Tension)
"In a way, the history of jazz's development is a small mirror of classical music's development through the centuries. Now jazz is a living form of original music, while classical music has gotten to the end of its cycle in terms of exploring its form."
- Mike Figgis
(Related: History, Music, Development, End, Jazz, Living, Now)
"I like to work my camera as if it were a musical instrument."
- Mike Figgis
(Related: Work)
"When I do the music, I make the musicians listen to what's happening in the film. That way they treat the dialogue as if it was a singer."
- Mike Figgis
(Related: Music, Film, Musicians)
"I had no plans to be a director."
- Mike Figgis
"But I don't have such a strong desire to need to get away from filmmaking."
- Mike Figgis
(Related: Desire)
"Each film is different. Time Code was very quick - a matter of months. Miss Julie has been on my shelf as a script for some seven or eight years. But then the shooting process was very quick - 16 days."
- Mike Figgis
(Related: Time, Film, Months, Quick, Years)
"I play piano and trumpet. I studied classical guitar."
- Mike Figgis
(Related: Guitar, Play)
"I am intrigued enough to want to continue, and also to try and work with companies like Sony on modifying the cameras and making them more user-friendly and efficient."
- Mike Figgis
(Related: Work, Want)
"I've spent my life hearing people trying to apologize for music."
- Mike Figgis
(Related: Life, Music, People, Hearing, Trying)
"I might have a guitar or a piano on set to play something for the actors."
- Mike Figgis
(Related: Actors, Guitar, Play)
"I started using film as part of live theatre performance - what used to be called performance art - and I became intrigued by film."
- Mike Figgis
(Related: Art, Performance, Film, Theatre)
"I want the score to have a really big voice."
- Mike Figgis
(Related: Voice, Want)
"I would certainly say that films like Time Code and the Loss of Sexual Innocence were far more rewarding to me in terms of being able to move forward as a filmmaker."
- Mike Figgis
(Related: Time, Being, Innocence, Loss)
"I'm a huge fan of world cinema, because each country uses cinema in a very individual way."
- Mike Figgis
(Related: Cinema, Country, World)
"I've held onto little musical sketches that I thought could be useful, and the more time that I spend doing them for each film, then the more I have to draw on."
- Mike Figgis
(Related: Time, Thought, Film)
"Films take up so much time, and with theatre, you do have to plan a period of time that you can be free."
- Mike Figgis
(Related: Time, Theatre)