Michael Cimino Quotes

Because people don’t see me around a lot, I’m the source of all sorts of rumour.

Encountering a real place enhances the performances of actors in subtle ways and changes the spiritual texture of the film.

I cut ‘Deer Hunter’ myself.

It’s very important to follow your instincts because, beyond what you know exists or what you’re told exists in a given area, your intuition plays a big part in finding something special.

Who cares about seeing 10,000 helicopter assaults? That’s spectacle.

I don’t make movies to make a point; I make movies to tell stories about people.

Even the details of a rifle, which are nothing but mechanical, if they are made carefully, with attention, become beautiful, satisfying.

It was just – I mean, 6,000 people giving you a standing ovation is quite an experience.

A film reflects who you are as a building reflects the soul of its architect. I think what you feel and what you think and what you are is what the film is. It’s not for me to talk about.

I’ve had enough rejection for 33 years. I don’t need more.

Every great movie is about the people, even if it’s a great popular success like ‘Gone With the Wind.’ It’s really not about the Civil War. It’s about Scarlett and Rhett. That’s who you go to see. You’re not going to root for the North or pull for the South, or, you know, it’s the people you remember.

Does anyone remember who shot Kubrick’s movies? Do you remember who shot David Lean’s movies? No one remembers who shot ‘Dr. Strangelove’ or ‘Barry Lyndon.’

Friendship and sentiment and the giving of one’s words are very important.

I felt the need to unlearn my formal education.

When I was fifteen, I spent three weeks driving all over Brooklyn with a guy who was following his girlfriend.

There have been so many false things written about me by people who don’t know me.

I never second-guess myself.

I love to scout locations.

What we forget is that the Academy is a star-maker, or it reinforces the stardom of people.

Movie-making ain’t for sissies.

There’s nothing but brutality and bravery or cowardice that comes out of war. That’s pretty much it.

‘Deer Hunter’ is a movie; it is not an attempt to write history.

All of those years, I felt like ‘Heaven’s Gate’ was a beautiful, fantastically colored balloon tied to a string fastened to my wrist, so the balloon could never fly.

Most people I knew had been crippled by their educations. Some were even dying spiritually.

Anybody who says they’re bitter is sick in their soul. They’ve given up.

Every good war film, if you want to use that phrase – I don’t think it’s a good phrase, but if you want to use that phrase – every good film, a first-rate film about war, is an anti-war movie.

I don’t dispute the accounts of My Lai 4, but I think that anyone who is a student of the war, or anyone who was there, would agree that anything you could imagine happening probably happened.

I was a child prodigy. Like Michelangelo, who could draw a perfect circle at age five. I was extremely gifted. I could paint a perfect portrait of someone at age five.

All one has to do is look at old footage of the firebombing of Dresden during World War II and think of the people beneath those bombs. It’s horrific.

Would you ask Picasso to explain ‘Guernica?’ Would you ask Nabokov to explain ‘Lolita?’ Would you ask Tolstoy about ‘War and Peace?’ No, you wouldn’t dare.

A film maker’s energy and creativity don’t have to end when he turns over his film.

Family politics are worse than world politics. That’s all I can say. You don’t get to choose your family; you get to choose your friends. Your family is imposed upon you.

They’ve said everything about me that they could: racist, Marxist, rightist, homophobic, sex change – I don’t know what else they could come up with.

I’ve published a couple of short novels in France that I didn’t want to publish in English because I loved the characters too much to subject them to American critics who were not exactly favorable toward my work.

When the rich kids got together, the most we ever did was cross against a red light.

We all want to experience that in our lives – a moment when we’re two feet off the ground – and making movies gives you that opportunity. It comes and it goes so fast that it’s unreal, but it does happen.

I’ve got a room full of scripts. They go to the ceiling. I can’t even hardly walk into it anymore. Most are original, and there are some adaptations like ‘Man’s Fate.’

I am not a preacher; I’m a reacher.

I think ‘American Sniper’ is anti-war. It demonstrates the agony of the decision-making that goes on.

Making movies is controlled anarchy, chaos.

When a guy is perceived as macho, female editors aren’t going to like it – because they all want to be men.

I don’t believe in defeat.

Being infamous is not fun. It becomes a weird occupation in and of itself.

Movies are about people; there’re not about ideas. It’s like great novels. Great novels are not about ideas. There’s never been a great novel about ideas.

It’s one of the wonderful things that the Academy does – a talented person comes along like Mira Sorvino, and it elevates them up to stardom.