film-producers-from-canada

"Fate cast me to play the role of an ugly duckling with no promise of swanning. Therefore, I sat down when a mere child—fully realizing just how utterly "mere" I was—and figured out my life early. Most people do it, but they do it too late. At any rate, from the beginning I have played my life as a comedy rather than the tragedy many would have made of it."

"By the time we hit fifty, we have learned our hardest lessons. We have found out that only a few things are really important. We have learned to take life seriously, but never ourselves."

"There is a vast difference between success at twenty-five and success at sixty. At sixty, nobody envies you. Instead, everybody rejoices generously, sincerely, in your good fortune."

"... poor had no terror for me! It was pie for me! My whole life had been a fight!"

"It is well enough to be interested in one's profession, but to restrict one's leisure to association with the members of one's guild, so to speak, is to be doomed to artificiality and eventually to sterility. In order to represent life on the stage, we must rub elbows with life, live ourselves."

"If ants are such busy workers, how come they find time to go to all the picnics?"

"A rut is like a grave – it's only a question of depth."

"Love is not getting, but giving. It is sacrifice. And sacrifice is glorious! I have no patience with women who measure and weigh their love like a country doctor dispensing capsules. If a man is worth loving at all, he is worth loving generously, even recklessly."

"I was born serious and I have earned my bread making other people laugh."

"So many aspects of our life have disappeared from movie screens [...] And they're now appearing on cable."

"The famous slap, where [Virgil] Tibbs retaliates against a racist landowner, wasn't improvised, though, as has been suggested. I kept telling [[Sidney Poitier|[Sidney] Poitier]] that Tibbs was a sophisticated detective, not used to being pushed around. I showed him how to do the slap. "Don't hit him on the ear," I said. "I want you to really give him a crack on the fatty side of his cheek." I told him to practise on me. A black man had never slapped a white man back in an American film. We broke that taboo."

"I don't make social statements in my pictures [...] though I do feel a film should be about something—that it have a raison d'etre. It should not shy away from social problems."

"He gives his actors room and keeps them as calm as he can, because it's easier to speak with them when they're calm. A director has to keep the actors on their toes while the camera's running, but when the scene is done, they should be relaxing, nothing on their minds. There can't be a constant level of seriousness. And with Norman, there's always a lot of laughter."

"[On why he was not making a theatrical feature film for the studios] They'd say these films were too wordy, too cerebral, too much dialogue [...] They often want films with a minimum of dialogue and lots of action and limited adult themes to sell abroad."

"[On why he was liking directing a television film] They leave you alone; there's no interference, no second guessing."

"[On John Wayne] The drunker he got the more he wanted to punch me out."

"For me, films are about ideas [...] Every director should ask himself, 'Why am I making this picture?' And if you can't answer that, you shouldn't make it."

"I got involved with the issue of racism when I was a kid in Canada. When I was 17 or 18 we were at war so I joined the Canadian Navy. ... When I got out, I’ll never forget I had a month’s leave which you had to take before they demobilized you. During that time you could do whatever you wanted as long as you reported back. Someone told me that if you go to the States and you’re in uniform they treat you like a king. You can get a ride anywhere for nothing. So I started hitchhiking. I went to Chicago and then I kept going south. I was somewhere just outside Memphis and I wanted to get to the highway. A bus came along and I got on because I didn't have to pay. So I got on and sat in the back because it was a hot day and the windows were down. About five minutes later the bus stopped and the driver – a big beefy guy – looked at me through the mirror and said "you tryin' to be funny sailor?" I said no and he said "well can't you read the sign?" So I look up and there's a hand-painted sign on a piece of tin hanging by a wire in the middle of the bus. It said "colored people to the rear." So I looked around and sure enough there were a few black people sitting around me and the white people were in front. I didn't know what to do. I was so young I didn't realize there was this kind of racial tension in America. So [I] said "I'll get off the bus." He drove off and left me standing on a dusty street by myself."

"Your goals are your dreams and your dreams alone... If you do not bring your goals out of your dreams and into reality, no one else will."

"Xavier and I are like soul mates. He wants to create a very intense and close-knit atmosphere on the set, and he has a very unique way of working. He will be talking to you while you’re shooting a scene or he will be playing music in the background to take you where he wants you to go with your performance."

"He's a very singular, unique and rare director. He loves actors, he loves acting, and also he has something that cannot really be explained. He has more than a style, he writes his cinema – not like writing it down – but he has a very special grammar in his movies. This is something that you cannot explain; he's a prodigy who lives for cinema. He has a passion for movies and this art form is so deep, so wide. The way he works with actors is very unique too. I used this image before talking about him, but it’s really what I feel; he’s like a sculptor or a painter. When we are on set he is with us, he talks to us while we are shooting, he's part of the family, he's part of everything he does – of course the director is part of every little thing in the movie, but he breathes like his films – so his film, and his films, breathe like him."

"My big, always and forever love, my creative soul mate @xavierdolan ♥️"

"I chose to address this letter to you, Madame, because I did not know other than by telling you how much I admired and loved him. I didn't know how to pay him a real tribute. I think he would have liked to know that I wrote this letter while listening to a piece by Olafur Arnalds entitled "Tree"... "L'arbre". He would have listened to it. Even better. We would have listened to it together, without excluding all those who loved him. His family, it seemed natural to me to write to you this evening. To you, whom I immediately thought of that morning. Because a mother's love is stronger than anything. I believe it. Stronger than life. Stronger than art itself. And certainly stronger than death."

"I had already met him several times, quickly, but I discovered a fragile, touching, endearing person, far from this somewhat false idea of ​​rebellious, condescending, young man inflated with assurance. For Xavier, filming is a vital impetus, palpable on set. Nothing matters more than what happens in front of the camera. He's someone who never gives up, doesn't back down from anything, just like his films."

"Gaspard was often the one who listens and does not speak. We have often talked about his discretion or his gentleness, of the mystery that he did not intentionally cultivate. But little has been said about his eloquence. I've heard him talk so much about his love for his profession. About life, the beautiful things, in a neat language that celebrates the musicality, the scarcity of words while many were making a point to speak first, Gaspard was distilling from a thought, a more accomplished, more chiseled look. A bit like the one he poses at the end of Saint Laurent from his friend Bertrand Bonello, in this moment when he's eyeing the camera and lays his eyes precisely on the situation that is life and our souls as well. He seems to have understood something that has possibly escaped us all."

"At first, it can feel a bit too interventionist, but it becomes very rewarding and passionating. He's with us every second, capturing our every move."

"I'm very much a hypochondriac, worried about dying, and not having enough time to work with the people I want to work with and being fulfilled as an actor."

"Xavier is extremely precise — a year before the shoot, everything was ready, even the lighting. But then during the shoot itself he gave us some freedom."

"I don't have mom issues or dad issues. I think I have found peace about many things in my past. I have forgiven and asked to be forgiven."

"I come from a popular environment. I don’t have a deep knowledge of auteur cinema. My wish as a director has always been to make films that I would like to see in theaters."

"Tonight I wanted to pay a tribute to my friend, to our friend, Gaspard. I have chosen to do so in the form of a letter, which is as follows:"

"Madame, I am addressing this letter to you without even knowing you, without knowing you well. Outside, behind my bedroom window in the woods where I have taken refuge, the snow twirls in the air. It is transfigured by the light of the sun and the wind persists in beating it into loose snow. Big conifers rise in front of me, covered with a very heavy white deposit. Winter is calm, all of a sudden, after a brutal start."

"Xavier Dolan: I think of him all the time, actually... I think... It's hard to conceive it.. It takes a long time to accept this situation... to accept his departure... It's inconceivable... I often dream of him... I think of his family... his son... I think of his talent, his beauty... And I will talk about him tonight. Host: That's why you're here, actually. Beyond your César nomination... Xavier Dolan: Yes... honestly. This nomination is a recognition that I really appreciate, obviously, but it's not the first reason I'm here. I really wanted to say some things about Gaspard... Not because I have the right to do it, but because I feel the need to do it. I knew him professionally and intimately, as well. [Holding back tears] I hope tonight I'll be able to control myself better than now. But... I really feel the need to say personally how much I loved him and why."

"It is impossible, insane, and so painful to even think of writing these words. Your discreet laughter, your watchful eye. Your scar. Your talent. Your listening. Your whispers, your kindness. All the features of your person were in fact born of a sparkling sweetness. It is your whole being that has transformed my life, a being that I loved deeply, and that I will always love. I can’t say anything else, I’m exhausted, stunned by your departure."

"Nathalie Lévy: You directed Gaspard Ulliel in It's Only the End of the World, and you wrote an intense message after the news of his death... Xavier Dolan: It was really his light... the allure he had... He was someone who... I still can't talk about him... And I still can't accept... I dream of him at night... very often. Sometimes those dreams look cruel... or... hyper realistic. Some look so real... and when I wake up it's so painful. Nathalie Lévy: What was so singular about Gaspard? Xavier Dolan: I saw lots of interviews with Gaspard when he died. And he was someone who loved words... and loved to think. Sometimes he looked up at the sky, before speaking. And yet all of his words were relevant, measured, cultivated... He was a literate man, and curious. He spoke well. And he spoke when he had to speak."

"I knew that in coming here to seek out isolation, I was going to start thinking and writing about Gaspard, I had already written for Gaspard before, I had written to Gaspard, but I had not written about Gaspard. And other than for an article, an interview or a prize, believe me that I had no intention to do so."

"I began as an actor and I will end as one. I’m not going to direct movies my whole life. It’s just too much. I want to write myself parts as generous as Anne Dorval's, or the kid in Mommy or Antoine in It's Only the End of the World! I’ve benched myself for so long. But I can’t seem to give myself these roles. People would call me ‘narcissistic’ again. That's their favourite word for me. But I want to do that in the future. Acting is a passion for me, in all its possible forms. It’s a passion, really a passion!"

"Yes, I came from nowhere. All my life, I heard 'Stop daydreaming,' Get over yourself,' 'You'll never get there,' 'Aim lower, 'You'll hurt yourself,' from teachers, family, and friends."

"I've been a fan from the first hour. Kate Winslet has inspired me to become an actor, a director, a costume designer ... she's helped me to grow as an artist and as a human being in a way that she will never know. When I saw her in Titanic, I was 8 years old. I saw the film and I was like, "Oooh, look at that." Big ideas, ambition, greater than life. It showed me that there were no limits to the things you could dream. I couldn't believe the production design. Do you know the accuracy and the rigor of the research James Cameron did for it? Down to the doorknobs. The accuracy of every detail is nothing short of autistic, and it's very impressive. But from the age of 8 to 16, Kate Winslet was the spokesperson of my teenage-hood without ever knowing it. She's been the face of my wildest artistic dreams. The way she walked, the way she talked ... she's defined the person that I am in so many aspects. And I know that it's extremely weird to be talking about this. Some artists do that to you. For me, it was her."

"I couldn't help but think he would have hated this kind of elegy. He would have perceived a lack of elegance in this glorification. And he was very elegant. Because his career speaks for itself. Through the articles that praise him and all the roles that survive him. His talent, we still have it. And no one can take that away from us. It's the privilege of being famous and an actor of his light to be able to count on art to fade us into eternity while other important bereavements for some remain unknown to all or become so quickly evanescent. It's a whole world that cried for Gaspard... it's a whole world that still mourns him."

"But I didn’t come here to speak about the career of Gaspard Ulliel — I could recount the list of brilliant exploits and feats, of starry passages among the stars of the Riviera, of the industry. But what effect could these things have on the gaping wound of his departure?"

"He's very precise and since he’s also an actor himself, the communication between us was very fluid. He makes us want to give everything."

"Most comedians want to be the architect of their own embarrassment. They have horrible self-esteem issues. I would rather push myself into the mud. I don't want to be pushed into the mud. I think that is probably true. I think most people struggle with self-acceptance. But comedians get a chance to self externalize."

"Everything I do is autobiographical in some way. Wayne's World was me growing up in the suburbs of Toronto and listening to heavy metal, and Austin Powers was every bit of British culture that my father, who passed away in 1991, had forced me to watch and taught me to love. With the guru Pitka, after my father died, I went on a spiritual quest, and it's very hard when you're a comedian to go on a spiritual quest, because your natural instinct is to be cynical."

"Fame is not creativity, it’s the industrial disease of creativity."

"They say that comedy and sausages are the two things that if you know how they're made they affect the appetite. I'm always creating and writing stuff so it's nice for me to be able to watch it as a fan."

"We all have struggles; we all go through times that are difficult. What I found is there’s strength in talking about what’s happening. That we are only as sick as our secrets. If we are harbouring all of those things, and we’re not talking about them, we’re just getting sicker. If we tell somebody about it, it’s out there – it’s gone. It’s not necessarily gone like you don’t have to deal with it, but it’s not weighing you down any more, as this embarrassing horrible thing. It’s out there. There’s really nothing that can’t be worked through. I’ve seen that in myself, I’ve seen that in other people I know that live their life the way I do."

"If it's a good project and I feel I have something to add, it's really rewarding."

"I’m an actor’s director, I love to make the environment safe enough for an actor to make a mistake to fall on their face, to let them know that they’re safe, that I will pick them up, that I will help them through, because really for greatness, you have to be willing to fall down, you know? You have to be able to let it go and take the ride and to be present in yourself and to speak your specific truth."

"You take somebody on a golf course and their character defects and shortcomings come out. That’s how I picked my manager, my accountant, and my lawyer. You get someone who hits a bad shot and who goes crazy, and throws the club, you want him working for you? You want him to represent you? You get someone who hits a bad shot and who goes “how can I correct that? Do you have any ideas?” That’s the guy I hire. But also, I work all the time. I don’t take big vacations. Sometimes, a golf game is the only thing I get."