37 Quotes by Peter Weir

When I began making films, they were just movies: 'What's the new movie? What are you doing?' Now they're called 'adult dramas.'

Normally as a director, you do look at other films and things that are relevant. But with this film, it became impossible because I became so aware of the camera placement.

Silent films were, I think, more different than we know to sound films. We think of it as simply that we added dialogue and in actual fact I think it was an entirely different art form.

There was a point of frustration, where I thought I should just take a film, even though I didn't want to. I was impatient with being at home. But I hung on to the approach I've always had, which is to wait for a project that I could contribute something unique to.

With more time I like to see the actors find something of their own places, so I can get their own ideas before I put mine in. Given they have a better idea more often enough.

I've become wary of interviews in which you're forced to go back over the reasons why you made certain decisions. You tend to rationalize what you've done, to intellectually review a process that is often intuitive.

I'm not from a theatrical background where people do like to work it out on some stage space.

You can mix in certain sensitivities as a filmmaker.

I enjoyed Jonathan Franzen's 'Freedom.' Would I make that into a film? I think it's better suited to television. That would very much be a dialogue and performance piece, and it would take some very skilful direction - but not my kind of directing. But I thought it was a real literary work.