Quotes

[on the Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) bonus DVD, speaking about Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)] I think it went beyond "Star Wars". You had some humor, you got to know the characters a little better. I saw it as the second movement in an opera. That's why I wanted some of the things slower. And it ends in a way that you can't wait to see or to hear the vivace, the allegretto. I didn't have a climax at the end. I had an emotional climax.

[on RoboCop 2 (1990)] I saw RoboCop (1987) twice. I saw it when it first came out and then I ran it once on cassette and that was it. I never wanted to see it again. I felt that what I remembered, the residual memory, was enough. I wanted a different style of shooting. I wanted the character to go further than they did the first time. I was working towards an emotional base that would be true to "RoboCop" one year later.

I like to fill up the frame with the characters' faces. There's nothing more interesting than the landscape of the human face.

[on why George Lucas asked him to direct Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)] Of all the younger guys around, all the hot shots, why me? I remember he said, "Well, because you know everything a Hollywood director is supposed to know, but you're not Hollywood". I liked that.

I didn't believe in Eyes of Laura Mars (1978). I believed in the idea I began with, but I did not believe in what was imposed on me during its production.

The thing what you learn in directing is that no matter how complex the shooting, you have to remain sensitive to the people around you or the machine will ultimately take over. If you don't keep in mind the essential humanity of it all, technique will dominate.

It's a matter of pride to me to get the film done fast, to get it done well. I understand the need for compromise. There is no such thing as a perfect shot, a perfect film. The purpose of film is not to make a monument to oneself.

[1969 comment on Joanne Woodward] Joanne, I'd say, is the best Actors Studio type of person. She makes the character a part of herself. She draws on her own resources. She deals with her own emotions. She doesn't impose something from the outside on what she's doing. She finds the solutions on the inside, and discovers a way of materializing it. She's a great, great actress who still hasn't reached the limit of her scale.

[on directing Alec Guinness in Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)] He dissected every word, each gesture in a way only great actors do. It is the timbre, the subtle movements that make the difference. It's what makes actors great.

Every director guesses.